The trial of six men accused of sexually assaulting a young woman in a parked car in Palermo during Carnaval 2022 begins at a Buenos Aires court on Monday. The defendants are accused of sexual abuse, aggravated because of the number of participants. 

Over 30 witnesses are expected to testify over seven hearings in a closed-door trial. The six men, aged between 21 and 25, are all in pre-trial detention. The victim, now 21, is expected to testify when she feels ready. The accused will not be present for her testimony and she may speak remotely.

“All of them were necessary participants,” said Hugo Figueroa, the victim’s lawyer, on his way into the courthouse. “We understand that without the actions of each one of them, it would not have led to the final outcome of this situation.”

“There could not have been consent because [the victim] was not in a state to give it,” he later added. “We have toxicology tests, testimony and images that she couldn’t sit upright in a chair.”

Families of the accused maintain that their relatives are innocent, and that it is for the judiciary to determine whether or not there was consent.

According to prosecutor Eduardo Rosende, two of the accused met the woman in a nearby nightclub in the early hours of the morning on February 28, 2022. From there, they went to a nearby square, where they kept talking and listening to music, while some in the group drank beer and smoked cannabis. 

From there, they went to Plaza Serrano, where they met up with the rest of the accused, singing and playing guitar in the square. By 1 p.m., security camera footage shows that the accused had started to grope the victim, who was “in a clear state of intoxication”, Rosende said. 

They then proceeded to the parked car, a Volkswagen which belonged to one of the accused. There, DNA evidence indicates that two of the accused raped the woman, while two others groped her from the back seat and the other two stood guard outside, according to the prosecutor.

Rosende said the attack “had been planned for several hours, in an organized and joint manner among the accused.”

The attack was interrupted after the intervention of two bakers outside whose shop the car was parked.

The men stand accused of aggravated sexual abuse with carnal access, which is punishable by between eight and 20 years in prison. They are also charged with causing minor injuries, punishable by a jail term of between a month and a year, for assaulting a witness before the police arrived on the scene.

The final trial hearing is scheduled for September 29.

The incident shocked the nation when it took place, sparking debates about rape culture. Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, who was women’s, gender and diversity minister at the time, tweeted: “We grow up and are socialized on the base of a masculinity that teaches us that men have the right to decide, on their own or in a group, about the bodies of women and LGBTI+ people as if they were property or things at their disposal.”

-with information from Télam