Spain extradites 'Dirty War' officer to Argentina

[AlphaCentauri]

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) — A former Argentine navy officer accused of human rights abuses during the country's "Dirty War" arrived here Monday extradited from Spain, and was arraigned on several charges including murder and torture.

Ricardo Cavallo, 56, alias "Serpico" and "Marcelo," is accused of being involved in the disappearance of many of the 5,000 people who were detained in the notorious Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

More than 5,000 of the roughly 30,000 people who disappeared under the dictatorship passed through this detention center.

Cavallo faces charges of murder, illegal detention, torture, extortion, theft and falsifying documents, for which if found guilty he could be given a life sentence.

Handcuffed and wearing a bulletproof vest, Cavallo arrived under heavy police guard by Interpol officials at Ezeiza airport, south of Buenos Aires.

He was taken away in a car amid intense security to a courthouse in Buenos Aires where, in the presence of his lawyer Alfredo Solary, he was arraigned before judge Sergio Torres.

After hearing the charges, Cavallo declined to respond to the questions the judge and prosecutor Eduardo Taiano were planning to pose, a court official said.

Afterward, the judge ordered the suspect removed to the Marcos Paz prison in Buenos Aires province, where other military and police officials accused of human rights violations are also held, the official added.

Among other charges, Cavallo is accused of involvement in the deaths of journalist Rodolfo Walsh and of Azucena Villaflor, the founder of the rights group the Mothers of the Plaza of May.

He was originally arrested in Mexico in 2000 on a warrant by Spain's anti-terrorist judge Baltazar Garzon under the principle of "universal jurisdiction" in international law.

In 2003 Mexico extradited him to Spain, which accuses him of having participated in 227 disappearances, 10 kidnappings, 152 acts of bodily harm and 407 terrorist acts. Spanish prosecutores were asking he be sentenced to 13,000-17,000 years in jail.

But Argentina in 2006 asked for his extradition, and Spain agreed in February.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jE6HxTOTgWjYbh_3qdxf1NDLA08g

[Judi Lynn]

1. Spain did have a tremendous solution: a sentence from 13,000 to 17,000 years.

Who knows if someone this monstrous could even be straightened out in that time frame?

Look at the photo with the article of a few of his victims: young people, in general. All those bright young faces were forced to look at this scum as he tortured them beyond endurance. What a world, eh?

And to think the fascist right-wingers throughout South America are being rallied to try to get up a full head of steam again. They are being coached by _Bush's Roger Noriega, of the State Department, Western Hemisphere affairs, who attended their "fascist orgy" currently in Buenos Aires, posted by DU'er "magbana" in the Latin America forum.

Here's a description of the "Mothers of the Plaza of May," the organization from which the founder, Azucena Villaflor was taken and tortured and murdered:

In Argentina, absent support by the Church, another group arose that became world renowned as a grass roots local organization with a most obvious reason for being so determined in their fight. The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo organization was founded in 1976 by Azucena Villaflor Vicenti, a woman who eventually disappeared herself. The women in this group were mothers of disappeared individuals, and they refused to sit quietly after their children had been kidnapped. These women, dressed in black, still march around the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires at 3:30 every week, on Thursdays. They wear white bandanas each day with the names of their lost sons and daughters on them, showing a unity and a devotion that became the image of the Argentine disappeared. Throughout this struggle for truth and justice in Argentina, the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo were subjected to constant threats, harassment, and even disappearance and death on account of their powerful protests against the repressive government. The “Nunca Más” report by Argentina’s commission on disappeared people would later praise this organization by reporting, “ En los momentos mas negros de la dictadura-en portavoces de la conciencia cívica de la Nación.”19 {In the blackest moments of the dictatorship, they became the civic conscience of the nation} These women, along with the connected Association for the Abuelas (Grandmothers) of the Plaza de Mayo, became a major factor in revealing the missing children who were taken from their mothers and given to unlawful parents, usually Army officials and their wives. With the National Genetic Data Bank and the National Commission for the right to Identity that was founded in 1992, the Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo have been able to prove that the biological parents of many children were not the ones that they believed were their parents.

While these findings provided breakthrough proof of the horrible kidnappings and murders that took place, the psychological effects on these “misplaced” children continue to be damaging. Thus the painful recovery of the truth continues through the dedicated work of many local organizations. The search remains an issue today, even though the military has criticized many of the findings. America’s Watch notes, “The Argentine human rights movement had been highly successful in keeping the question of the fate of the disappeared in the courts, in the press, and on the streets.”20 While the movement lacked the sheer number of groups that surfaced in Chile, the fact that coverage by the press kept the issues alive, and extensive public and private court hearings were held, made the Argentinean search for truth more transparent. Overall, the human rights movement that began around this issue of the “disappeared” became a primary reason why Argentina was able to recover from such violations of human dignity. While the Church remained passive and weak, other groups, such as the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, were able to collect enough testimony from survivors so that eventually some trials could be successful. A commission alone could never have done its work without the perseverance of these groups, most of which still persist in their work to this day. Furthermore, these local groups in Argentina truly contributed to launching the global human rights movement that continues to grow today.

www1.georgetown.edu/departments/justice_peace/resources/theses/theses2003/14321.html -