“This goes back to a small town, Santa Rosa de Leales, 50 kilometers from San Miguel
from Tucuman. And, as in all small towns, gossip goes from end to end with
speed”. This is how he begins to tell the story of Ángel Páez, a 59-year-old man who is looking for prove in court that he is the son of Elías Chahla, a skilled trader who climbed
to become one of the most powerful businessmen in the province.
After 23 years of waiting, he succeeded in exhuming the body of his alleged father, who
rests, since 2010, in an imposing mausoleum of the Cemetery of the West, of the
capital.
The case was always marked by delays: the procedure, which implies the
intervention of firefighters and scientific team, should have been done last Thursday, but it was rescheduled at the last minute.
If there are no changes, this Tuesday experts from the Forensic Genetics Laboratory of the Corps Forensic doctor and Judicial Morgue will extract DNA from the body, which will be compared with the shows that it was taken from Páez in August. If confirmed, the man from Tucuman will be able to claim a $40 million inheritance.
That moment could be the final chapter of a story that began to be written a lot
time ago and that involves the political power of Tucuman.
Candies and sugar cane In 1970, wrapped in a white apron, Ángel Páez took advantage of some distraction from the teachers of the National School No. 120 to cross running to the Ramos store Generals.
He filled his hands with candy and paid the big man and short stature that was behind the box. At that time, he was convinced that his grandfather, Valentín, and his grandmother, Carmen, they were his parents. He also believed that the young woman who took him to school every day was his sister. The teasing of his classmates, who sought to open his eyes about the rumor that he ran among the adults, he suffered them with pain.
Valentín Páez, Ángel’s grandfather, who grew up believing he was his father (Photo: Gentiliza
Angel Paez).
María Trinidad had met “El Turco”, as they called the prosperous merchant
Tucuman, ten years before. “My mother, who lived 50 kilometers from San Miguel de
Tucumán, went to the city to do the shopping. He offered to take her. Between going and
back, she became pregnant at the age of 18, ”Angel tells TN.
According to this version, Elías Chahla -a boyfriend with whom she would be his wife- did not want take care of the baby and the Páez family, who worked in the zafra (cane harvest
of sugar), he chose to remain silent.
Valentin did not retaliate against his daughter. On the contrary, “where three eat,
They eat four”, he told the young woman who chose to put “Eduardo” as his middle name.
to the newborn, in honor of the obstetrician who received him at the Hospital.
“Eduardo, who was my godfather, was the only one who helped her. He gave her diapers and other items to lend a helping hand,” she recalls about the doctor.
“When I was born, my mom started working as a domestic worker and kept peeling
the sugar canes by hand, everything, to give me a livelihood. She was in a sulky and not
she had to buy shoes. I have lived that feeling of ‘lack’ since I was a child, while my
father grew economically. He left it lying, it was erased, ”says Páez.
“I only remember that my aunt, a woman with honey eyes, called me from the corner in the
school and she gave me a bologna sandwich and a glass of soda. In that
At that time, glass bottles of Coca-Cola were beginning to be seen. She looked at me tenderly and she told me: ‘she takes my love,'” she says.
María Trinidad, his mother, died in 2002. She never married. She didn’t do any
comment about the father of her child. “I realized over time that what my classmates told me, in a joking tone, was real: that my parents were my grandparents and that my sister was my mother. Also, that I was “them son of the Turk”, as they remarked on me”.
“59 years ago, being a single mother was a torment, a bad example. Today I want to be your vigilante,” he says.
“When I told my mom that I was going to look for my father to recognize me, she told me
she said: “If you want to do it, no problem. He never spoke ill of him or his
family of him. I think she felt that she had let her parents down and she felt bad about it.
that”, she adds about the talk she had with her mom 23 years ago.
“Now I hope that the DNA comparison comes to fruition and that no one puts the
manito”, she says with a distrust fueled by the delays in the case. “I have one controlled anxiety, because you get used to it, but the amount of time that passed without me being able to have an answer that has to do, nothing more and nothing less, with my identity”, she closes.
The dispute is settled in the Family and Inheritance Court of the 3rd nomination, in charge of
Juan Carlos Torino.
Despite the fact that since 2017, the judge summoned the daughters of Elías, Rossana and
María Emilia Chahla for the DNA study. None agreed to submit to the expertise.
For that reason, “Don Elías” must be exhumed.
Rossana was Minister of Health of Tucumán and currently occupies a bench in the
Lower house in the National Congress. Angel, who is represented by the
lawyer Mariano Peralta, is self-employed.
In the event that the genetic comparison is positive, the 10-year-old boy who, secretly and
in a hurry, he bought candies from the owner of the Ramos Generales store, he will have
right to his millionaire inheritance.