Supreme Court rejects defense appeals
Argentina's Supreme Court of Justice dismissed a defense motion and thereby confirmed that the oral and public trial will proceed for 18 defendants accused in the 2014 fire at the Iron Mountain warehouse in the Barracas neighborhood. Justices Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz and Ricardo Lorenzetti rejected the appeals filed on behalf of three defendants—Eduardo Alfredo Sueyras Parra, Guillermo Lockhart and Matías Marquina—who had sought a declaration that the statute of limitations had expired and that the reasonable-time guarantee had been violated. The court found that the appeals failed to comply with the procedural requirements governing such filings.[S1][S2]
The fire and the collapse that killed ten
On the morning of February 5, 2014, a fire broke out at the Iron Mountain depot on Azara Street 1245 in Barracas, where the company stored documents for various firms. After the fire alarm sounded, three employees tried to extinguish the flames. An hour later, while firefighters and Civil Defense personnel were battling the blaze, one of the walls collapsed. The collapse killed eight firefighters and two Civil Defense rescuers: Leonardo Day, Anahí Garnica, Eduardo Conesa, Damián Véliz, Maximiliano Martínez, Juan Monticelli, José Luis Méndez Araujo, Sebastián Campos, Pedro Báricola and Franco Ambrosi.[S1][S2]
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Charges and the path to trial
In December 2022, the Appeals Chamber confirmed the indictment of all 18 defendants for the crimes of negligent fire resulting in death and negligent injuries. According to that ruling, there were government failures in overseeing the operation of the company's warehouse. Among the accused are Iron Mountain executives and former officials of the Buenos Aires city government from the General Directorate of Inspection and Control. With the case at the trial stage, on April 28, 2025, Oral Criminal and Correctional Court No. 18 rejected motions to extinguish the criminal action by statute of limitations and requests to dismiss the action for violation of the reasonable-time guarantee. In June of that year, the duty chamber of the National Criminal Cassation Chamber upheld that decision.[S1][S2]
