Former police officer accused of killing two crew members of ship Ayane dies in prison before trial
Carlos Eugenio Lima, accused of the double homicide aboard the Ayane oil tanker, died on 29 September in Unit 9 of La Plata. The oral trial was scheduled for November.
Former police officer dies in Unit 9 of La Plata before oral hearing for double homicide on the Ayane
Carlos Eugenio Lima, former member of the Buenos Aires Police and third deck officer of the Ayane oil tanker, took his own life on 29 September at La Plata Penitentiary Unit 9, according to infobae.com. He was 57 years old and was awaiting the start of the oral trial scheduled for 12 and 13 November.
Lima was accused of the murders of Captain Alejandro Daniel García and First Officer Juan Alfonso Pegasano, committed on 22 October 2021 aboard the Ayane, whilst the vessel was anchored in the Río de la Plata, opposite Punta Lara. With his death, the criminal proceedings at Federal Criminal Oral Court No. 2 of La Plata remained without judicial resolution.
Rodrigo Velasco, lawyer for García's family, questioned the death of the accused while in state custody. "A death in a situation that should have been watched over by the State, so that he would reach a trial for which there was very little time remaining," he stated to La Plata media outlet 0221. The lawyer described the episode as "a very serious matter" and stressed that the families of the victims were left without the sentence that the proceedings were supposed to guarantee them. "The trial is the end of a criminal process that concludes with a sentence, which is a duty of the State, and we will not have it," he said.
Events of 22 October 2021
According to the reconstruction incorporated into the case file, Lima had maintained disagreements with his superiors in the hours prior to the crimes. One of these occurred during a routine inspection by the Argentine Naval Prefecture, when he was apparently removed from the procedure. That same evening there was a further altercation with Pegasano on the navigation bridge.
At 23:28, Lima took a radiotelephone and contacted the Río de la Plata Traffic Control Centre of the Prefecture. "The captain and the first officer are dead, I killed them. And I'm going to turn myself in, so I want a coast guard ship to come and arrest me," he stated, according to the court proceedings.
Following that communication, other crew members blocked access to the loading console with ropes and kept him there until agents arrived. The investigation was conducted by federal judge Ernesto Kreplak.
Background: conviction in 2011 for attempted homicide
The Ayane double crime was not Lima's first criminal history. In 2007 he had been dismissed from the Buenos Aires Police. On 3 June 2008, he shot at his neighbour Gustavo Alfredo Alfano following an argument in City Bell. The conflict arose while Lima was doing work on the pavement in front of Alfano's home, at the intersection of Cantilo and 134.
According to the investigation, he used a 9-millimetre calibre pistol and fired six shots at close range. Alfano sustained injuries to a leg, spine, abdomen and arm, and was treated at San Roque Hospital in Gonnet.
Following the attack, Lima locked himself in his home and opened fire on police who arrived at the scene. The operation included the intervention of the Falcon Group and concluded with his surrender after more than an hour of negotiation. Criminal Oral Court No. 5 of La Plata sentenced him on 1 July 2011 to seven and a half years in prison for aggravated attempted homicide due to the use of a weapon. He was released on 18 January 2013.
During that case, a psychological evaluation noted difficulties in managing anxiety and described obsessive and rigid personality traits. The report warned that, when faced with situations of high emotional tension, Lima could present problems controlling his impulses. Years later he was again detained for the murders of García and Pegasano, a process that ended without a sentence following his death in prison.
Source: Google News PE — Lima