Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Federal Court of San Martín began the trial of Argentine military general Santiago Omar Riveros and three others yesterday, where they face charges of crimes against humanity committed during the last dictatorship.

The four defendants will be investigated for their involvement in the military dictatorship in the jurisdiction of Campo de Mayo, located in the province of Buenos Aires.

As well as the former military general Riveros, Sergio Buitrago, Servando Ortega, and Juan Fernando Meneghini will be tried for the crimes committed against 29 victims during Argentina’s civil-military dictatorship. The trial will investigate the terrorist state repression in the area of Zárate-Campana, northeast of the province of Buenos Aires, and the alleged participants, sailor Buitrago, prefect Ortega, and Buenos Aires policeman Meneghini.

The victims were kidnapped and taken to various clandestine centres in the area, before some were transferred to recognised prisons. Others died while in custody or were disappeared. The 29 victims were mostly kidnapped between 24th March and the end of April 1976.

Riveros and Meneghini have already been convicted in previous trials, while Buitrago and Ortega arrived yesterday for their first trial for crimes against humanity.

However, this trial has received criticism. Lawyer Pablo Llonto, representing five of the victims, said: “A feature of this case is that there are only four defendants. This adds to the fragmentation of the trial and of justice. He continued by stating that in this region there were more than 200 victims, that all cases should have been investigated “in one trial, with more than 100 defendants”, and that “this trial should have been done in Zárate-Campana, something that the Court did not accept.”

City legislators today approved the renaming of the Entre Ríos subte station, in tribute to Argentine writer and journalist Rodolfo Walsh who was killed during the last dictatorship.

Activists put a Rodolfo Walsh sign over the Entre Rios subte stop sign (Photo courtesy of Secretaría De Ddhh Subte)

The approval of the initiative means the E line station will now be known as Entre Ríos-Rodolfo Walsh, in time for the upcoming anniversary of his death. Walsh was killed on 25th March 1977 on the corner of the station after publishing an open letter against the military junta.

Entitled ‘Carta Abierta de un Escritor a la Junta Militar’, the letter was written the day before Walsh’s murder and he wrote about how the country’s economic policies were having a much graver effect on Argentines than the human rights abuses they were subjected to.

The subte station renaming was initiated by city legislator Gabriela Cerruti, who said during the announcement that, “Walsh is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers that Argentine literature has given us, and his dual role as an activist and journalist left us all an important legacy.” She added that, “he was a symbol of resistance as he was not silent in a time when many were silent. He is a symbol of the people who opened the windows at that time for enter some light.”

This past June, employees of the Association of Subte and Premetro Workers (AGTSyP) symbolically renamed the station as ‘Rodolfo Walsh’.

Walsh was kidnapped on 25th March 1977 in broad daylight between the streets of Entre Ríos and San Juan in Buenos Aires. According to various testimonies of survivors, Walsh was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered at the Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA), the main detention and torture centre during the dictatorship.

Tribunal Federal (Photo: Facundo A. Fernández on Flickr)

Judge Pedro Federico Hooft has been suspended of his duties and will begin trial after being indicted for crimes against humanity during the last military dictatorship in the region of Mar del Plata.

The suspension was voted unanimously this afternoon amongst a board of judges and government officials after allegations of his involvement in crimes against humanity were brought to light once again.

Hooft will now appear before the federal courts, where he faces accusations of having visited clandestine detention centers that operated during the dictatorship and having knowledge about the individuals held there. In addition, Hooft has been accused of having a direct relationship with the former heads of the Military Sub-Zone number 15 in Mar del Plata.

The case against Hooft began in 2006 when he was accused of being part of the “functional inner workings, a necessary participant in the crimes against humanity” committed in the coastal city during the military dictatorship. The National Ministry of Justice and Human Rights demanded the suspension of Hooft seven years ago.

Hooft will now stand before the federal courts of Mar del Plata, his hometown, on 13th March, and make an official statement regarding the crimes of which he has been implicated.

Today, the highest criminal court in the country gave former policeman and two-time Escobar mayor Luis Abelardo Patti and dictator Reynaldo Bignone life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for human rights violations committed during the last dictatorship. The second chamber of the Federal Penal Court of Appeals upheld last year’s guilty ruling.

Patti’s case chiefly concerned his role as “primary participant” in the kidnapping and assassination of former national judicialist legislator Diego Muñiz Barreto and activist Gastón Goncalvez. Patti also found guilty for the disappearance of brothers Luis and Guillermo D’Amico, two young activists from Escobar whose remains are still missing. Patti performed the assassinations while serving as Escobar sub-inspector, a post he held from 4^th January 1972 to 7^th March 1977.

Muñiz Barreto was detained in a butcher shop in Escobar on 16^th February 1977. According to prosecution statements, “[Patti] made them go to the branch using the vehicle marched Fial 128”, which Muñiz Barreto was using, which stayed for weeks at the door of the police office where they were kidnapped together until being brought first to Tigre and from there to the secret detention centre that operated in the Campo de Mayo, where their assassinations were executed.” Muñiz Barreto perished in a simulated accident in Entre Ríos. Goncalvez was shot in the head along with three other victims in an assassination location known as “The Hunter”, by the Luján River. His recovered body remained unidentified for 20 years in the local cemetery until finally identified by a forensic team.

Patti went on to become a two-time Escobar mayor, Province of Buenos Aires police sub-commissioner, and the founder of Federalist Union Party (PAUFE). Although elected as a national deputy in 2005, the discovery of Goncalvez’s remains and subsequent accusations prevented Patti from taking office.

Also convicted to life sentences were former de-facto president Reynaldo Bignone and former military intelligence agent Martín Rodríguez.

