This blog reports on judicial investigations and trials that are underway for crimes against humanity committed throughout Argentina by the military, police forces and civilians during the last military dictatorship. Our coverage concentrates on the proceedings in which CELS (Centre of Legal and Social Studies) is a participant.

According to the information available to CELS, at the moment a total of 180 sets of criminal proceedings in relation to state terrorism are on foot, in which 829 persons have been declared to be suspects for purposes of pre-trial investigation. Of these, criminal charges have been laid against 320 persons, while 41 are fugitives from justice. The cases of 46 individuals have been declared to lack probable cause; a further 111 suspects are deceased, 5 have been declared unfit to be submitted to trial, and 5 have been convicted.

This blog will provide you with basic information and documentary material regarding the cases that reach the trial stage, as well as the coverage of those hearings in which argument is under way.

This trial investigates the disappearances of about 20 militants from the Montoneros organization who reentered Argentina from exile in 1980 to undertake their “counteroffensive” operation. The criminal prosecution is chiefly oriented at investigating the activities of the intelligence units of the armed forces, particularly of Intelligence Battalion 601.

As part of these proceedings federal judge Claudio Bonadio declared the unconstitutionality of the laws of punto final (full stop) and due obedience (the amnesty laws that protected most perpetrators from prosecution) and transformed the detention of various ex-members of the armed forces and police into imprisonment.

On 10 July proceedings commenced regarding the disappearance of six of the Montonero militants who entered the country in 1979 and 1980. These militants are Julio César Genoud, Verónica María Cabilla, Ángel Carbajal, Lía Mariana Ercilia Guangiroli, Ricardo Marcos Zucker and Silvia Noemí Tolchinsky, of whom the first five continue to be classed as “disappeared” – that is, their bodies have never been located.

The complex criminal proceedings known as “ESMA” (nº 14.217/03) cover the large number of abuses committed in ESMA, the Naval Mechanics School.

As it involves over 5000 victims and at least 100 perpetrators, this matter needs to be tried in a single set of proceedings, noting also that ESMA is one of the clandestine centers in which the extermination plan and perversity of the perpetrators’ behavior is most clearly evidenced. Nevertheless, of all the instances that are being investigated in this matter, there has been a formal indictment made only in relation to five acts that were committed by the prefect of police Héctor Febres, alias "Selva". A date is due to be announced for the commencement of the trial of those charges, which will take place in Tribunal Oral Federal N’ 5 before federal judge Sergio Torres, who is responsible for the matter as a whole.

Currently 117 persons are implicated in this case. Forty of them are being held in pre-trial detention, the majority in military installations. CELS is the party bringing the prosecution (under Argentine law, it is possible for criminal prosecutions to be initiated by a private individual), representing the families of Mónica Mignone, María Marta Vasquez Ocampo, Edith, Abraham, Betina y Sergio Tarnopolsky, Fernando Brodsky, Pablo Lepíscopo, Alcira Hidalgo, Ariel Ferrari, María Mercedes Bogliolo, Gustavo Alberto Grigera, Ernesto Berner and the survivors Marta Alvarez y Graciela García.

The matter known as "Primer Cuerpo", or "First Corps", (Nº 14.216/03), groups together the crimes committed in more than 60 clandestine detention centers within the jurisdiction of the First Corps of the Argentine Army, which covers the Federal Capital and the provinces of La Pampa and Buenos Aires, although excluding offences perpetrated by the police of the latter province.

There are currently 70 persons implicated in this matter, presided over by judge Daniel Rafecas. Indictments have already been made in relation to a number of incidents, including those for which Héctor Gamen, Pedro Alberto Duran Saenz, Alberto Pedro Barda, Hipólito Rafael Mariani and César Miguel Comes have been committed to trial. The same stage has been reached regarding those acts that Jorge Olivera Rovere was responsible for as Second-in-Command of the First Corps and Chief of the Federal Capital Subzone from 6 February 1976 until 30 December of the same year. Both sets of charges are awaiting the designation of the dates for the hearings, which will take place in Federal Oral Tribunal Nº 5.

Among the persons charged in these proceedings, 40 have been indicted, with more than half of them being held in pre-trial imprisonment, the majority in ordinary jails.

CELS is acting as the party bringing the prosecution, as well as representing the families of Alejandra and Carmen Lapacó, Graciela Mellibovsky, Alicia Raquel D'Ambra, Lucía Cullen, Roberto Cristina, Abel H. Mateu Gallardo, Zelmar Michelini, Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, María Teresa Trotta and Roberto Castelli, Irene I.Bellocchio and Rolando V. Pisoni, Ricardo Alejandro Aragón Tobar, Laura Feldman, Norberto Berner, Marío A. Lemos, Tomás Quinteros, Juan Patricio Maroni, Roberto Carri and Ana María Carusso, Virginia Isabel Cazalas, Carlos Alberto Giglio and Eduardo J. Cazalas.

This case (Nº 13.445/99) investigates Plan Condor, famed as the plan for coordinating the repression of the armed forces of Argentina, Brasil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

On 3 September 2004 judge Jorge Urso indicted 18 former military personnel, among them Carlos Suárez Mason, Cristino Nicolaides, Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, Albano Harguindeguy, Antonio Domingo Bussi, Santiago Omar Riveros, Jorge Olivera Rovere, Bernardo Menéndez, Hugo Pascarelli, Eugenio Perelló, Ernesto Alais, Antonio Vañek, Carlos Landoni, Juan Pablo Saa, Ramón Genaro Díaz Bessone, Héctor Flores, Carlos Tragant y Eduardo De Lío, while Jorge Rafael Videla had already been indicted in these proceedings. The trial stage is due to commence soon.

In this matter CELS represents the family members of Norberto Habegger, Horacio Domingo Campiglia,Mónica Susana Pinus de Binstock, Bernardo Arnone, María Emilia Islas Gatti de Zaffaroni and Juan Pablo Recagno Ibarburu.

CELS is participating in certain cases concerning acts committed in other parts of Argentina, outside of the city and province of Buenos Aires. As part of this line of work it supported and accompanied the action alleging the unconstitutionality of the laws of impunity that was litigated by SERPAJ (Service of Peace and Justice), an NGO in Cordoba.  Those proceedings, which are presided over by federal judge Cristina Garzón de Lascano, investigated acts committed by the Third Corps of the Argentine Army.  
 
Similarly, CELS intervened as complainant (in Argentina criminal actions can be initiated by private groups or individuals as well as by state prosecutors) in the case investigating the Massacre of Margarita Belén. That incident involved the shooting of a group of prisoners being held in the police headquarters in Resistencia, in the province of Chaco, by personnel who answered operationally to the Seventh Infantry Brigade, commanded by Cristino Nicolaides. The prisoners were brutally tortured before being executed. At present ten persons have been indicted and are in pre-trial detention, while another is a fugitive. They form part of a list of over 30 persons –including civilians, military personnel and police – who have been formally reported by CELS as being responsible for crimes of aggravated illegitimate deprivation of liberty, forced disappearance, murder and torture. Judge Carlos Rubén Skidelsky, of the Federal Court in Resistancia, is presiding over the case.

Since 2005 CELS has been representing the families of Humberto Toschi, Rubén Bonet, Eduardo Cappello, Alberto Carlos del Rey, Susana Graciela Lesgart and Miguel Ángel Pólit, all victims of the massacre of Trelew. This atrocity occurred in the city of Trelew on 22 August 1972, when the political authorities of the de facto government ordered the execution of 16 prisoners. The proceedings are taking place in the Federal Court in Rawson before federal judge Hugo Sastre.