A mural remembering ‘Kiki’ Lezcano in Villa 20. (Photo: Nahuel Alfonso, via Cosecha Roja)
The court annulled the acquittal of Veyga, ruling that there was not enough evidence to support his claims of acting in self-defence.
The incident occurred in Parque Chacabuco on 8th July 2009, where Veyga claims to have been the victim of an attempted assault near his house. According to the version told by the police, 25-year-old Blanco and Lezcano (17) got into Veyga’s van and planned to kill him once they became aware of his occupation. At this point, the police officer says he took out his service gun and fatally shot them both.
In the initial investigation, the judge acquitted Veyga based solely on his written statement. However, this ruling was overturned in 2011 after an anonymous video emerged showing Lezcano bleeding in the car while several people mocked him. For the prosecution, the video insinuated that Veyga and other police officers present at the scene left the victims to die.
Veyga was acquitted a second time in November 2013, after Judge Juan Maria Ramos Padilla said there was not enough evidence to charge the officer. The ruling included sharp criticism of the original investigation, highlighting a “failure of the judiciary”.
Lezcano’s mother, Angélica Urquiza, once again appealed the decision of Judge Padilla at the federal level. She categorises the crime as a case of ‘gatillo facil‘, a term commonly used to describe killings by security forces. Urquiza testified in the second investigation, describing several incidents in which her son, who had served time in a youth detention centre, had been threatened or beaten by the police in the months before he was killed.
One of the irregularities in the case is the disappearance of crucial evidence, such as victims’ garments and the weapons they were allegedly using to assault Veyga. The treatment of the bodies is also considered suspicious: Lezcano’s unidentified body was buried in an unmarked grave in Chacarita cemetery, while the police identified Blanco’s body on 13th July 2009 but failed to notify his relative. It was two months before the families discovered the whereabouts of the bodies.
In last week’s ruling, appeals court judges Mariano Borinsky, Juan Carlos Gemignani, and Gustavo Hornos noted that the previous investigation “had not established the circumstances of the incident so as to affirm the existence of legitimate self-defense as grounds for justification for deadly conduct.”
The ruling continued: “The overturned ruling failed to provide sufficient grounds for determining that, in this specific case, Veyga has been unable to repel the aggression without compromising vital organs of the victims.”
The case will now return to the judicial system in the upcoming days.
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