LOMAS DE ZAMORA, Argentina - Condemned to life in prison for murdering his wife, a Banfield man was given a reprieve last week by way of an unusual legal decision. Justices reviewing his case reduced the sentence to 15 years after determining his wife had provoked her murder by having an affair.

While names were stricken from the record to protect identities, the court documents explain the rationale behind Lomas de Zamora Judges Celesia, Mancini and Mahiques decision. Emphasizing that the victim had created a “particular psychological environment of extraordinary circumstances,” the judges determined that the husband had been driven to murder by his wife.

“The disagreements with his spouse made him suffer a lack of respect, affection and consideration that normally tie a couple” court documents read.

Noting that the spouses did not maintain marital relations for three years prior, the judges found that the convicted had suffered terribly in the marriage. To this was added constant mistreatment, insults and an attitude of victim hood on the part of the wife, the defense argued.

The breaking point for the husband was finding electronic communications on his wife’s computer indicating she was having an affair with a coworker. Through chat records and emails the husband pieced together that his spouse was having an intermittent relationship with an Italian coworker.

Noting that the husband was a computer technician by trade, the judges determined that by keeping the communications on her computer, the wife desired for her husband to discover the affair.

When confronted with the evidence the victim “let him know in an explicit way that she wanted to get divorced." This led to the fateful night of March 6, 2000, when the husband stabbed his wife, beat her to death with a mallet and then engaged in a two-hour stand-off with police.

The judges concluded that due to his strong personality, the husband "could not accept divorce because that would imply a real failure and disintegration of his character."

Translated and adapted from the Clarin Print Edition, Friday, May 2, 2008