Luis Alberto Ramos, the prime suspect in the murder and disappearance of 21-year-old trans man Tehuel de la Torre, was handed a life term by a court in La Plata on Friday for homicide aggravated by hatred of a gender identity.
A second suspect Oscar Montes, who faces a jury trial for his part in the homicide, is awaiting a trial date.
De la Torre vanished in March 2021 in Buenos Aires Province after travelling to meet Ramos and Montes for an alleged job interview. More than three years on, the trans youth’s body has still not been found.
Tehuel’s disappearance has become an iconic case for the LGBT+ community, which considers it to be a symbolic case representing the violence perpetrated against the trans people in Argentina.
Prior to the announcement of the sentencing, demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse to demand justice for the victim, urging the judges of Oral Criminal Court No. 2 of La Plata to hand down a heavy sentence.
Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment, with the accused’s lawyer seeking acquittal.
Originally, Ramos and Montes were accused by prosecutors of cover-up, obstruction of the investigation and delivering false testimony as witnesses as investigators failed to find Tehuel’s body. In November 2021, the charges were upgraded to homicide in the context of hate towards gender identity.
Judges Claudio Bernard, Silvia Hoerr and Ramiro Fernández Lorenzo determined that Ramos was guilty not only of the murder, but of disappearing the body and “the harm that this causes to [Tehuel’s] loved ones.”
The court determined Ramos had asked Tehuel to meet up on March 11, 2021 at his home in Alejandro Korn, Buenos Aires Province, proposing to hire him as a waiter for an event.
The body still has not been found to this day. The young trans man’s mobile phone was later discovered burnt. Tehuel’s blood stains were found at Ramos’ house.
Ramos has a previous criminal record and served time for his involvement in a murder committed in 2009.
Various NGOs and civil society groups submitted briefs to the court stating the case fell under hate crime legislation based on gender identity. They supported the prosecution’s case that Tehuel had been deliberately targeted.
The trial started on July 15 and involved more than 40 witnesses.
“Seeing the photos and videos of the blood on the wall of Ramos’ house caused quite an impact. They showed photos I hadn’t seen before, because they didn’t want to show them to me,” said Norma Nahuelcurá, Tehuel’s mother, in comments reported by Infobae.
Tehuel’s father, Andrés de la Torre, said that he was satisfied with the sentence but that the case was “a failure,” given his son had not been found.
“It is a failure because I am more interested in knowing where he is than anything else,” he told the Noticias Argentinas news agency.
– TIMES/NA
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