The Ciudad del Este Trial Court sentenced eight police officers to between seven and 12 years in prison for the double homicide of Alex Enrique Alejandro Ortiz Estigarribia and Gloria Yetsica Espínola Cáceres, which occurred on November 19, 2022, at Kilometer 12 Acaray in Alto Paraná. The unanimous decision was handed down by judges Herminio Montiel, Edgar Lezcano and Emilia Santos Ávalos.
Former deputy commissioner Manuel Ramón Villalba Gómez and former senior noncommissioned officer Richard Antonio Sebriano Silvero, who worked in the Department of Criminal Investigation, received the longest sentences: 12 years. Six other officers who were members of the Special Operations Group (GEO), a tactical unit of the National Police, were sentenced to seven years: Roberto Samaniego Parquet, Rubén Darío Giménez Maidana, Alder Centurión Céspedes, Javier Antonio Martínez Ocampos, César González Agüero and Alfredo Villalba Agüero.
Chief Commissioner Hugo Regis Florentín Stiglich, then head of Investigations, and noncommissioned officer Pedro Osvaldo Brítez Achar, the driver of a GEO patrol vehicle, were acquitted because of doubt about their participation in the crime. Prosecutors had sought 18 years for the Investigations officers and 10 years for the GEO members. The oral trial began on July 28.
The case began with a pursuit of Carlos Cato Cabrera, who was wanted under an international arrest warrant. The officers reached a country house from which the victims emerged. According to the reconstruction presented at trial, the blue Toyota Allion, license plate AAIG 101, broke through a barrier and was struck by 24 shots — 18 in the rear and six on the left side — about 6.5 kilometers from the PY02 highway, at Kilometer 12 Acaray.
The officers claimed there had been an exchange of gunfire and presented a pistol allegedly found in the vehicle. Forensic analysis indicated that Ortiz Estigarribia was apparently hit while his hands were on the steering wheel; he died while being transported to a medical center. Gloria Espínola Cáceres was critically injured and died later. The trial also heard that Cabrera allegedly drove the vehicle for about five kilometers after the shooting and fled on a motorcycle driven by Jonhatan de Jesús Cabañas, under threats.
The court applied the legal classification of intentional homicide with eventual intent: the legal conclusion that the shots were fired with knowledge that they could cause deaths, even though that result was not directly intended. The sentence is not final. The defense and the private complainants are considering appeals, while the Public Prosecutor's Office appealed to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice against the decision that had permanently dismissed the case against Jaime Javier Ramírez Brítez of the GEO. For that reason, he was not tried at this stage.
In its own account, Unicanal reported that relatives challenged the sentences and Florentín Stiglich’s acquittal, and also alleged that money may have been paid to reduce the punishments. That allegation was not presented as a proven fact in the available information.