Man, 70, who killed his pregnant wife then hid in Argentina rainforest for 22 years returns to civilisation after ‘statute of limitations expires’
- Ramon Angel Abregú escaped from prison just months after his wife’s murder
- The 70-year-old was on the run from the police for 22 years, hiding in the jungle
A man on the run from Argentine police after being convicted of murdering his pregnant wife appears set to avoid further jail time because the statute of limitations has expired.
Ramon Angel Abregú, now 70, escaped from prison months after being jailed for 20 years for shooting his wife Eva Falcón in January 2000 in the city of Río Grande at Argentina’s southern tip.
He spent the next 22 years evading police detection, hidden in a rainforest.
On the day of the attack, local news sources report that Abregú Falcón – who was seven months pregnant – attacked at her home with a 9-millimeter caliber pistol.
Wounded, Falcón reportedly managed to escape and took refuge in the waiting room of the Cemep clinic, where Abregú caught up with her and killed her with four more shots.
Ramon Angel Abregú, now 70, escaped from prison months after being jailed for 20 years for shooting his wife Eva Falcón in January 2000 in the city of Río Grande at Argentina’s southern tip.
Abregú remained hidden in the jungle, in the Chaco Salteño, and managed to reenter the Tierra del Fuego province on Wednesday without being spotted by any authorities, according to the Argentine newspaper Clarín.
Pictured: The clinic where Ramon Angel Abregu, 70, killed his pregnant wife Eva Falcón in January 2000 in Rio Grande, Argentina
In February the following year, Abregú reportedly escaped from a Margen Sur prison, hiding in a truck en route to Chile.
All these years, Abregú remained hidden in the jungle, in the Chaco Salteño, and on Wednesday he managed to re-enter the province of Tierra del Fuego without being noticed by any authorities, the Argentine newspaper said. Clarin.
They said he appeared in court to request the statute of limitations on the case, while his lawyer, Alejandro De la Riva, revealed that Abregú had “secretly” and without documents crossed two Argentine and two Chilean border crossings.
‘The statute of limitations is twenty years, the time during which he managed to remain a fugitive in hiding. He served his sentence that way,” De la Riva reportedly explained to the Fuegian media.
But the process may not be that simple and some legal issues surrounding what happened still need to be resolved, sources from the intervening prosecutor’s office told Clarín.
“The precepts of the international law treaties adopted by the country govern and can be applied to deny the freedom of this person,” they said.
Despite having one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, the Chaco Salteño is an important agricultural area with more than six million hectares of forest.
It is home to significant ethnic and cultural diversity, including small-scale pastoralists and indigenous peoples.