Popular cumbia singer L-Gante was released from jail on Friday night after three months behind bars.
The Argentine musician, whose real name is Elián Ángel Valenzuela, regained his freedom after his time under pre-trial detention was terminated, although he still faces charges of making threats with a firearm and illegal deprivation of liberty. He has also been charged with possession of narcotics and aggravated concealment.
Dozens of fans waited and cheered for the 23-year-old as left a jail in Quilmes, some 25 kilometres south of the capital. The star said he had used the time behind bars – which lasted three months – to improve his mental health.
"I took advantage of the time I spent here to toughen up mentally and take care of myself a bit more, not to give bad things a chance and to give everything to what I like," the 23-year-old artist told the press as he left jail.
L-Gante was arrested at a private gated community in Francisco Álvarez, Buenos Aires Province on June 6, 2023. Police had received a complaint from individuals claiming that the singer had threatened them with a firearm and forcibly detained them in a vehicle after an argument that followed an earlier incident at a nightclub in General Rodríguez, 50 kilometres west of the capital. The singer’s legal team denies the claims.
Valenzuela was released Friday after an intervening court ended pre-trial detention after the legal qualification of the singer's charge was changed. The court is now taking into account other evidence and witness statements that offer “a completely different version of events from the one assessed at the time of preventive detention” was ordered, read a ruling from Judge Gabriel Castro.
L-Gante is a national urban music phenomenon who has stormed the domestic and international charts. An icon of the ‘cumbia 420’ genre, which blends cumbia, reggaeton and trap, the cannabis-loving star headlined a free show for 45,000 fans at Tecnópolis in 2022.
– TIMES/AFP
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