Drowning of a 5-year-old Chinese child in school in Argentina: Prosecutors demand a public trial

Source: China Overseas Chinese Network

According to the Argentine Chinese Network, in February 2019, a 5-year-old Chinese child drowned in the summer camp pool of a school in Buenos Aires. Although the school is responsible for the safety incident, no one has been jailed for this. On September 17, local time, Cecilia Corfield, the prosecutor of Unit 15, ended the case and asked the court to conduct a public oral hearing of the case.

The incident occurred on February 5 in La Prada, the capital of Buenos Aires, when a Chinese child, Lin Lucas, drowned in the summer camp pool of the local Lincoln School. Prosecutors later listed teacher Carolina Eva Muro and lifeguard Martyn Arguelles as defendants, accusing them of responsibility for the incident. In addition, the responsible persons Osvaldo Ramos, Marcos Echenique, Rubén Monreal, Roxana Costa and Mónica Cauteruccio were also charged with death by negligence.

The prosecution believes that the person died at 15:30 that day. Also newly listed as defendants are four local municipal civil servants, Diego Luca, who is in charge of sports, Myriam Salinas, an auditor, Daniela Teruggi, who is in charge of health, and Fernando Parodi, who is in charge of food and nutrition.

According to the case file, the personnel concerned, who had been at the scene a few days before the incident, may have filled in false data in official forms in order to allow the institution to meet the minimum requirements, ignoring the strict controls that could have avoided the tragedy.

In such cases, the judge in question is required to take a position of approval or rejection of the Prosecutor's request in the coming days in order to move the case forward.