The only suspect for the fatal stabbing of Mariano Barbieri in Palermo on August 30 has an impressive criminal record.
Isaías José Suárez, 29, has been arrested 13 times before and convicted five times in the last 11 years. He now faces new charges for murdering Barbieri, a 42-year-old engineer and recent father, near Plaza Sicilia late last month.
Free from Marcos Paz prison in mid-June, Suárez has been in trouble with the law ever since he was eight, police sources reveal. Armed robbery accounts for most of the 13 cases against him with the scene of the crime always this city or Greater Buenos Aires.
Suárez spent the last six months of last year in prison for
“attempted robbery” as a “recidivist.” Hardly had he been released than he was back in jail on charges of gender violence against his partner but was released on June 13 at the behest of a misdemeanours judge, the day after being formally charged.
The victims of the previous robbery attempts by Suárez were mostly women, court sources have informed, but he now faces the far more serious charge of homicide with both security cameras and the testimony of witnesses linking him to the crime.
According to court sources, Suárez has been convicted five times but never served more than seven months in prison in one stretch.
The crime for which he is now charged took the dramatic form of Barbieri staggering into the Cremolatti ice cream parlour on the corner of Avenida del Libertador and Lafinur at 10.45pm on August 30, telling the employers and customers present that he had been stabbed by a criminal in Tres de Febrero park to steal his mobile telephone before moaning: “I don’t want to die.”
Barbieri, 42, was the father of a two-month baby and was living in the house of a friend in Palermo near where he was attacked.
– TIMES/NA
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