This morning at 9am, a teleconference was held with Carlos Pedro Blaquier, president of the Argentine agrobusiness company Ledesma, for a case that is being overseen by federal judge Fernando Poviña.

Blaquier is being investigated in connection to the disappearance of persons in the Jujuy province the 1970s. The president of the sugar company has not yet been formally investigated due to illness and absence from the country. His personal doctor, Pablo Gutierrez, has signed two certified documents with the date 12^th April 2012, saying that Blaquier was “suffering a heart condition.”

The teleconference was held between the judge in Jujuy, the prosecutors, and Blaquier. The judge ordered Blaquier, who is currently in Buenos Aires, to take part in the teleconference due to his refusal to attend a face-to-face meeting. Two appointments had been set up previously, but Blaquier missed one of them citing health reasons, and the second one had to be cancelled due to disturbances outside the courthouse.

Several human rights organisations and unions gathered outside the Magistrate Council, where Blaquier declared.

A human rights organisation who works on behalf of people who disappeared or were detained during the last military dictatorship in Jujuy, expressed their frustration and claimed they have “waited patiently for the court’s decision” yet feel that there has been no response “to the demands of Jujuy’s society,” in accordance with “the magnitude” of Blaquier’s charge.

The former administrator of Ledesma, Alberto Lemos, has also been accused in the case of Jujuy’s disappeared persons. He was presented in court on Thursday with charges of “knowing and repeating lies” that helped the sugar company in the last dictatorship.

Both Blaquier and Lemos have been inferred for “La Noche de Apagón”, which occurred the 20^th July, 1976, when 400 workers of the company were kidnapped and over 30 of them were disappeared.

Proceedings opened this morning in the Federal Oral Tribunal against officials of the former dictatorship charged in Jujuy with the disappearance of 43 people. The tribunal marks the first public and oral trial of officials charged with Crimes Against Humanity in the northern province.

The accused are Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, Antonio Orlando Vargas, José Eduardo Bulgheroni, and Mariano Rafael Braga. The four are charged with unlawful entry, illegal deprivation of liberty and homicide in connection with the 43 disappearances.

Nearly 200 witnesses are expected to testify during the proceedings, and it is estimated that the first trial will take about four months.

Menéndez, who was the director of the Third Army Corps, is the principal accused. He has already received seven life sentences, and has been excused from appearing in court for medical reasons.

Vargas, Bulgheroni and Braga were present today in court.

Vargas, the former director of Penitentiary Service, is now 71 years old and fell ill while the judge was reading the summons. He was examined by a doctor and moved to a private clinic, where he was placed in a room with video conferencing so that he could follow the proceedings.

Bulgheroni and Barga, both former army intelligence officials and both 61, were present throughout today’s proceedings.

The trial unites five cases under Crimes Against Humanity. Four of the cases include multiple victims. According to Prosecutor Pablo Pelazzo, the five cases are related to the disappearances of: Julio Álvarez García; Luis Ramón Aredez with five other victims; Paulino Galéan with the victims of Tumbaya and San Salvador de Jujuy; Reynaldo Aragón and the victims of San Pedro held in the Villa Gorriti prison; and Avelino Bazán and the Mina El Aquilar case.

Julio Ronaldo Álvarez García, the only victim whose case will be tried individually, was a student and the leader of the Peronist University Youth (JUP). His case will be the first to be tried.

Another of the victims, Luis Ramón Aredez, was a radical leader, pediatrician and the former mayor of the city of Libertador General San Martín.

Libertador General San Martín is also the home city of Ledsema, the company accused of complying with the 1976 “Blackout Night” when electricity was cut in the city and an estimated 400 people were kidnapped. Charges are pending in San Salvador in Jujuy against Ledesma owner Carlos Pedro Blaquier in connection to these crimes. Among the 43 victims, many were employees of Ledesma.

The judges overseeing the Federal Oral Tribunal are René Vicente Casas Gamboni, Mario Juárez Almarez and Daniel Morín.

Over 150 family members of the disappeared, civil society actors and government officials filled the courtroom this morning. Outside of the courthouse, members of civil society groups and human rights organizations gathered throughout the day.

The preparations necessary to begin today’s proceedings accelerated after resignation of former Judge Carlos Olivera Pastor in March. Prominent human rights organizations had accused the judge of blocking trials of Crimes Against Humanity from moving forward. The judge’s resignation followed a demonstration by many of these civil society groups, including the Madres y Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos and H.I.J.O.S.

For 36 years, the body of a man – that washed on shore in Uruguay along with six others – has lain in a grave, marked ‘NN’ for unknown name.

Yesterday, at a press conference, Hilda Victoria Montenegro – flanked by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team – announced that the remains were those of her father, Roque Orlando Montenegro.

“It’s miraculous,” she said, according to reports from Univision.

Victoria, along with her parents, disappeared in February 1976 during the final months of Isabel Perón’s government. Evidence shows that after the military coup on 24th March 1976, Roque Montenegro was thrown into the Río de la Plata during a ‘death flight,’ a method of disappearance used by the last dictatorship where victims were drugged and thrown from planes to drown. Her mother, Hilda Ramona Torres, has never been found.

Victoria was taken and raised by Colonel Hernán Antonio Tetzlaff and his wife. She did not know her true identity until 2000.

“The only truth is that the research provided by the forensic anthropology team confirmed that they were kidnapped for several months and my dad was a victim of the death flights,” Victoria said, according to Univision.

Página12 reported that the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo’s president Estela de Carlotto said this was a “step in the progress toward truth.”

“It’s one more step in the fight, because those who still disbelieve start believing that the disappearances, appropriations and deaths during the dictatorship happened, and that they themselves are part of this story, that they can write pages of what has not been said,” she said to the newspaper.

According to estimates from human rights organisations, about 30,000 people disappeared and 500 children were stolen during the last dictatorship.