Story By: Jonathan Macias, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
An 18-year-old girl has told a court that she was kept captive and sexually abused for two months by a pair of brothers one of whom has been charged with raping her with a screwdriver with the help of their mother.
According to local media, victim Aldana Garcia told a court in the city of Bahia Blanca in the province of Buenos Aires in north-eastern Argentina that she was kept captive and abused in a house in the same city for two months together with a second girl named Andrea Santa Cruz.
The victim reportedly told her story in front of the court Tuesday after the second victim Santa Cruz did so the day before.
Reports said that Garcia was able to give a more detailed version of their kidnapping as Santa Cruz suffered several nervous breakdowns during the four hours she was testifying, according to her lawyer Gustavo Avellaneda.
Avellaneda told local media: “They have many scars on their bodies. The person I am defending has permanent deformation of the face due to the injuries she suffered. The psychologist who made the psychological exam yesterday declared and explained they are psychically devastated.”
Aldana’s lawyer Viviana Lozano said to local media that her representative “could speak about her kidnapping day by day, keeping her composure,” and the lawyer also revealed that there was input “about new things she had never told” and that she began to remember more details.
Aldana and Santa Cruz were reportedly kept captive between February and March in 2018 by brothers Fernando Benitez, 27, Gonzalo Benitez, 26, and their mother Nelida Esther Llanos who is 66.
One of the victims reportedly managed to escape from the house and run to her mother’s house in March 2018 where she turned up badly injured and was able to say the name of her captor Fernando Benitez before being transferred to hospital.
When the police arrived at the Benitez family’s house she found the second girl badly injured in the house’s patio after being bitten by a dog.
The general attorney for Sexual Offences Marina Lara pressed charges against Fernando Benitez for attempted homicide, rape, forcing victims to consume drugs and kidnapping.
Lara will also press charges against Gonzalo Benitez and the mother for being necessary accomplices for the kidnapping.
Garcia previously told reporters: “They drugged me and violated me with a screwdriver.”
She also revealed the brothers hit her with a belt and forced her to have sex with them.
Fernando Benitez reportedly told officers “it got a bit out of hand” as he was arrested.
Lawyer Gustavo Avellaneda told local media: “One cannot believe that a 27-year-old boy (for Fernando Benitez) has done what he did with these girls”
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