Next Tuesday the third trial begins for crimes against humanity committed at Automotores Orletti, the clandestine detention center that operated in an old mechanic shop in Floresta. Between May and November 1976, more than 300 people were the victims of a variety of crimes there. The site was under the authority of the Secretariat of State Intelligence (SIDE), in coordination with the Argentine and Uruguayan Armies, to concentrate all abductions under Operation Condor there.
The trial slated for Federal Court No. 1 will address two tracks of the investigation. In Automotores Orletti III, former police commissioner Rolando Oscar Nerone and deputy commissioner Oscar Roberto Gutiérrez are indicted as members of the Department of Foreign Affairs under the Federal Police Superintendency of Security. They must answer for the homicide of Mario Roger Julien Cáceres and the kidnapping of Victoria Lucía Grisonas de Julien. Mario and Victoria were married and had two children, Anatole and Victoria, who were abducted with them from their home in the province of Buenos Aires. Victoria and the children were taken to Orletti. The children were later abandoned in a town square in Valparaíso, Chile and adopted by a couple who were unaware of their origins. Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo located them in August 1979 when Anatole was nearly 7 years old and Victoria 4.
José Néstor Ferrer, who worked for the General Intelligence Office of the Federal Police Superintendency of Security, is under indictment for the homicide of Estela María Moya de Gayá and the kidnappings of Gustavo Gayá, an activist in the Workers Revolutionary Party, and Ana María del Carmen Pérez, Gustavo’s sister-in-law, who was seven months pregnant. After a raid on their home in the neighborhood of Chacarita on September 14, 1976, Gustavo and Ana María were taken to Orletti.
In Automotores Orletti IV, former SIDE agent César Alejandro “Pino” Enciso will be tried. He is indicted for the abductions of union leader Gerardo Francisco Gatti and Julio César Rodríguez, both Uruguayan, and Manuela Santucho and her sister-in-law Cristina Silvia Navaja de Santucho, who were taken on July 13, 1976 from an apartment on Warnes street. Cristina was pregnant when she was abducted.
As a human rights organization, CELS forms part of the unified legal team representing plaintiffs, along with the Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos and the Equipo Jurídico Kaos.
First hearing: Tues., October 4 at 10 a.m. Courthouse on Av. Comodoro Py 2002.