An inmate who identified himself as “Pablo Palmito” and had taken two people hostage in a Lomas de Zamora courthouse after being escorted there to file a report on his request, turned himself to police after more than 3 hours of high tension.
The man, whose real identity is Gabriel Conforti and is a current inmate of the Ezeiza’s maximum security jail, had asked permission to be escorted to a Lomas de Zamora courthouse in Southern Greater Buenos Aires, to file a report as he claimed that there are international groups willing to kill him once he recovers his freedom within 88 days.
Once giving testimony to both the court’s secretary Rafael Leal and his assistant, Carina Vago, he pulled out a gun and a knife and took them both hostages.
“I want all TV and radio stations here so that I can be on every piece of news, that way things won’t be that easy for those willing to kill me”, the man told TV reporters who managed to establish a live phone conversation with him and the two hostages.
“I’m willing to die for my country. I don’t want to see my country being sold to China, Russia and Japan. I have reports indicating that Japan is paying US$0.0001 cents per liter of water. They are taking our water.”
“I’m a retired military. I’ve been part of the peace forces sent to former Yugoslavia, Ljubljana to be more precise, during the Balkan conflict in the early 90s.”
In a very incoherent dialogue, the man continued saying that he was sentenced to jail due to fraud but assured “Those are not the real crimes I committed; nobody knows who I really am and what kind of crimes I have committed. I’m a multimillionaire. I own lands all over the country. I even have a house in Monte Carlo, France. That’s where I used to live.”
Source: Buenos Aires Herald