Tuesday December 27, 2022 | 8:36 a.m.
The Criminal Court One of Eldorado rejected a new request for the release of María Ovando through a resolution issued on Thursday the 22nd. Likewise, the authorities denied the possibility of granting her house arrest, ignoring the presentations made by Human Rights organizations, which denounced violation of International Agreements.
In this context, the court extended the preventive detention for the woman who was released at trial against him in 2020. So far, the defense has requested Ovando’s release through three requests for release and three habeas corpus.
According to the defense, together with the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Nation, the measure presented a week ago is arbitrary and in violation of International Covenants while the Argentine Penal Code provides for the exceptionality of the preventive prison.
They also argue that it is illegal since the sentence is being appealed and awaiting the decision of the Superior Court of Justice of the province. In this sense, they assure that Ovando should never have been imprisoned until the sentence is final in all her instances.
The rejection of the release was in charge of the prosecutor Federico Rodríguez who, according to the organizations that accompany Ovando, reiterated the arguments with which he had already rejected the previous proposals for release.
In other words, the resolution did not take into account the new arguments provided in the amicus curiae presented in August by the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversities of the Nation in which, in addition to demanding the release, it was requested to review the case with a gender perspective. .
In this line, there was no consideration of the presentation of the Directorate for the Promotion and Strengthening of Access to Justice, dependent on the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Nation, where they reiterated the request for house arrest until it is reviewed in accordance with the law. sentence.
Visits to Ovando
Before learning about the decision of the Criminal Court One of Eldorado, Ovando was visited in the prison by the Minister of Women, Gender and Diversities, Ayelén Mazzina, and the national director of Access to Justice, Gabriela Carpineti. Both highlighted the need to continue strengthening the claim for the freedom and acquittal of María and noted the number of women imprisoned in situations similar to that of Ovando.
For her part, after learning of the decision of the magistrates, María stated that she felt strong even in the face of the adverse resolution and despite having hoped to spend the holidays with her family.
In addition, she stated that she is aware of how difficult it will be to obtain judicial measures that favor her, taking into account “the animosity that prosecutor Rodríguez has shown towards her,” according to a statement issued by the team that accompanies her.
So far, the defense has requested Ovando’s release through three release requests and also through three habeas corpus. One of them, presented by the reference in Human Rights, the mother of Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora Nora Cortiñas, which was favorably received by Judge César Jiménez.
A few days later, the Court of Cassation reversed that decision and ordered his imprisonment again.
Orders that were rejected
In February 2021, Judge César Jiménez favorably accepted a habeas corpus filed by Nora Cortiñas and ordered Ovando’s immediate release, taking into account that there was no risk of flight, nor of hindering the process.
This decision ended up being revoked by the Appeals Chamber, which ordered a new arrest. The defense presented two new habeas corpus that were rejected, in which the “arbitrariness and illegality” of the Ovando prison was pointed out.
The woman’s lawyer, Roxana Rivas, explained that the sentence “is with an appeal filed before the Superior Court of Justice of the province, which acts as a body to review the sentences of the criminal courts.”
“From the defense we continue to maintain, and with greater conviction, that the conviction of María for ‘bad mother’ does not find any support in evidence, that it is based only on prejudices and gender stereotypes,” he added.
In 2012, Ovando was tried and acquitted -after having spent a year and a half in prison- for “abandonment of a person aggravated by the relationship” after the death of her 3-year-old daughter as a result of malnutrition, who died in her childhood. arms while trying to reach a local hospital.
“In the eight years that she was free since 2012 there were five cases in the family courts controlling how she exercised her maternity. They never detected any sign that her children suffered or had signs of abuse, ”said the lawyer.
And he stressed that “only when she dared to initiate a civil lawsuit against the provincial State and the officials who locked her up, for the damages suffered by her and her children, did they unleash all the fury of the Judiciary against her.”
Meanwhile, Gabriela Carpineti recalled the situation of women, who are “semi-literate, historically violated by the macho culture and the State, first absent, and now inquisitive.”
Sentence
María Ovando was sentenced on October 28, 2020 to 20 years in prison for allegedly not having prevented sexual abuse of her daughters and granddaughters.
In the same case, two young men close to Ovando, Marcos Laurindo and Lucas Ferreira, were sentenced to 18 and 12 years in prison, respectively.
Although the woman arrived at the trial free, she was arrested as soon as the sentence was handed down, in a case “whose set up refers to a clear gesture of revenge towards her on the part of a sector of the Judiciary that failed to convict her in 2012 for not having been able to prevent the death of one of her daughters,” said the woman’s defense team.
And he stressed that the sentence was handed down “without evidence, in a highly questioned process” that “sought to discipline the feminist movement that has been demanding a Judiciary with a gender perspective and that has been taking as its flag cases in which the patriarchal and class bias of the judicial apparatus in Misiones”.
