Kirchnerite picket leader Luis D’Elía was handed down a four-day suspended jail sentence yesterday for punching agricultural activist Alejandro Gahan in 2008, during a march at the height of the farming crisis caused by Resolution 125, restricting grain exports.
The picket leader’s defence lawyer told the press his client will appeal the judgment and described his actions as “defending democracy.”
D’Elia and his defence lawyer, Adrián Albor, told the press on the steps of the court that they would appeal the sentence handed down by Judge Susana Guichandut in line with what the prosecution had solicited earlier in the week.
D’Elía was found guilty of “punching” Gahan in the face on March 25, 2008, when the picket leader came across a pro-farming and anti-export duties movement. While testifying during a trial in which he requested the presence of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, D’Elía admitted that he had hit Gahan, confirmed by tv footage, and explained that he had done so in self-defence because the activist had insulted him.
“On the night of March 25, 2008 the discussion was not D’Elia — Gahan, it was a discussion between democracy and corporations,” said the picket leader yesterday, adding that “the government of Cristina Fernández was elected by popular will but was being threatened by three corporations.”
“That day we took to the streets to defend democracy against the corporate coup by Héctor Magnetto, the coup by Hugo Biolcati, the Rural Society, and the coup by Cecilia Pando,” exclaimed D’Elía yesterday, adding that “Pando was looking to destabilize democracy in an attempt to reinstate military impunity, Magnetto pushing more business and more benefits for his oligopolistic group of 248 companies, and the Rural Society led by Biolcati refusing to comply with the exports.”
“We accept all costs, four days in prison, one hundred days in prison, a thousand days of imprisonment, 20 years in prison if it means in the defence of democracy,” said D’Elía yesterday.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald