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Rome cracks down on Dirty War suspects

Italian police made one arrest on Monday as prosecutors issued warrants for 140 former South American leaders and officials accused of being behind a regionwide crackdown on dissent in the 1970s and 1980s, news reports said.

Police in the southern city of Salerno arrested Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, a former naval intelligence officer in Uruguay, as part of an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Italian and non-Italian opponents of South America's military dictatorships, the news agencies ANSA and Apcom reported.

Prosecutors in Rome issued warrants for the arrests of 140 officials who worked for the military dictatorships or the secret services of Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, Apcom reported.

The suspects are under investigation for murder and kidnapping and include Argentina's former junta leader Jorge Videla and Uruguay's former dictator Juan Bordaberry, ANSA said.

Phone calls to the offices of Rome prosecutors were not answered on Monday evening, and police in Salerno could not confirm the reports.

Under Operation Condor, the military governments of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay exchanged information that led to the kidnappings and killings of thousands of dissidents, prosecutors said.

It is not the first time Italy has gone after those believed to be responsible for the so-called Dirty War. In March, an Italian court gave life sentences to five former members of Argentina's military tried in absentia for murdering three Italians in the 1970s.

Several of those being sought are already facing prosecution at home for human rights abuses, including Videla and Bordaberry, who seized control of Uruguay with military backing during a 1973 coup.

Bordaberry was detained late last year and faces 14 homicide charges related to Dirty War killings of the 1970s. He is under house arrest owing to health problems.

Uruguayan prosecutor Mirtha Guianza told local radio, El Espectador, she would discuss the Italian request later this week with the judge, who is handling several cases against former officers suspected of human rights abuses.

Guianza noted that Troccoli apparently has Italian citizenship and could thus be tried in Italy under existing treaties, although she did not rule out a possible extradition request.

Videla is also under house arrest in Buenos Aires, while he is prosecuted on a range of human rights charges and has numerous pending extradition requests from European nations.

Argentine authorities have generally opposed granting such requests, saying prosecution at home takes precedence in cases of suspected crimes committed on Argentine soil.

Others named by news agencies as wanted in Italy are Argentine Navy chief Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, who was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to life, and Navy officer Juan Carlos Larcebeau.

They also said former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was under investigation until his death last year.

Other European governments have attempted to try Dirty War suspects for alleged crimes committed in South America -- including Pinochet, who was arrested in London in 1998 on a warrant issued by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon. Pinochet was later ruled too frail to stand trial and allowed to return home.

Garzon also indicted Argentine junta-era officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, who was extradited from Mexico City to Madrid in 2003 and faces genocide, terrorism and other charges.

In 1990, a French court sentenced former Argentine naval Captain Alfredo Astiz in absentia to life in prison for the abduction of two French nuns who were taken to a clandestine torture center in Buenos Aires and later disappeared.
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