The Corrientes Tribunal, responsible for the oral trial regarding the disappearance of Loan Danilo Peña, which occurred in June 2024, ratified federal jurisdiction after rejecting a motion from one of the defenses requesting the case be returned to provincial court, as the hypothesis of human trafficking had not been proven. After the boy's parents presented themselves at Comodoro Py this Wednesday and stated that "time and evidence were lost in the province", it was confirmed that the trial against the seven accused of the abduction and concealment of Loan will take place in federal court. The judges rejected a motion for incompetence presented by the defense of one of the accused, Bernardino Antonio Benítez, to which the other six defenses later adhered. The case began in provincial justice and was then referred to the Federal Court of Goya. Thus, the case was filed in the federal sphere, which carried out most of the investigation and evidence collection. "Once the cause was elevated to trial, the parties presented evidence and one of the defenses again raised the issue of jurisdiction," they explained. The defense of Benítez, led by Enzo Mario Di Tella, outlined that after the investigation was completed, it was verified that "there is no 'alleged,' 'supposed,' or 'possible' crime of human trafficking that was intended to be confirmed by the investigation". In this way, he argued that since that hypothesis that justified the filing of the case in federal jurisdiction was dismissed, "the incompetence of this jurisdiction should be declared". However, the Tribunal responded and clarified that "it is not appropriate to evaluate evidence at this stage because they must be aired in the oral and public trial" and that, beyond the seven accused who will be tried for the retention and concealment of the child - a crime of ordinary jurisdiction - in the file there are also other accused accused of unlawful deprivation of liberty, fraud against the public administration, concealment, false testimony (before federal justice), violation of professional secrecy, supply of narcotics free of charge and resistance to authority (federal preventive forces), usurpation of insignia and professional titles. In this case, there are ten people—psychologists, social workers, and lawyers—who claimed to belong to the Lucio Dupuy Foundation—something denied by its head—who ended up being charged in a parallel case, which was incorporated into the main file. "Given that the evidence and the facts are closely linked, the tribunal held that a single trial must be carried out for the entire case, avoiding dividing jurisdictions between courts," they stated.
