Twelve years after the crash that left 52 dead at Once station, the courts have finally upheld the conviction of former Kirchnerist minister Julio De Vido. However, one of the darkest pieces of the case remains unpunished: the murder of motorman Leonardo Andrada, a key witness in the case and one of the first voices to warn about the deterioration of the railway system under the Kirchnerist administration.
Andrada, 53 years old, was executed with four shots to the back in the early morning of February 8, 2013, while he was waiting for the bus around the corner from his home in Ituzaingó. The striker took his cell phone but left the money he was carrying. The crime occurred just a few months after the driver testified before Judge Claudio Bonadío about the poor condition of train unit 16, the train that crashed at Once on February 22, 2012.
In his testimony, Andrada—who had driven the train during the shift prior to the accident—explained that the train had a "slow application of the brake system" and that it was common to work with overloaded and poorly maintained equipment. His words were recorded in the court file and were used as evidence to prosecute the officials and businesspeople responsible for the Trenes de Buenos Aires (TBA) service.
Two days after his second statement, the engineer changed his routine: instead of going to work by hired car, he decided to take bus 269. At the bus stop, he was intercepted by an unknown person who shot him at point-blank range and finished him off with a coup de grâce. No suspect was arrested, and the case led by prosecutor Gabriela Millán was frozen amid conflicting reports about previous threats and union pressure.
