Photo: Daniel Dabove.
Oscar Junior Benítez, former player of Boca Juniors, Lanús and Benfica, among other clubs, was arrested in the Buenos Aires game of Esteban Echeverría accused of family and gender violence towards his ex-partner and her family, whom he threatened to kill and failed to comply the prohibition of approach, informed judicial sources.
The arrest was made after a request from the prosecutor José Luis Suárez before the guarantee judge Gabriel Vitale in a case labeled as “aggravated coercion by the use of a weapon in a real competition with damage, threats and disobedience”.
Judicial sources informed Télam that the forward was arrested at his home in the town of Luis Guillón, Esteban Echeverría’s district, where the Police seized his cell phone, a 9-millimeter pistol, three magazines and 39 ammunition.
For the firearm, Junior Benítez has the documentation corresponding to possession, while possession expired a short time ago.
According to Judge Vitale’s arrest warrant -to which Télam had access- the defendant committed four acts, including Threats to your ex-partner’s familyAnabella Ayala, all this in the context of gender violence.
The reported events began to occur on January 17, 2021 when the accused He threatened his ex-father-in-law with a firearm and set fire to some of his ex-partner’s belongings.
The second fact that the prosecution accused the former player of Boca Juniors, Lanús, Benfica and Argentinos Juniors, among other teams, occurred on January 16, 2021 when “in a context of gender violence” he destroyed “all the files contained in the notebook owned by the Ayala family without authorization to do so”.
Meanwhile, on February 28 of last year, Benítez disobeyed the 300-meter approach restriction and threatened the ex-in-laws and his ex-brother-in-law with phrases such as “You denounced me, you made me go to jail, I’m going to kill you.”
The fourth event happened on March 18, 2022, he again breached the perimeter and He threatened his ex-girlfriend with a knife so that she would open the door of his house for him, but since she refused, he damaged all four tires of the car of the ex-in-law.
For Justice, “the facts attributed to Oscar Benítez are not ‘isolated’ but are framed in the context of the violence that Benítez exerts on his partner.”
The victim’s father, Juan Carlos, testified in the context of this case that his daughter lived with Benítez for about a year and a half, between 2018 and 2019when the player was hired by a Mexican club.
According to his testimony, at that time “acts of violence” began against Anabella, whom the defendant “He had taken her cell phone”, so she could not communicate with her family.
“She escaped from Mexico, I had to secretly get her a ticket so he wouldn’t find out that she was going back to Buenos Aires. She only told me that she wanted to go back, she never mentioned that he hit her, but she didn’t want Oscar to leave. He found out that he wanted to return to Buenos Aires because he didn’t even allow him to leave. He had come to tear all his clothes so he wouldn’t leave,” the man said.
After the young woman’s return to our country, her family received “many threats by phone” and Junior’s relatives even threatened them.
“He didn’t even allow her to go out. He had come to tear all her clothes so she wouldn’t leave” Juan Carlos, father of the victim
Between 2019 and 2020, Benítez went to play in Ecuador and Anabella traveled with him until the pandemic began and “there was no way to bring her” because she he had to “run away” to call his parents.
Juan Carlos added that he filed a complaint with the consulate because the defendant he had taken away his passport and he was only able to return to Argentina in October 2020for which she moved again with her family and “since January 2021 the different events have been happening.”
The young woman never testified against Benítez despite the fact that she was summoned on several occasions by the prosecution, whose motivation was understood through a victimological report to her that she determined that “she has indicators of the victims of gender violence as well as that she was exposed to continue suffering events of these characteristics because she was immersed in a cycle of violence“.
In addition, the magistrate recalled that on March 21, 2022, the former striker Xeneize was sentenced to 6 months in prison suspended for the crimes of “violation of home, threats and minor injuries aggravated by the context of family violence, resistance to authority and minor injuries”which ensured that “it strengthens the fiscal hypothesis regarding the existence of a context of gender violence
In this way, the characteristics of the facts foisted are “demonstrative of a high level of aggressiveness expressed towards the victims” and the “exceptional” detention against Benítez “is imposed to allow the progress of the investigation without the risk of obstruction by the accused while avoiding possible new and close episodes of gender violence such as those investigated, and as a necessary measure to guarantee the mental and physical integrity of the victims”.
