Argentine Chinese Online Buenos Aires, June 7th News Recently, a court trial of a Chinese family murder case in Chaco Province, Argentina has attracted widespread attention from the local Chinese community and society. In this controversial case, a Chinese man was accused of killing and dismembering his nephew, but was eventually found "innocence" by the jury, which caused heated discussions among the prosecutors, the legal community and all walks of life.
The defendant in the case was declared innocent in court and was released.
The case reportedly occurred in April 2024. In the Campo Largo area of Chaco Province, a Chinese-run supermarket became the murder site. On the day of the incident, Chen Bangyao, an uncle, was accused of shooting his nephew Shi Long and dismembering the body. The body was found by the police in a 200-liter discarded oil barrel in the supermarket the next day. At the time of the incident, Chen Bangyao's wife Shi Yulan was also present. After the incident, the case entered the trial process and a jury composed of local people was responsible for the decision. During the trial of the case, the prosecutor Carlos Rescala, the prosecutor, believed that sufficient evidence was found to prove that Chen Bangyao killed and dismembered the body. He explained in detail the case and presented relevant evidence collected by the police on the spot.
However, Chen Bangyao firmly denied in court that he was the murderer, but instead accused his wife Shi Yulan of suspected crime and claimed that he was threatened to deal with the body. He stressed that the actual murderer of the case was his wife, and he was only coerced to deal with the funeral. Shi Yulan should have appeared in court as a key witness, but she was also involved in the case controversy.
What surprised many people was that the jury finally adopted Chen Bangyao's statement, and when the trial result was announced, he was found "innocence" and released the defendant in court. The prosecutor is deeply confused and dissatisfied with the result.
Attorney General Jorge Canteros A trial recording was requested to assess the performance of Prosecutor Carlos Rescala.
Chaco Provincial Attorney General Jorge Canteros publicly stated: "The jury trial in Saenspenia is always difficult to advance, and it is impossible for everyone to be innocent." It is reported that in only one of the five recent cases tried by a jury in the region, only one case has been sentenced to guilt, and the rest are all acquitted. Prosecutor Cantros believes that there may be problems with the trial mechanism or other links behind this, and requested that all the trial recordings be retrieved to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the performance of the prosecutor in this case.
He said: "It is very abnormal to have acquitted the evidence clearly, but the sentence is not guilty." In view of the particularity of this case, the prosecutor revealed that he had contacted three judges from the High Court and hoped that the procuratorate would participate as a collaborative agency of the court to sort out possible issues in the trial in detail.
Because the jury's innocence ruling is "res judgment" according to law, in principle, the defendant cannot be re-prosecuted for the same fact, but the prosecution will focus on Shi Yulan, who was implicated in the case, and it does not rule out that an independent criminal investigation will be initiated. As of press time, Chen Bangyao and his wife had left Argentina and were suspected to be returning to China.
At the same time, Ramiro Cabaña, the lawyer of the victim's family who represented the case, proposed that the defense suddenly submitted an unpublic video evidence during the trial, which may have misled the jury and caused injustice in the trial results. He is considering using this as a basis to demand that the judgment be invalid and a new round of jury trials be initiated.
The results of this case have aroused enthusiastic responses in the local Chinese community. Many Chinese expressed shock and concern, believing that when faced with major criminal cases, public opinion concern is equally important as judicial justice. Some legal professionals also pointed out that Argentina has implemented the people's jury system in recent years, aiming to improve judicial openness and fairness, but a series of realistic challenges such as jury professionalism and evidence understanding ability have also been exposed under the new model.
Through this representative judicial case, it can be seen that the Chinese Argentine society has become an important part of Argentine's diverse society, but while facing the differences in the judicial system, the issues of cross-cultural, transnational mobility and related legal application are also more complicated. In the future, similar cases may prompt Argentina to speed up the improvement of relevant measures and improve the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of Chinese people.
(Source: HDP Noticias)
