Saturday, October 24, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Dictatorship Child Theft Judges Intimidated
Marcela Valente
- Federal Judge Antonio Bagnasco – currently investigating the theft of children during the military dictatorship – received a hoax bomb Wednesday, in an attempt to stop those coup-time skeletons marching out of the cupboard.
However, Bagnasco’s representative stated he was not intimidated and that the investigation would go ahead as planned.
Adriana Scoccia, secretary of Federal Judge Antonio Bagnasco, received a call at home early in the day, stating that a “present” had been left at the door of the judge’s office building.
The mystery gift was a hand grenade with a deactivated electronic detonator device.
Although the caller provided no motive, initial suspicions the bomb was related to another of Bagnasco’s cases involving high- level hanky-panky were rapidly laid to rest.
For apart from the child-theft cases, Scoccia and Bagnasco are investigating a scandal where 21 million dollars were allegedly paid in bribes by the multinational computer company IBM, in order to win them the lucrative contract for equipping public bodies like the State-owned Argentine National Bank and the General Tax Department.
Some former directors of the Bank of the Nation and former bosses of IBM in Argentina have been summonsed on charges of fraud and accessory to fraud, and the judges could issue warrants for executives in the head office of the multinational company.
However, Scoccia and Bagnasco said the intimidation was not related to this case, but to their investigation of the kidnapping of the children of political dissidents by the agents of the dictatorship (1976-1983).
“They are not going to intimidate us. Anyone who thinks this can make us abandon our investigation must be out of their minds,” said Scoccia.
This investigation, started by the human rights group “the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo,” aims to bring the army kidnappers to trial, for this is one of the few human rights violations not coverd by the amnesty laws of the eighties.
Thousands of human rights abusers walked free after the State passed the “full stop” and “due obedience” laws exonerating the offenders from all blame.
The Grandmothers have a register of more than 300 disappeared children, 50 of whom have already been located. Most of them were living with their abductors, that is, members of the military or police forces who took part in the illegal repression which led to at least 11,000 disappearances.
Other children had been adopted in good faith, and after their true lineage was proven by genetic tests, they remained with their adoptive families, forming new relationships with their blood relations.
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo denounced the kidnapping of children and the theft of their identity more than 20 years ago. But in 1985, when the courts started to try former officers of the regime, there was not enough evidence to accuse them of these crimes.
Over the years, the group got hold of documents which proved the child theft was a systematic planned practice. One of the most blatant pieces of evidence was a list of army instructions on the procedure to be followed with children taken from the prisoners.
The Grandmothers want at least six army generals – some already pardoned by President Carlos Menem – to appear in court and also want Alfredo Astiz – the naval captain forced to resign for reasons including his public recognition of this criminal practice in January – to testify.
Bagnasco is planning to travel to Switzerland next Monday to meet with public attorney Carla del Ponte, who will provide information on the content of Swiss safety deposit boxes in the names of military officers involved in the kidnapping in Argentina.
It is presumed these boxes could contain information on the whereabouts of the children, although, up until now, Del Ponte has only discovered ban accounts of other Argentines investigated for their part in human rights violations on Spanish citizens.
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