By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 1 2000 (IPS)

A court in Argentina ordered one of the former chiefs of the 1976-83 dictatorship, Emilio Massera, back to prison Friday after he was caught by a news photographer violating the house arrest to which he was sentenced on charges of kidnapping the babies of political prisoners.

Massera, a former navy commander, was originally sentenced to life in prison in 1985 for gross human rights violations. But he and the rest of the former commanders of the regime were released four years later by a presidential pardon. (Junior officers implicated in rights abuses had already been let off the hook by amnesty laws).

However, in 1998 Massera was arrested in connection with cases not covered by the amnesty laws or the pardon – stealing the children of political prisoners and changing their identities.

The former navy chief was recently photographed by a photo- journalist outside of his country house. The same thing occurred in 1989, when a photograph published in a local newspaper revealed that he had left the military prison in the town of Magdalena by car to visit downtown Buenos Aires.

Federal Judge Maria Servini revoked Friday the privilege of house arrest – to which convicted offenders over the age of 70 are entitled – arguing that the former navy commander had left his country residence without authorisation.

The former de facto leader’s defence attorney Miguel Angel Arce immediately filed an action to have the decision declared void, on the grounds that his client had not been permitted to make a rebuttal.

The judge oredered that Massera be taken Friday to a prison in the Campo de Mayo military garrison in the province of Buenos Aires.

According to Arce, his client denied having asked the news photographer not to take his photo.

Massera told his lawyer that he had just stepped outside the entryway to his home to see if his doctor was coming, after he called him about an episode of tachycardia. But the photos published showed a hearty Massera walking down the street and lifting up his hand to keep the reporters from taking his photo.

“This really hurts me, do you know the damage you’re going to cause me? Please leave me alone,” he reportedly asked the journalist and news photographer.

Lawmakers and human rights groups complained about Massera’s behaviour Thursday, pointing out that he not only enjoyed the benefit of being under arrest in his posh residence, which is set on a 9,000-square metre estate complete with swimming pool and tennis court, but that he also evidently left whenever he felt like it, and was not under police custody.

Massera’s lawyer explained, however, that the law granted elderly prisoners the privilege of house arrest without police custody.

The case was covered by the weekly publication “Veintitrés” which published photos of Massera leaving his residence and walking down a tree-lined street in the neighbourhood. The article brought an immediate outcry from human rights groups, which already suspected he was violating his house arrest.

On Friday, the rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo demanded that the courts send Massera and seven other officers prosecuted in connection with the cases of stealing babies to prison – but to a common penitentiary rather than a military prison.

The Grandmothers is a group of women whose children were among the at least 10,000 people “disappeared” by security forces during the dictatorship. The organisation’s mission is to find their grandchildren, who were also disappeared.

In 1996, the Grandmothers filed the lawsuit against officers accused of being responsible for the kidnapping of minors. The rights group’s attorneys argued in court that there was a systematic plan to abduct the children of political prisoners, change their identities and illegally adopt them.

None of the officers tried in the 1980s for human rights abuses was charged with the crime of kidnapping children because there was not enough evidence of a systematic plan. For that reason, the pardon and amnesty laws did not cover those charges.

The Grandmothers were successful in their bid to get the former commanders, who had been released from prison by the 1989 presidential pardon, taken into custody once again. So far, nine officers have been detained, seven of whom are over 70 and are thus under house arrest.

On Friday, the Grandmothers expressed suspicions that former army chief and de facto president Jorge Videla frequently left his apartment with the complicity of a guard in the building.

Massera was arrested in 1998 and accused of being responsible for the kidnapping of 11 children born into captivity in the 1970s. After a brief period in prison he was hospitalised, and 11 days later he was granted the privilege of house arrest.

The former navy commander decided to move from his Buenos Aires apartment to his country house in Talar de Pacheco, outside the capital, where he reportedly received visits by military officers, and took walks around the neighbourhood in the mornings.

A group of journalists with the weekly ‘Veintitrés’ stood guard outside the country house and obtained evidence that Massera violated his house arrest, after they were alerted by HIJOS, an organisation made up of the sons and daughters of disappeared victims of the dictatorship.

Many of the members of HIJOS, who began to come together just a few years ago, were themselves kidnapped by security forces and reunited with their biological grandparents or other relatives in recent years.

“It is immoral that the murderers have been convicted but remain free,” states a communique released by HIJOS (which means “children” in Spanish). “We demand enforced life in prison for each and every one of the genocidal killers and their accomplices.”

Since 1977, the Grandmothers have been searching for the nearly 500 children who went missing after they were abducted or born to political prisoners in clandestine torture camps. The Grandmothers have found more than 60 of the young people, and in most of the cases have been able to reunite them with their biological families.

Among the youngsters who were found, many had been appropriated by police or military officers who are in prison today. But others were adopted by families in good faith.

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