Legal Context
laws of the first president of the current democratic period, Raul Alfonsin, endpoint and obedience that protected the criminals of the military dictatorship were canceled by Congress in September 2003, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in June 2005.
But the total of those responsible for disappearances in approximately 340 clandestine centers (since members of the "task groups" to arrest and detain persons responsible to the maintenance of "picana [gegene in Algeria or variable electric generator to transmit shocks to the body ] and évacueurs corpses there were approximately 2,500) a few hundred are indicted.
J. Felix Crous, head of the Support Unit to judgments on the state terrorism of the "Procuración," La Plata, capital of the province of Buenos Aires, said: I ask: why the courts in La Plata oral judgments are not those of the capital? [...] The law is dramatically fertile guarantee anything when it comes to social sector and lead to sterile results when it concerns another social sector. The Armed Forces are still among the power structures of this country. And the judiciary as well. [...] The day we condemned a sailor, or a member of a body other than the infantry, we'll probably move on. ( Página 12, 01/07/2007 )
His colleague Federal Judge Carlos Rozanski La Plata said " We can not spend 40 or 50 years to make these judgments " (interview with the presenter and political annals Eduardo Aliverti). He developed a plan presented in several departments: The political decision is that if the project will use there must have the means to carry it out, because it means people who work, workplace computers, all that is necessary for that to happen more or less [...] If the resources are there, I would say that in four years all the judgments must be finished. ( Página 12, 05/03/2008 .)
An example of the complex situation described by Justice Felix Crous is the case of General Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, head of the III Corps. In July 2008 a decision of the Federal Oral Court No. 1 of Córdoba was sentenced to life in prison law, but there was a series of comings and goings between the return to house arrest ( June 2009) and prison law. And the situation has not changed with another life sentence in August 2008 by a court of Tucumán.
Long before there was an incredible initiative: April 21, 1998 the Federal Chamber of La Plata has agreed to open the Judgement for Truth, a trial court without criminal consequences. " The idea was to create a forum for public opinion in La Plata, which used to shake, refresh this terrible past of the city and who can afford to put off the fear remained embedded in the era of the dictatorship, which here, "it seems, was that of Camps [a genocide]," says the judge of the Federal House Leopoldo Schiffrin . This work has been resumed by the judge Felix Crous, sent to La Plata by the "Procuración" General's Office in 2002, specifically to investigate state terrorism. The magistrate took the denunciations made to the Judgement for Truth, and scored in the criminal courts. [ The Pulseada , No. 37, March 2008).
Leopoldo Schiffrin, says A single case of torture or an isolated case of forced disappearance of persons even in the best system of rule of law are crimes against humanity if they are committed as part of the state apparatus or quasi-state. It is for this reason that I disagree with the decisions of the Court in the case René Jesús Derecho, dated July 11, 2007, which decided only one case of torture committed by a member of the Federal Police on a person detained in a local body that does not constitute a crime against humanity. ( Página 12, 10/13/2008)
Daniel Rafecas, a federal judge in charge of the national court of criminal cases and federal correctional No. 3, is one that has given impetus to the launch of judgments against responsible the I Corps and especially the Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF2) which allows some visibility to citizens. Quite the opposite of TOF5 that prevents any action and sign politicized.
Opening
Ambassador of France and his first secretary came to the opening of the trial (through the tireless work of counsel for the missing French Horacio Méndez Carreras) show their support for María Esther Tello mother of two Franco-Argentine missing a part of the accused. It was very important, because there was a cordial dialogue and the affirmation that it is a decisive step for justice Argentine and French.
is an attitude of respect for the personality of these two missing Franco-Argentine regardless of their involvement in Libertaria Resistencia; that no body will recognize similar in France and only a few individuals in Argentina, as if silence and the shame of the era of military dictatorship prevailed even among libertarians of the Rio de la Plata.
is also a clear warning to judges that there is an international monitoring, which has occurred for any other previous ruling. It is thus likely that the gesture be seen in the complex system of trade with France of Argentine government (Ambassador was accompanied by any member of the Foreign Affairs or the Department of Human Rights, nor the Department of Justice and Human Rights rights of the Nation).
The apparent calm of the two Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the sentence and simultaneously retaining the stupor of being reached this stage after 33 years of struggle, waiting, hope, doubt and despair, which were present from 13 h 30 to 19 h, and María Esther Espen Elia Tello contrasted with periods explosions of grief and rage of some young son missing, or not members of HIJOS [children for identification and justice, against oblivion]. Other mothers were there at the beginning.
The accuracy of the charge has been remarkable on multiple roles charged in kidnapping, interrogation, torture or surveillance of prisoners. The charge is based on concealment of identity of genocide, illegal deprivation of liberty, torture and enforced participation in a planned system of repression.
Paradox situation: the support of family members of repressors (situated in a forum armored glass), for example a smile Raúl Guglielminetti, genocidal former bodyguard of President Raul Alfonsin. Family members of missing and part of the public (in the same room as the judges and the accused, but separated by a glass wall shielded, showed pictures of missing the repressor for the two exposures or waved their handles together, signal repressors that are now held.
The awkwardness of the defense lawyers was a disaster, when they talked to attack "the integrity of the charged" as understood because they had lunched too fast!
A lawyer for the prosecution presented two requests: that the plaintiffs could attend the meetings as 33 years after the fact with the physical changes of the repressor, identification is almost impossible, that list is given of Visitors defendants to prevent another case Héctor Febres [naval officer who began to denounce his comrades who died suddenly in December 2007 in prison in a police building of the Navy]. L'imprecision
répétée des juges était fort visible, mais ils le lendemain les deux demandes acceptèrent.
Frank Mintz, 27 novembre 2009.
