The Argentine judiciary is investigating the death of a man asphyxiated during his arrest by the police in Tucuman County, 1200 km northeast of Buenos Aires, in a case reminiscent of the death of George Floyd in the United States.
The events took place on Wednesday noon in the center of Tucumana, the provincial capital, in front of dozens of witnesses, as some confirmed that police officers beat Severino Nadal, 43, and fixed his neck on the ground.
In a video by a passerby, the man is shown attached to the ground by 4 men in security force uniforms and two in civilian clothes as they try to help him.
Local press quoted witnesses that when he was attached to the ground, he asked for help several times, and 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 convict him.
His family denounced mistreatment during a previous arrest in February from the police of the same center, knowing that Severino had served a prison sentence for theft several years ago.
This, and the statements of the police who participated in his arrest will be heard in the coming days.
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, 8 members of the police 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 Regional Office for South America at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
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