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The Ministry of National Security is offering a reward of $500,000 for information leading to the identification and capture of the co-author of the murder of Diana Sacayán, the trans activist killed in October 2015 who became a symbol in the fight for LGBT rights.

Resolution 67/2019 was published today in the Official Gazette. According to the regulation, anyone with relevant information should contact the National Coordination Program for the Search for Persons Ordered by the Courts, at line 134.

“While we have achieved a landmark ruling in which the court established that this was a hate crime motivated by gender identity and involving gender-based violence, recognizing it as a transphobic murder and sentencing one of the perpetrators, our fight does not stop and we continue to demand that the Judiciary find the other person responsible. We ask once again for everyone’s collaboration and thank you for your continued support,” the Justice for Diana Commission stated in a press release issued this morning.

[READ ALSO: An international award for the ruling in the Diana Sacayán transvesticide case]

The reward was requested by the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office No. 4, headed by Cristina Caamaño, with the intervention of the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 33, where the case investigating the co-author is being processed.

First transvesticide with a life sentence

On June 28, 2018, the Oral Criminal and Correctional Court No. 4 of the City of Buenos Aires sentenced Gabriel David Marino to life imprisonment by majority vote for the murder of transgender human rights activist Amancay Diana Sacayán. In its verdict, the court determined that it was a hate crime and that gender-based violence was a factor, as defined in sections 4 and 11 of article 80 of the Penal Code. It was an unprecedented and historic ruling. This trial marked the first time the term "transvesticide" was used in court records.

In this trial, which began on March 12, 2018, it was proven that Diana Sacayán was stabbed to death in the early morning of October 11, 2015, in her apartment in the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Her body had more than twenty cuts two days later, and according to expert Roberto Cohen, who performed the autopsy, she was murdered “with ferocity.” The crime scene was described by the first witnesses as “a horror movie.” Diana had been bound and gagged, and after being murdered, she was covered with her mattress.

[READ ALSO: Diana Sacayán calls for a national trans job quota law]

Diana was 39 years old: she had outlived by four years the average life expectancy for transvestites and trans people in Latin America: 35. For half her life, she had worked to secure rights for the community, one of the most violated and criminalized groups. She was one of the driving forces behind the gender identity law, the creator of the transvestite-trans job quota in the province of Buenos Aires, a member of the Sexual Diversity Program at INADI (National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism), a champion of the fight for trans rights, secretary of the International Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGA-LAC), and a leader of the Anti-Discrimination Liberation Movement (MAL).

The reward payment will be made at the Ministry of Security, after a report on the merit of the information provided, preserving the identity of the contributor.