Speaks is the young man from Rosario who was imprisoned for 3 years for a crime he did not commit

Ignacio Damián Pedernera just got out of the shower. He also just got out of the worst trance of his life.

The 21-year-old Rosario was imprisoned from 20 April 2019 until yesterday Tuesday for the crime of taxi driver Mario Esusy, shot dead in the middle of a robbery in the Ludueña neighborhood of Rosario. Justice acquitted him, in a long-awaited ruling.

However, Ignacio was convicted of one of three crimes attributed to him by the intentional homicide prosecutor Patricio Saldutti: the possession of a 22-caliber pistol that was abducted from his home in the neighborhood Cotar. He received one year's effective imprisonment and, due to the time spent behind bars, was released after the ruling of the court of first instance composed of judges Rodolfo Zvala, Nicolás Vico Gimena and Ismael Manfrin.

The judges, to determine their acquittal, were based on three axes. Key witnesses to the prosecution contradicted themselves in Ignacio's physical description. They also assured in the reading of the verdict that he violated the chain of custody of the two abducted pods; and they considered the messaging activity via WhatsApp that the accused had at the time of the crime: the data suggested that he was not at the scene.

I had plans before I was in jail, a life. “I played football at Deportivo Unión Central in the Rosarina League. Now I'm a hairdresser, I professionalized myself in prison and I'm going to keep cutting. I want to work in a barbershop. I already know people who can give me work. I'm going to start from scratch. You have to survive in prison. I'm from the lower class. By cutting my hair, I survived. The one who says while in prison that he went hungry is because he didn't go through it. I was hungry, cold and went on. You have to keep going forward always,” he says.

In dialogue with Infobae, he claims to have no “grudge” for the time he was locked up in two different prisons in Santa Fe. I'd have reason to have it. His father, Hugo, died of cardiorespiratory arrest on August 13 last year. “I've never been able to see it since I was arrested. The unit didn't even allow me to go to the wake. It was very hard,” he says: “I have no words to describe what I experienced. But God is great and knows.” .

Hugo Pedernera, Ignacio's father, died on August 13 last year of cardiorespiratory arrest at the age of 53. The young man could not be with him in his last moments. “He had a heart attack. I could never see it, because of the pandemic. The unit (of the Prison Service) didn't even take me to the wake. You always have to say goodbye. It was hard, very hard, not getting visitors from the people you love. You don't have anyone to comfort you. There, I learned not to waste time. One day you're there and the next you're not,” he said.

The young man stated that before he was arrested “he did not believe in religion, but he respected”. However, in the Piñero and Coronda wards — prisons where he was detained — he began to engage with Catholic pastors who were going to visit the prisoners. “They listened to you, they understood the burden and the problems you had. He asked God day and night. And I'm going to remain grateful, and I'm going to go to church,” he stressed.

Regarding the .22 caliber pistol that was seized at his home when he was arrested by the Investigative Police (PDI), he replied: “I would like the Police to do their job well. Just like me there is a band of kids.” Without saying it, he slipped that the weapon could have been planted.

“I don't know if I was a parsley. Yes, innocent. In prison I lived cold, hungry and other things that I can tell you, but you won't understand them if you don't see them or live. Prison matured me a lot in my things. Once we were in isolation for a week in Coronda because of muddles in the ward. I spent seven days in a bathroom. And in Coronda the cells don't even have a toilet”, he concluded.

Pedernera also asks for justice for the crime of the taxi driver. The pain of that death also passes through him. The young man says: “I would like you to find the real culprits. The pain, the emptiness of that family is not going to be filled by anyone.”

After cutting off the phone, his mother called him to dinner.

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