Chubut Police Accused of Beating and Raping a Minor in Trelew

Eleven Chubut officers were detained Thursday following accusations of beating and sodomizing a 16-year old male.

They are accused of “seriously offensive sex abuse”…”committed by police personnel.”

Six of the original officers arrested for the alleged abuse have been freed, while the other five remain in custody. If found guilty, they could face 8 to 25 years in prison.

Of those still detained, four are suspected to have been responsible for the actual abuse, while the fifth is said to have stood by.

The youth was arrested on Wednesday while having a discussion with his girlfriend, under an anonymous accusation that he had attacked a woman on the highway.

After being released into the custody of his mother, the youth told her that he was beaten by the officers, and was taken to the hospital to seek medical attention.

Shortly thereafter, the minor revealed to his mother that he had additionally been anally raped with a blunt instrument, likely by an officer’s baton. Forensic results of the youth’s wounds confirmed his accusations.

After the adolescent’s mother reported the incident, ten officers were arrested after lending their services in a Trelew raid. Citing the “gravity” of the acts in this case, Chubut governor Martin Buzzi dismissed the leader of the provincial police, general commissioner Néstor Siri, and displaced Trelew precinct leader Juan Carlos Contreras.

“It is an aberrant event, one that is being investigated for the attorney general María Tolomei,” said Jorge Miquelarena, ombudsmen of the province Chubut.

The troops implicated in the incident were from the second precinct of Chubut; the same who were involved in repressing a recent truck driver demonstration with rubber bullets on Wednesday.