On October 16, 2016, the Argentine Eva Analía De Jesús, better known as Higui, was walking through the Buenos Aires town of Bella Vista when a group of men attacked her because of her sexual orientation. Higui — who was given that nickname because he was a soccer player and had curls like the Colombian René Higuita — told the police and later the judges that her attackers beat her and tried to rape her. “I’m going to make you feel like a woman, a forra, a lesbian,” Cristian Rubén Espósito told her, according to his account. She took out a knife and plunged it into his chest. She fainted and when she regained consciousness she was arrested. Despite the fact that she reported an attempted corrective gang rape and that she was found unconscious by police officers, with torn clothing and numerous beatings, her allegations were never investigated. She was accused of simple murder and spent almost eight months in jail, but this Thursday a court acquitted her.
“A lesbian defended herself, her name is Higui, and with the fight she was acquitted,” the dozens of people gathered in support of the accused during the three days of trial celebrated this afternoon in front of the San Martín courts. The street turned into a big party.
🇦🇷⚖️ This is how the news of Higui’s acquittal was received in front of the San Martin Courts.
✊🏽 Higui acquitted! pic.twitter.com/vBljAfQl97
— Presents Agency (@PresentesLGBT) March 17, 2022
Higui’s cause has been one of the flags raised by sexual dissidence in Argentina and was one of the most heard claims in the marches held last week on the occasion of the Day of Lesbian Visibility (March 7) and the International Day of the Woman (March 8). “I would also defend myself like Higui”, can be read both in the surroundings of this courthouse and in numerous streets of Buenos Aires.
On Tuesday, Higui arrived at the courthouse with a soccer ball and thanked everyone who came there to accompany her at the start of the trial. This Thursday, she declared herself for almost an hour. “She really wanted to do it. I feel better,” she said on her way out. Other witnesses had previously exposed, among them another of the aggressors, who assured that Higui had stabbed Esposito in the back. The forensic expert questioned that version by stating that the deadly stab occurred from the front.
One of the key testimonies was that of a police officer who was at the scene of the events and at the police station to which Higui was transferred. “That police said that she was badly beaten and that they went to her cell every so often to see her so that she would not convulse or to check that she was not broken. That is very important because it validates Higui’s account,” said judicial sources quoted by the Télam agency. After spending eight months in prison, the great social mobilization contributed to the Court of Appeals of San Martín granting him extraordinary extradition and Higui was able to await trial in freedom. She this Thursday she obtained her acquittal.
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