The Supreme Court rejected a filing by Matías Benicelli due to a procedural error
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The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation dismissed on Tuesday an appeal filed by the defense of Matías Benicelli, one of the eight rugby players convicted for the murder of Fernando Báez Sosa. The ruling was unequivocal: the motion did not comply with the corresponding procedural steps and, therefore, would not be considered.
Benicelli's new attorney, Carlos Alberto Manuel Attías, had requested that the life imprisonment sentence imposed on his client be revoked. The central argument was that during the oral trial, adequate technical defense had not been guaranteed. Specifically, he targeted the performance of Hugo Tomei, the lawyer who represented the eight defendants both during the investigation and at trial.
According to the motion, the defendants had conflicting interests that required individual defenses and not a common strategy. This alleged incompatibility, according to Attías, constituted a violation of the constitutional right to defense.
Las condenas actuales de cada uno de los detenidos
Beyond the content of the motion, what determined its rejection was a procedural error. The complaint appeal was filed directly with the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, when it should have first been submitted to the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires Province through a federal extraordinary appeal.
This omitted step invalidated the filing, as stated in the decision signed by judges Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti. "The complaint appeal before the Court is appropriate when an appeal—ordinary or extraordinary—has been filed and denied before the Court, without this requirement having been met in the case under review," the magistrates explained.
El supremo magistrado hizo caso omiso al planteo
This way, the Court did not rule on the merits of the motion: it simply dismissed it due to formal defects.
The ruling means that the life imprisonment sentence against Matías Benicelli remains in force, as does that of the other co-perpetrators: Máximo Thomsen, Ciro Pertossi, Enzo Comelli, and Luciano Pertossi. All were found guilty of the aggravated homicide of Fernando Báez Sosa, which occurred on January 18, 2020, at the entrance of the Le Brique nightclub in Villa Gesell.
The crime, which shocked the entire country, led to an oral trial that concluded in February 2023 with an exemplary ruling. On that day, the Oral Criminal Court No. 1 of Dolores handed down life sentences for five of the defendants, while the other three—Ayrton Viollaz, Blas Cinalli, and Lucas Pertossi—were sentenced to 15 years in prison as secondary participants.
