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The Argentine judiciary is investigating the death of a man asphyxiated during his arrest by the police in Tucuman County, in a case reminiscent of the death of black American George Floyd in the United States.
The events took place on Wednesday, June 24 in central Tucumana, the provincial capital 1,200 kilometers northeast of Buenos Aires, in front of dozens of witnesses. Some confirmed that two policemen had beat Severino Nadal, 43, and held his neck on the ground.
In a video by a passerby, the man is shown attached to the ground by four men in security force uniforms and two in civilian clothes.
While he was on the ground, he asked for help several times, and local press quoted witnesses. An autopsy confirmed that the death was due to suffocation.
Severino Nadal was arrested for theft, but no one reported it and there was no evidence to condemn him.
His family denounced mistreatment during a previous arrest in February by the police of the same center. Severino had served a prison sentence for theft several years ago.
The statements of the policemen who participated in his arrest will be heard in the coming days.
The investigation comes nearly a month after the death of the 46-year-old black American George Floyd, who died while being arrested by police in Minneapolis on May 25. An autopsy showed that police pressure on Floyd’s chest caused his death, which sparked widespread protests in the United States and the world.
An investigation into the behavior of the Tucuman police is under way after the death of Luis Espinosa, an agricultural worker who was arrested during a festival on May 15 and whose body was found a week later in a valley.
In this case, eight policemen and a civilian under investigation were arrested on charges of “unlawful deprivation of liberty followed by the death of a person and enforced disappearance” in the context of an investigation requested by the South American Regional Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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