RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: ‘Dirty War’ Symbol of Impunity under Arrest

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 3 2001 (IPS) - Former navy captain Alfredo Astiz, a symbol of the impunity of Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship, was arrested here early Monday at the request of an Italian court, on charges related to the disappearance of three Italian citizens.

Human rights groups and families of the dictatorship’s victims celebrated Argentine judge María Servina de Cubría’s order for the preventive arrest of Astiz, though they were hesitant to speculate about the likelihood of his extradition to Italy, given the precedents of the Argentine government’s protection for military leaders in similar cases.

Servini de Cubría, a federal court magistrate, issued the Astiz arrest order Friday, conceding to the Italian judiciary’s request for his arrest. But the former navy officer did not turn himself in to the International Police (Interpol) until the early hours Monday. He was then taken to a detention centre of the naval prefecture.

Italian prosecutor Francesco Caporale said Monday in Rome that his country’s Justice Ministry would formalise an extradition request before the Argentine Foreign Ministry this week. Astiz is accused of orchestrating the disappearance of three Italian citizens in Argentina in the 1970s.

Official figures indicate that 10,000 people disappeared during the military regime, though families of the victims and most human rights groups assert that the total was over 30,000.

Attorney Pedro Bianchi, a potential defence lawyer for Astiz, said extradition would be inappropriate because Argentina has not renounced jurisdiction over the crimes for which the former officer is accused.

For his part, Horacio Méndez Carrera, lawyer for the families of French victims of the Argentine dictatorship’s repression, told IPS he is sceptical about chances for Astiz’s extradition, especially because the government of President Fernando de la Rúa is currently faced with the “progressive debilitation” of its leadership.

“We must be very cautious and not focus on utopias,” commented Méndez Carrera, pointing out that judge Servini de Cubría would have to release Astiz immediately if the Argentine Foreign Ministry rejects the extradition request.

“This is a case that will end with a political resolution,” he added.

Estela Carlotto, president of the human rights organisation Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, used the same argument, but reached a less pessimistic conclusion.

The leader of Grandmothers, a group dedicated to searching for the children of people who were disappeared during the dictatorship, stressed that “Astiz is a symbol that is so terrible and ill reputed that nobody questions his guilt.”

Carlotta expressed confidence that this unanimity of criteria could lead the government to respond favourable to Italy’s request for extradition.

The former death squad leader is accused in Italy of being responsible for the disappearance of three Italian citizens during the Argentine dictatorship: Angela Aieta in 1976, and Juan and Susana Pegoraro (father and daughter) in 1977.

Susana Pegoraro was pregnant at the time she was kidnapped, and later gave birth to a girl who the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo suspect is Evelyn Vázquez, now a young woman, who refuses to submit to a DNA test to prove her true identity.

Vázquez is demanding, in exchange for undergoing the test, that justice authorities promise the results would not be used as evidence against the man she considers her father, former naval officer Policarpo Vázquez.

He is currently being held on charges for the “illegal appropriation of minors” during the dictatorship, a practice in which pregnant women who were kidnapped by the military regime were killed after they gave birth and their infants given to adoptive families, often families of military officers.

The Italian court case seeking Astiz’s extradition also involves navy captain Jorge Vildoza, currently a fugitive from justice and believed to be hiding in Paraguay.

Argentina’s justice authorities investigated Astiz in the 1980s on charges of serious human rights violations, but the 1987 amnesty law saved him from standing trial alongside nearly a thousand others who were members of the military during the nation’s most recent dictatorship.

But the brutality of his actions has made him a target for legal claims in other countries.

The first was France, which in 1990 tried Astiz in absentia for the 1977 disappearance of two French nuns, Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet.

The former Argentine officer was condemned to life imprisonment – also in absentia – after being found guilty of the kidnapping, torture and assassination of the two nuns, who disappeared along with a group of mothers of other victims of the dictatorship’s illegal repression.

In 1976, Astiz infiltrated the newly created association of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, posing as a relative of a victim in order to study the activities and movements of the human rights group.

Since his sentencing by the Paris court, Astiz has had an international arrest warrant hanging over him. In 1995, then- president Carlos Menem (1989-1999) decreed the early retirement of Astiz, then 42, from the navy as a gesture to appease France, but Menem did not hand over Astiz to French authorities.

After the trial in France, Sweden and Spain issued warrants for Astiz’s arrest.

Swedish justice authorities seek Astiz for the assassination of Dagmar Hagelin, a Swedish citizen who was assassinated in 1977, when she was 17, by a “task force” led by Astiz. The military has acknowledged the incident and said Hagelin was mistaken for another target.

Meanwhile, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón included Astiz in a list of dozens of Argentine military and police officers accused of crimes against humanity perpetrated in the 1970s and early 1980s by the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile.

But Buenos Aires refused to authorise Astiz’s extradition to Spain with the argument that Garzón’s court does not have jurisdiction to conduct trials involving crimes committed outside of that country.

Astiz, who faces heckling every time he appears in public, also has problems with justice authorities at home, despite the protection afforded by the amnesties, known as the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, enacted in 1986 and 1987.

Notably, the amnesty laws did not include the “illicit appropriation of minors”, opening the way for legal actions against former officers of the military regime.

A 1998 interview with ‘Trespuntos’ magazine reporter Gabriela Cerrutti cost Astiz 14 charges of defending criminal acts, punishment for several of those charges, and his official ejection from the navy.

Astiz boasted to Cerrutti that he was “the best trained person in Argentina to assassinate a politician or a journalist,” and said it was the navy that taught him “not to build but rather to destroy,” to plant bombs, infiltrate and kill.

The dismissal from the navy, approved that year by Menem, meant the loss of his military rank, the salary he collected as a retired officer and all other benefits. He spent 60 days behind bars for the defence of criminal acts.

Nevertheless, criminal lawyer Bianchi planted doubts this Monday as to whether Astiz’s separation from the navy was true or not when he said he would agree to defend the former military officer if the navy leadership agreed to finance “at least” his travel costs to fly to Italy to study the case against Astiz.

But human rights lawyer Méndez Carrera explained to IPS that under no circumstances could the navy use public funds for the legal defence of a civilian, which Astiz is now. The attorney said he would immediately denounce any such irregularities arising in the case.