RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Dictatorship Official Fearfully Returns Home

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 21 2000 (IPS) - Retired Argentine army major Jorge Olivera arrived in his home country Wednesday after Italian authorities granted his release, more than a month after his August arrest on a French warrant issued for crimes against humanity committed during the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983).

Olivera remains a “wanted man” as France’s justice authorities are after him for his presumed participation in the 1976 kidnapping and torture of Marie Anne Erize, a French citizen who was residing in Argentina.

The Appeals Court in Rome ruled Tuesday that the crimes for which Olivera is charged were invalid in Italy, and as such, authorities there cannot proceed with his extradition. The court pronounced in favour of his unconditional release.

Argentine human rights attorneys and activists, as well as survivors of the dictatorship’s repressive actions, expressed their deep disappointment with the Italian court’s ruling.

The case of Olivera, arrested Aug 6 at the airport in Rome, had been hailed as the first involving an Argentine military official accused of human rights crimes to be tried in a foreign court.

Two weeks later, retired Argentine navy captain Miguel Cavallo was arrested in Mexico, just as he was preparing to leave for Buenos Aires, fleeing the international arrest warrant issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who charges Cavallo with kidnapping, torture and the disappearances of political prisoners under the Argentine dictatorship.

Olivera – and potentially Cavallo – are protected in their home country by the amnesty laws decreed in the 1980s. These laws imply that 48 of the dictatorship’s military officials sought by Spain’s justice authorities for human rights crimes will likely never leave the country for fear of arrest.

Hidden away at his home, Olivera sent a spokesman to report that he is “tired and afraid” and that he denies participating in the kidnapping of Erize, who was 24 at the time.

He also repudiated the testimony of a former guerrilla who said Olivera had bragged about raping the young Frenchwoman.

The retired officer, who for the last decade has dedicated himself to practising law, was received at his home by family members, but condemned by neighbours, who petitioned the district council to have him declared “persona non grata.”

The Erize family’s attorney, Sophie Thonon, sharply criticised the Italian court’s ruling, pointing out that Italy and France had signed an extradition treaty in 1976, which stipulates that neither country can deny an extradition request based on disagreements with the criminal charges made by the petitioning country.

Thonon, and lawyers representing the cases of 14 other French citizens who disappeared during Argentina’s dictatorship, chastised the Appeals Court in Rome because it was not its place to rule on the substance of the Olivera extradition request.

They also questioned the court’s acceptance as proof of Olivera’s innocence a birth certificate for the disappeared Erize that has a note in the margins saying she is presumed dead.

This type of documentation had been provided to the families of the “disappeared” in Argentina for the purposes of seeking compensation from the government or to complete inheritance proceedings.

“How could the justice authorities accept as proof of innocence an assumption of death presented by the assassin?” said an incredulous Miguel Bonasso, a journalist for Argentina’s ‘Pagina 12’ newspaper who was a leftist leader in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (mothers of the disappeared), said that Olivera’s presentation shows just why her group has always opposed government offers of reparations, which would force families to acknowledge that their disappeared relatives had died, though their bodies have never been found.

In the case of Erize, the assumption of death lacks validity for any other legal proceeding, save for inheritance or monetary compensation matters, based on the fact that her name still appears on Argentina’s voter registry.

The presumption of her death is dated Nov 11, 1976, nearly one month after she was kidnapped, leading the Italian court to determine that the statute of limitations had expired given that more than 15 years had transpired since the crime was allegedly committed.

But the court’s ruling does not take into account that, in France, the crime of “disappearing” the victim has no statute of limitations, and that the body of the victim was never recovered to confirm the death, stress the human rights lawyers.

Representatives of the Erize family commented that the Italian court had ruled, incredibly, that “the death of the French citizen not only cannot be blamed on the one being extradited, but that it did not occur during the kidnapping or as a consequence of that criminal act.”

Argentine attorney Horacio Méndez Carreras told IPS that Olivera’s arrest was an “emblematic” case that had set an important precedent, and that the former military officer’s sudden release in Rome was “completely irregular.”

Thonon, meanwhile, condemned the Italian court for “flagrantly violating the extradition agreement,” and commented that attorneys in Italy are considering filing a complaint of breach of trust, as the petitioned nation may not rule on the validity of the crime in question.

Carlos Slepoy, an Argentine lawyer who is pursuing criminal cases in Spain against the dictatorship’s officials, said the predominating international doctrine on forced disappearances indicates that the crime is ongoing and no statute of limitations can be set until the victim is recovered, whether dead or alive.

Slepoy commented that a group of Italian attorneys is going to fight the ruling on the Erize case issued by the Appeals Court in Rome.

But, he said, “it is unlikely this will bring concrete results because Olivera has already sought refuge in the only safe haven he has in the world: Argentina.”

French courts could, however, still try the former army major “in absentia,” as occurred with former captain Alfredo Astiz, found guilty in France for the kidnapping and disappearance of two French nuns.

As a result, Astiz cannot leave the country for fear of arrest by the International Police (Interpol).