Today an Argentine federal court handed down a verdict over the crimes against humanity committed against nine people at the “Automotores Orletti” clandestine detention center. The four men convicted had never been called to account before in a court of law.
Rolando Oscar Nerone and Oscar Roberto Gutiérrez were sentenced to six years in prison for the kidnapping of Victoria Lucía Grisonas de Julien. They were both acquitted for the murder of Mario Roger Julien Cáceres, a decision that we plan to appeal.
César Alejandro Enciso, meanwhile, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the abductions of Gerardo Francisco Gatti, Julio César Rodríguez Rodríguez, Manuela Santucho, and Cristina Silvia Navaja de Santucho.
The court also sentenced José Néstor Ferrer to 25 years in prison for the murder of Estela María Moya de Gayá and the abductions of Gustavo Adolfo Gayá and Ana María del Carmen Pérez.
Nerone, Gutiérrez and Ferrer were members of the Argentine Federal Police’s Federal Security Superintendence – the first two served in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Ferrer in the General Intelligence Directorate. Enciso was a former agent of the Argentine intelligence agency, known as the SIDE.
More than 300 people were detained in the Automotores Orletti detention center, which functioned in a rented mechanics’ shop in the Floresta neighborhood of Buenos Aires in 1976. The majority of them were kidnapped as part of Operation Condor, a criminal conspiracy to persecute and disappear people across international borders.
In this latest trial, CELS headed the unified legal team representing plaintiffs, along with the Fundación Liga Argentina por los Derechos Humanos and the Equipo Jurídico Kaos.