An Argentine court on Thursday ordered that six former navy officers accused of torturing and killing dissidents during the 1976-1983 dictatorship be freed on bail, unleashing a storm of condemnation from Argentine President Cristina Kirchner as well as human rights organizations in the country on Thursday.
Justice officials said a total of 12 former military figures must be released from investigatory detention because a deadline had expired beyond which suspects could not be held without a legal judgement.
The attorney-general’s office said it would appeal the decision and the 12 will not be released immediately, awaiting final decision by the judge.
The detainees include Alfredo Astiz, the so-called Angel of Death, accused of kidnapping the French nuns Alice Domon und Leonie Duquet, who disappeared and the founder of the famed human rights group, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. He has been sentenced to life in prison in France inabsentia
Also to be released on bail is Jorge Acosta, , alias “El Tigre,” who was convicted in absentia in Italy for the killings of three Italians during the military crackdown on leftist dissidents that became known as Argentina’s “dirty war.”
“Today is a day of shame for all Argentinians, for humanity and for our system of justice,” Kirchner said.
She made the comments at a ceremony to dedicate a memorial to the killed and disappeared at the site of the once feared Navy Mechanics School, where Astiz and Acosta allegedly orchestrated the torture and death of hundreds of the estimated 5,000 dissidents who passed through its halls.
An estimated 30,000 people were killed during the dictatorship, human rights groups say.
The ruling was a blow to efforts to try suspected human rights abusers, but activists cautioned that it was not a landmark decision since the six former navy officers are still on trial.
“Their crimes are still as atrocious and horrible if they’re sitting at a cafe in Buenos Aires or sitting in jail since they’re being charged with the most serious offenses that took place in the darkest period of recent Argentine history,” said Tamara Taraciuk, Argentina expert for the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Activists said it wasn’t clear when the men would be released since other judges still have to sign off on the paperwork. The men must also post bail, the size of which has yet to be decided, and the conditions of their release also have to be determined.
The judges wrote in the ruling that five of the former officers have been held in pretrial detention since Sept. 16, 2003, and Acosta since Aug. 16, 2001 — well past the three-year legal limit.
Defendants cannot be held awaiting trial “indefinitely” even though the evidence that led to their the detentions is still valid, the judges wrote.
“The law must be respected, even though it can produce results that we don’t agree with,” said Gregorio Badeni, a constitutional law expert in Buenos Aires.
Human rights activists for the most part acknowledged that the trials had extended beyond legal time limits, but said the ruling highlights a slow-moving court system that doesn’t bring the guilty to justice.
“The decision is extremely grave,” said Gaston Chillier, director of the Buenos Aires-based Center for Legal and Social Studies. “It reflects the incapacity and inefficiency of the Argentine justice system to try crimes against humanity in a reasonable time.”
Chillier and other activists point to a judicial system that gives the same priority to crimes committed during Argentina’s military dictatorship as to petty theft, judges swayed by their own political leanings and courts that are understaffed and underfunded.
“These were sinister people,” Chillier said. “They controlled the life and death of people in the most paradigmatic detention center in Argentina and this heightens the sensation of impunity” of the torture and murder that happened 30 years ago.”
At least 14 former state security agents and their civilian allies have been found guilty of human rights crimes. Another 358 are awaiting trial, the Center for Legal and Social Studies said.
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