The story of Norma Igoa Bellini It is not just a sample of the personal cost of exercising the right in defense of women. It is also the chronicle of an absent state, of a justice that chooses to look the other way and an impunity that has remained unalterable for more than five years and forced her to go to the media to tell her case.
It all started in September 2019, when Bellini, a lawyer with more than four decades of trajectory in court, took the defense of a woman victim of gender violence in the city of Buenos Aires. His represented had denounced his former partner, Diego Martín Siciliano, for domestic violencethreats, breach of the visitation regime and the food quota. But what the lawyer did not know was that by accepting that case, her whole life was going to change forever.
Climbing without brake. October 9, 2020 was the first indication. While Igoa Bellini He drove, one of his vehicle’s wheels detached himself in full march. A truck driver who helped her warned that the bolts were intentionally lazy. A few days later, the trunk of his car appeared violated and dental. The message was clear.
From there, a sequence of more than twenty attacks began. Broken stained glass windows, threatening graffiti, cars from their damaged family, intimidating called, follow -ups, mechanical sabotages, and even the placement of a homemade bomb (a molotov) at the entrance of its legal study, which fortunately did not explode. “It was like living a silent war. A constant, overlapping, but meticulous persecution,” Bellini tells news, with the serenity of who has already cried everything. “The strange thing was that this person was entitled, but as I advanced in the cause of my defended and managed to not be linked to the daughter and remained away from the mother, she lashed out at me in a uncontrolled way.”
For norm there are no doubt: behind each attack he has received for three years, he was Diego Martín Sicilianothe same man that his client had denounced. “They had never harassed me for defending a victim. In this case, the perpetrator transferred his violence towards me. He sought to break, intimidate me. And the worst: he did it for years, without anyone stopping him,” denounces the lawyer. And he details: “He must believe that he separated because of me, that he does not see his daughter because of me, but psychiatric expertise continues to be wrong.”
Sicilian, according to justice, repeatedly violated the approach restriction orders. It came to appear on the sidewalk of the house of Igoa Bellini, followed her to family events, sent messages where she revealed intimate details of her surroundings. “I knew where my granddaughter was, which school was going, what days I had acts. That kind of thing is no coincidence. They are threats,” explains the lawyer, still in tone contained.
Legal indifference. But if there is something that aggravates the situation of Igoa Bellini It is the total lack of responses by justice. Despite the multiple orders for evidence by the Prosecutor’s Office, such as geolocation, expert opinions, and even raids, the judge Alejandra Dotti He systematically denied each. “He did not authorize a single relevant diligence. He said they were invasive, that there were not enough elements, when I presented photos, videos and testimonies. It is inexplicable. I never saw something like that in forty years of professional practice,” he says. Even after the lawyer renounced the defense of her client in 2022, the attacks did not stop. “Unfortunately I thought that away from the case would stop him. But no. He’s still there, in the shadow, stalking. It was not a legal issue, it was personal. I became his new target,” he explains. And add, with just disguised anguish: “Every Christmas, every birthday, every family reunion was stained with fear. No one in my family could live quietly. I believe that if my neighbors could buy me another house to do me, they would do it, because they do not like to have police custody at the entrance of my building and less in the halls. ”
The oral trial against Siciliano, scheduled for February 17 of this year, was suspended for the resignation of his defense lawyer. A strategy that, for Igoa Bellini, is part of the usual delay manual in this type of cases. Now, the new date was set for this April 29, before the Criminal, Contraventional and Failure Court No. 12, by Judge Juan Manuel Neumann. The Prosecutor’s Office will be represented by José Sylvié, of the Prosecutor’s Office No. 10. “I hope justice is finally done. I do not ask for revenge. Only someone says that this is not right. To live with fear for five years cannot be free for anyone,” concludes the lawyer.
The case of Norma exposes the helplessness in which there may even be those who must protect the victims. Meanwhile, Bellini continues to go to his study, although now he does it with security cameras, personal protection protocols and the certainty that, even with the law on his side, he remains unprotected.
