Buenos Aires, March 28 (NA) — Federal Judge Ariel Lijo issued a series of urgent protective measures this Saturday in favor of Vanesa Elizabeth Tossi, who serves as secretary at the airline JAG Executive Aviation. This technical decision, as reported by the Argentine News Agency, follows a formal request from Federal Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita, after the witness reported being harassed and pressured by Marcelo Grandio, an associate of the Chief of Staff of the Nation, Manuel Adorni. The magistrate ordered Marcelo Grandio to refrain from contacting the victim by any means, whether personally, by telephone, digitally, or through intermediaries. He also established a restraining order, prohibiting Grandio from approaching the victim's home, workplace, or other places she frequents. The genesis of this precautionary measure lies in events that occurred last Friday during Vanesa Elizabeth Tossi's testimony. As the witness was providing a statement to Federal Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita about the details of the flight that transported Chief of Staff Manuel Adorni to the city of Punta del Este, Uruguay, a situation arose that the prosecution described as scandalous: the woman received successive telephone calls and messages from Marcelo Grandio. According to Tossi's testimony, these communications, which were preceded by an intimidating letter, had the sole purpose of intimidating her and conditioning her account of the investigated facts. In her statement, the employee of the aviation company specified that Grandio was the one who made the payment for the mentioned transfer and that, in addition, he would have explicitly requested that the corresponding invoice for the service not be issued. Due to the seriousness of the facts, Federal Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita launched a parallel investigation to determine the existence of public crimes related to threats and coercion. In his ruling, the prosecutor emphasized that Marcelo Grandio's actions are not merely a situation of subjective distress for the witness, but constitute concrete indicators of pressure that undermine the spontaneity and integrity of a fundamental source of evidence for the process. The representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office justified the need to apply article 210, section f, of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code, arguing that the sequence of insistent contacts and the interruption of the testimony itself through intimidating communications exhibit a real risk that must be mitigated immediately to preserve the freedom of testimony and the emotional stability of the deponent. Finally, Federal Judge Ariel Lijo ordered that testimonies be taken from the relevant case files, including the transcript of Vanesa Elizabeth Tossi's statement and the supporting documentation she provided, to formally investigate the alleged pressures. The judicial resolution emphasizes that the primary objective of these restrictions is not anticipatory punishment, but the protection of the witness's psychological integrity and the safeguarding of the evidence-gathering process in a case involving the use of private services by high-ranking public officials. In this way, the justice system seeks to ensure that the investigation into the flight of Chief of Staff Manuel Adorni proceeds without external interference that could compromise the veracity of the collected testimonies.
