By María Eugenia Duffard, 21 Julio 2015
The forensic experts who made up the forensic board that tried to explain how prosecutor Alberto Nisman died testified before the prosecutor, Viviana Fein, for several hours and added new details to what they’d laid out in their reports. The expert from the family of the prosecutor, Daniel Salcedo, said the person who killed Nisman used the sink to wash his hands, and that the absence of certain blood stains showed that there was another person with the prosecutor.
At one point in the statement, the prosecutor cited “digital animation presented” by Salcedo as part of his report, and said in that reproduction, the alleged killer washes his hands. And Salcedo himself mentions it when explaining how, for him, stains were produced on the bathroom door. He said they weren’t caused by Nisman falling because they had a “downward projection” and “a starting point 60 centimeters high, almost half a meter above where the head of the victim was located.” For him, these spots may have been generated because the “killer” shook his hands and it “must have been washing them before that.”
Those same spots which Salcedo referred to are those that served the official expert, Nicholas Vega Laiun – “Head of Service” of the Forensic Unit of the Federal Police the night of the operation – and from the defense, Luis Olavarria, to indicate the door was locked at the time of the shooting. They said further that those stains were “continuous” and therefore ruled out the involvement of another person. They did not explain, however, a point laid out by Salcedo regarding the absence of blood stains on the index finger of the right hand of Nisman, that should have existed if he had pulled the trigger on the gun he borrowed from Diego Lagomarsino.
The three experts were consulted by the prosecutor and lawyers with a great level of detail about the stain that was found on the counter next to the sink and not noticed on the corner or the drawer of the vanity. According to Vega Laiun if the counter stain had occurred, as explained by Salcedo, from “intracranial projection” (from the hole of the bullet when firing) the corner and vanity drawers should have been stained with blood.
However, when lawyers for Nisman’s ex-wife, Sandra Arroyo Salgado, asked: “Can you rule out any obstacles that would prevent a projection onto the drawer?” Vega Laiun replied, “No, we cannot rule it out.” According to Salcedo, “the killer would have been located behind (Nisman) and to the right and standing. Nisman would be on one knee on the ground, 47 cm from the lateral end of the bath, next to the table.”
As before with reports from the Medical Board and then the Forensic Board, each expert elaborated on his technical and theoretical arguments to sustain their statements that they’ve been advising from the outset. Thus, Salcedo insisted that the prosecutor’s body was moved inside the bathroom. The others dismissed that outright.