With the selection of members of the citizen jury, the testimony of witnesses and a march at the headquarters of the La Plata Criminal Court, the oral trial began on Tuesday for Luis Alberto Villawho is accused of beating his wife to death Maria del Lujan Alva (40). He claims the victim took his own life. The suspect was captured in a house on Calle 76 between 131 and 132, for the event that occurred in 2019.
The investigating prosecutor Cecilia Corfield investigated and prosecuted him for the crime of “homicide qualified by the link”, but the accused relied on his constitutional right and refused to testify. The event occurred on February 4, 2019, when Villa denounced that, upon arriving at his house at 79 between 8 and 9 Villa ElviraHe found his wife hanging from a ceiling beam in the dining room.
According to her version, he picked her up, took her to the entrance door, tried to perform resuscitation maneuvers (CPR) on her but was unsuccessful and asked for help. However, forensic experts observed that the victim “he had three blows to the face, presumably made with a fist”.
“The characteristics of the strangulation and the groove that the rope had left in the woman’s neck were not compatible with those of a suspended body”, the report noted. For this reason, the alleged femicide was arrested based on the result of the autopsy, added to the testimony of several neighbors who claimed to have heard the couple discuss before the woman’s death.
The day began with the selection of citizens to integrate the popular jury that must rule on the guilt of the defendant. In parallel, an important mobilization of friends, relatives and fellow teachers of the victim demanded “justice” on calle 8 between 56 and 57 where they displayed posters with the image of the victim.
The production of the evidence began with the account of witnesses who reported the bad relationship of the couple and the fights recorded days and hours before the woman was found dead. These testimonies, added to the official forensic reports and expertise, form a complex of evidence that promises a difficult scenario for defenders.
Gladys Alva, sister of María Luján, expressed: “We are seeking justice, we are seeking life imprisonment for my sister’s murderer, the maximum sentence.” The woman pointed out that the defendant tried to “fake suicide, my sister would never have abandoned her only daughter who was the light of her eyes. She would never have abandoned her parents, her friends, her companions, all the people who loved her.” wanted to”. She also described the suspect as “an obsessive person, he was jealous all the time, he left her alone, they moved from her and she didn’t have a key to her house, he left her locked up and he left.” The dead woman worked at the Institute of Special Psychopedagogy (IPE), on Calle 41 between 19 and 20 in the La Plata neighborhood of Monday.
The prosecution is in the hands of the trial prosecutor Victoria Huergo. The technical judge is Andres Vitali of the Criminal Oral Court III of La Plata and the defendant is defended by private lawyers John Paul Mazzeo and the former Bruerista municipal official Ricardo Diaz.
In introducing the case to the jury, the prosecutor argued that the defendant “killed her and simulated suicide, which only closed him, not the family and experts. I would have liked to bring you a direct witness or a camera that has filmed everything, but that does not mean that we cannot reconstruct the fact, the witnesses who will testify have the same value, this was not a suicide, it was a homicide carried out by a jealous domineering man who cut off Luján’s freedom, it was another death of the sexist violence”.
The official announced that she will request a conviction for “homicide aggravated by the link in the context of gender violence”.
In the event of a conviction, the defendant, with this legal framework, will receive a life sentence and will not be able to access any benefit of early release.
