The case of the young man who died in an attack by a group of rugby players that shocked Argentina

This Monday, January 2, the trial of 8 rugby players accused of the murder of Fernando Báez Sosa began in Villa Gesell, Argentina, in January 2020; a case that shocked that South American nation two years ago and whose legal process -with the testimony of the victim’s father- has once again moved the country. Here we present the story that BBC Mundo published a few days after the crime.

“It is unfortunate what they did to my son. It is an injustice.”

These are the words of Graciela Sosa, mother of Fernando Báez Sosa, murdered last Saturday morning allegedly at the hands of a group of rugby players in Villa GesellArgentina.

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The 19-year-old was leaving a nightclub in the Buenos Aires seaside resort when he was intercepted by the rugby players, who reportedly brutally beaten to death.

“They deserve to be paid for all that they did to him. They ruined his life,” his mother added tearfully at the wake of her only son, demanding that the case “do not go unpunished.”

The autopsy of Báez Sosa’s body determined that the cause of death was “strong head trauma.”

Eleven boys between the ages of 19 and 21 are in custody after the murder, most of them were players from Club Náutico Arsenal de Zárate, located on the outskirts of the Argentine capital.

So far, almost all the defendants have refused to testify, except Pablo Ventura, who, unlike the rest, was arrested in Zárate.

“They left and went straight to look for him”

According to the Argentine newspaper La Nación, the lawyers have asked the victim’s friends not to make statements to the press “so as not to hinder the case.”

But according to one of the newspaper’s sources, it all would have started with a small dispute inside the premises.

“They wanted to hit one of the boys and Fernando wanted to separate them. There was some pushing and that’s why Fernando and his friends were kicked out of Le Brique (the name of the club).”

Parents, relatives and friends of Fernando Báez Sosa attended his funeral after being killed by 11 rugby players in Villa Gesell, Argentina. (IGNACIO SANCHEZ/LA NACION).

According to the same source, once outside the club, Báez Sosa and his friends were sitting on a sidewalk waiting for two other colleagues to leave the place, before the attack took place.

“One had gone to pee and another was still inside (…) That’s when the rugbiers came out and went straight to look for him to Ferdinand”.

Some of the victim’s friends who tried to stop the fight also received severe blows to the face and head.

“I love you mommy”

In dialogue with the press outside her residence in the central Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recoleta, the mother of the victim He talked about the last communication he had with him.

“The last time I had contact with him was by message. I asked him how he was, and he replied that he was very well. Then he told me: ‘Mommy, I love you’. That was the last time I contacted him.” he said through tears.

Graciela Sosa also assured that she felt “dead”. “He was my only son.”

Fernando had enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires to study Law. His mother remembers him as “a good, decent, helpful boy. He didn’t deserve this: no one deserves this.”

“Hit him, you’re going to kill him”

Tatiana, the person in charge of managing Le Brique’s social networks, witnessed the attack and recounted the facts in an interview with the local television channel Todo Noticias.

Fernando Baez Sosa with his parents. (FACEBOOK).

“At around half past five in the morning I left the bowling alley and saw Fernando who was sitting, surrounded by his friends. At that moment these boys appeared and began to hit them, out of nowhere,” said the 17-year-old. years.

“They were a hitting machineThey didn’t give a damn,” the 17-year-old continued.

She also remembers how other unconscious young people, “more unconscious than them (the rugby players)”, shouted “hit him, you’re going to kill him, give him what you can”.

Walter Mercuri, the prosecutor who initiated the investigations into the young man’s murder, told him in an interview with Todo Noticias that the rugbiers had acted with “premeditation” and “had a plan“.

Mercuri also affirms that two of them killed the young man when he was passed out on the floor, giving him a kick “which according to the autopsy was fatal.”

“No one is more than anyone”

After the murder, the prosecutor requested the formal arrest of the 11 defendants before Judge Leopoldo Mancinelli for “aggravated homicide due to the premeditated participation of two or more people”, which explains that he has a life sentence.

It also explains that two of the suspects are charged as “co-perpetrators.” “It is clear in the images that the victim is finished off when she is passed out on the floor,” she adds.

Several videos of the fight have been published on social networks.

Nancy, a cousin of the victim, stressed that “there was no real reason to hit him like that.”

“If there was a fight or a friction, it does not justify that they put between ten or eleven people with a single boy,” he continued, calling on all parents to reconsider how they raise their children.

“No one is more than anyone to do such an act of violence, for believing themselves superior, for having a little more,” he concluded.

Source: Elcomercio