This Wednesday, at 2:00 p.m., the Third Chamber of Crime will announce the ruling corresponding to the trial for the murder of José Antonio “Beco” Ávila in Villa El Libertador on July 4, 2020. The crime occurred in full isolation due to the pandemic of Coronavirus and the 35-year-old victim was a street vendor in the neighborhood plaza.
Prosecutor Marcelo Hidalgo requested a life sentence for Police non-commissioned officer Lucas Gonzalo Navarro, accused of qualified homicide, and five years and six months in prison for the Corporal Gabriel Juarez for aggravated concealment. Navarro apologized to his family for what happened. “I did not intend to kill anyone,” he said, alluding that the crime was an accident at work.
For her part, Johana Gabriela Jaime, the widow of Ávila, was expectant in the face of the sentence, longing for life imprisonment. About Navarro, she said: “At no time did he regret it. The forgiveness that he asks God for, I do not accept his forgiveness nor does my family either. He would have acted as he had to act and we would not be here.”
Regarding the reference to the fact that the shot against Ávila was a work accident, which Navarro expressed in his last words, he wielded James: “If it had been an accident at work, you would shoot at the ground and not at the chest like him. The bullet entered his armpits. My husband’s life doesn’t matter to them and they never did.”