The official records of the time say that on December 1, 1976, Alberto José Jaime, a member of Army Intelligence Detachment 122, He got out of the Renault 6 from which he was chasing a bus in which Yolanda Ponti was traveling. She shot at her and murdered her. For the crime, the Federal Oral Court of Santa Fe sentenced him to life imprisonment. Jaime, 79, will have to serve his sentence at his house while he waits for the court to confirm the ruling. Before being tried, he had been a fugitive for 4 years.
The trial against humanity against Jaime – thirteenth oral and public debate on events of the last dictatorship this year – began at the beginning of the month in the capital city of Santa Fe. Witnesses were few, though consistent. Among them, declared the two brothers of Yolanda Ponti, the 19-year-old girl riddled with bullets by Jaime and the mob of repressors from the Intelligence Detachment 122 that she led.
The sentence against the only repressor who could be charged and convicted of the crime was “an act of justice, a fact to a certain extent reparative,” said José Luis, the victim’s older brother. “Not only for us as a family, but also for Yolanda’s partner at that time and many other colleagues who have suffered repression, torture and injustice during the period of the military dictatorship and have not had the opportunity for it to be done. justice”, completed the man who had to go into exile forced by the persecution and terror of the civic-military dictatorship.
The trial was delayed, as stated by the plaintiff lawyer Lucía Tejera in dialogue with this newspaper at the beginning of the debate, but it resulted in a sentence that coincided with what was requested by that accusing party and the Prosecutor’s Office, in charge of Martín Suárez Faisal. Judges Luciano Lauría –who read the verdict–, José María Escoba Cello and Judge Elena Dilario pointed Jaime to life imprisonment after finding him responsible for aggravated homicide by cruelty and treachery, with the help of two or more people.
“This entire process made us relive very sad moments, especially when we heard the reconstruction of the facts. And also very emotional and healing moments when hearing the testimonies of Yolanda’s friends that even we did not know and who spoke with such affection. From his generosity, his solidarity and commitment to the families that he was going to help the neighborhood social center. From his militancy for greater social justice, ”said José Luis.
The verdict happened last Wednesday, at the end of a day that began with the arguments of the defense, Gonzalo Miño, and the last words of the oppressor, who will continue to enjoy the benefit of house arrest until his sentence is final. Jaime, who has been detained since 2019, when he was arrested after being a fugitive for four years, followed the hearing from his house in the city of Buenos Aires, via teleconference.
Jaime, alias “Amorfo” or “Bestia”, commanded the operation that persecuted and assassinated Yolanda Ponti, who was a member of the Peronist University Youth and studied in the capital city of Santa Fe after having moved from Rafaela, where she was born in 1958. The mob who pursued her that December 1st through the center of Santa Fe Capital was completed by Julio Cesar Domínguez, Eleodoro Jorge Hauque, Oscar Alberto Cabezas, Nicolás Correa -all deceased-, an unidentified civilian intelligence personnel subject and the provincial police officer Hector Colombini. On board two cars –a Renault 6 and a Dodge 1500– all the repressors, members of Army Intelligence Detachment 122, they chased her while she tried to flee aboard a line bus. The public transport vehicle was intercepted in the center and shot at. In addition to Yolanda Ponti, who was wounded in the abdomen and later finished off with a shot to the head, the driver of the bus, a passerby and a member of the gang, Cabezas, died..
The summary prepared by the Army to prove that death became the most important evidence against Jaime, since there, through the testimonies that he himself and the rest of the repressors who participated, the operation was captured.
