Saturday January 21, 2023 | 9:30 a.m.
Three of eight accused of killing Fernando Báez Sosa chose to remain silent. Enzo Comelli, Ayrton Viollaz and Matías Benicelli maintained silence until the last of the witness statement hearings, with expert witnesses and direct witnesses to the crime that complicated them and their companions and Dolores residents who yelled “murderers” at them from the street, while his colleagues in the cause spoke in an apparently spontaneous way. They said that they had drunk alcohol that night—with only one bottle of vodka for ten people seized in the house they were occupying—that they had been involved in a fight, maneuvers consonant with a classification of homicide in a fight, which would guarantee them a prison sentence. just six years in prison maximum.
His parents were present during the sessions. Sergio Viollaz, Ayrton’s father, was an almost constant presence during the three weeks of the process. Benicelli had to hear the suffering that the crime caused his father, Héctor, who testified as a witness, summoned by Hugo Tomei’s defense. “We live harassed. They wanted to hit my daughter and my wife in the street. I hear how they insult my wife through the media. I hear that when they hurt my son in prison they won’t defend him. There is not a day that I don’t wake up with insults. The pain is not cured with more pain ”, he maintained.
María Alejandra Guillén, mother of Enzo Comelli, assured before the judges: “We have been devastated from that moment.” From the second row of the defendants’ dock, her son wiped his tears with a tissue. Guillén then took a breath and continued. “Life changed for all of us. Since that day I think that… It is a constant agony. You can’t go out on the street. My husband, who used to work in a hardware store, almost lost his job. It’s tremendous.”
Benicelli, Comelli and Viollaz were named during the process and in the file. Benicelli is the most complicated of all.
Matías Benicelli, complicated by witnesses and DNA expertise
Sebastián Saldaño, the newsstand who witnessed the attack, called Benicelli the harangue of the attack, while Thomsen kicked Báez Sosa in the head. Tomás D’Alessandro, who went out with Fernando when the patovicas from Le Brique expelled them, and who was also one of those attacked, assured that during the beating, Benicelli yelled at his friend: “Let’s see if you hit again, you nigger from shit”. For his part, Tomás Bidonde, an eyewitness to the fatal beating, marked him as one of those who attacked Báez Sosa’s friends “to prevent them from saving him.”
Witnesses singled out Benicelli for his hairstyle. “The one with the tail, the one with the little rodetito,” they said. That hairstyle was instrumental for the three DDI police officers from Buenos Aires to recognize him after seeing him on security cameras, when they arrested him in the house that the rugbiers occupied in Villa Gesell.
Also, the expert César Guida revealed that Fernando’s blood was found on the flowered shirt that Benicelli wore on the night of the crime.
Five witnesses marked Viollaz as a participant in the fight. During the second day of the debate, Federico Raulera, a friend of Báez Sosa, placed him in the role of “arangador”. In the line-up, as stated in the submission to trial, he had identified him and already at that time described him as having “black hair, like (with) a cut in his middle fringe to the side and down, wearing a white shirt.” .
Santiago Corbo and Franco Cervera, other friends of the victim, also referred to Viollaz as “one of those who acted as a barrier” so that they could not help him. This coincides, in turn, with what Bidonde, a key witness in the fight, declared: he assured that Benicelli and Viollaz attacked one of Báez Sosa’s friends to prevent them from helping him.
Comelli, on the other hand, is among the least mentioned. He was identified by Juan Bautista Besuzzo, a friend of the victim. He said that he attacked Fernando from behind and that he “sat him down with a blow.” Comelli, discovered the Scientific Police, had a bruise on his lower lip when he was arrested.
Now, the three, along with the other five defendants, will continue to be detained until the next key moment of the trial: the allegations, which will take place on the 25th and 26th of this month, and the verdict, which will arrive on Tuesday the 31st.
