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Police approach the blocked road (Escalada) and pass through the barrier to the Parque Indoamericano in 2010. (Photo: Kate-Sedgwick)
Diosnel Pérez and Luciano Nardulli were charged with organising the takeover of the land in the neighbourhood of Villa Soldati on 6th December 2010. Later that day there were violent clashes as police evicted people from the park, ending with two people dead and six injured.
Though the park was cleared, it was occupied again two days later, leading to an uneasy standoff that lasted for several days while the city and national government debated who should take charge of the situation.
In the trial prosecutors had recommended the two men be handed a two-year suspended sentence. However, several police officers were unable to identify the suspects as those organising the occupation.
“The only thing that has been irrefutably proven is the occupation of Parque Indoamericano, that this park belongs to the City of Buenos Aires Government…, that on 6th December there was an eviction, and that on 8th December it was violently occupied again,” read Judge Cristina Lara on acquitting the two suspects.
“This is a partial victory,” Nardulli told Infojus Noticias after the verdict. “The victory will be complete when those responsible for the murder of our colleagues are brought to justice.”
Earlier this year cases against 41 Metropolitan and Federal police officers were dropped, though this has been appealed.
The Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) had previously criticised the trial against Pérez and Nardulli, saying it represented the “criminalisation of protest”
“The decision to take Pérez and Nardulli to trial sets a serious precedent of criminalising social leaders and makes clear the discriminatory and violent manner in which the City Government has adopted in conflict like the one in Parque Indoamericano,” the organisation published in a statement.
The post Courts Acquits Two Accused of Inciting Indoamericano Takeover appeared first on The Argentina Independent.
