CAT/C/52/D/366/2008
discharge since they believed that he was not suffering from any illness that would justify
his internment in the centre.
2.14 Between November 2004 and April 2006, the author was moved between Prison
Unit No. 15 in Río Gallegos and Unit No. 6 in Rawson, then back to Unit No. 15 and again
to Unit No. 6.
2.15 On 23 August 2006, the author’s father and sister asked the Attorney-General of
Chubut province to reopen the case concerning the author’s castration, and alleged that the
investigation carried out was insufficient and based on questionable medical reports. In this
regard, they noted that, on 13 June 2006, an interdisciplinary technical team from Prison
Unit No. 6 had issued a report containing conclusions on the injuries sustained on 17
November 2003 that were contrary to those reached in the criminal investigation, in that
this new report did not state that the testicular ablation had taken place on that date.
2.16 In response to the request, the Office of the Attorney-General commissioned
officials from the Public Prosecution Service and Trelew city police to analyse the
proceedings related to the complaint of castration submitted by the author’s father in 2003.
2.17 On 9 October 2006, these officials informed the Attorney-General that, on the basis
of the evidence contained in the file on the case initiated in relation to the author’s
castration and the statements obtained from the persons questioned, there was nothing to
indicate that an offence had been committed and, on the contrary, all the evidence collected
suggested that the author had deliberately injured himself. There were therefore insufficient
grounds to reopen the case. They drew attention to statements given by a number of persons
who had been detained in the same unit as the author and who maintained that the author
had injured himself, and removed his testicles himself. Some of the detainees also stated
that the author had been acting strangely and aggressively in the days leading up to the
accident. For example, Mr. M., who was summoned to make a statement regarding the day
of the events, stated that on arriving at the place in which the author was being held, he saw
him sitting on a pillow, in silence, seemingly withdrawn from reality, with blood on his
body, that beside him, on the floor of the cell, there was a testicle, and that the author had
simply said he had been bewitched.
2.18 On 6 and 20 November 2006, the judicial investigative police submitted two
additional reports to the Office of the Attorney-General, which confirmed its initial
recommendation. The reports included the statements of additional police officers, a
firefighter who had come to the author’s aid in prison and a person who had been held in
the same unit as the author, which corresponded to the statements previously submitted to
the Office of the Attorney-General.
2.19 On 30 January 2007, the Office of the Attorney-General of Chubut asked the Office
of the Under-Secretary for Human Rights to provide a list of impartial and independent
medical professionals who could conduct a physical and psychological examination of the
author. On 7 February 2008, the Office of the Attorney-General arranged a medical
examination with one of the psychiatrists suggested by the Office of the Under-Secretary,
who was a member of the Argentine Psychosocial Work and Research Group, for 15 and 16
February 2008. However, the medical assessment could not be conducted due to a lack of
administrative coordination and the opposition of the author’s defence counsel. On 31
March 2008, the First Chamber dismissed the defence counsel’s objection to the medical
examination on the grounds that it had been ordered by the Office of the Attorney-General
in the context of an investigation that was unconnected to the sentence enforcement
proceedings being supervised by the Chamber.
2.20 At the request of the author’s defence counsel, on 7 December 2007, a psychologist
of their choosing issued a clinical psychological report on the author’s mental state of
health which concluded that the author was suffering from a “persistent post-traumatic
GE.14-06259
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