A former dictatorship-era official considered a brutal torturer by human rights groups has made a surprise return to Paraguay, where he faces six pending trials for the disappearance and killings of government opponents in the 1970s and 1980s.
Sabino Montanaro, who served as interior minister under dictator Alfredo Stroessner, arrived in Asuncion early on Friday after nearly two decades of self-imposed exile in Honduras, his lawyer said.
Attorney Luis Troche did not explain why Montanaro decided to return but painted a picture of an ailing, aged man coming back to his native land.
Montanaro, 86, has a fractured hip, Parkinson’s disease, a form of pneumonia and arteriosclerosis, Troche said on Monday.
Officials said Montanaro was being treated in a police hospital, but it was not clear whether he had been taken into custody.
Montanaro was interior minister for two decades under Stroessner.
Human rights groups say the dictatorship was part of a regional network of right-wing military governments that abducted, tortured and “disappeared” thousands of suspected leftist dissidents during the so-called Dirty War.
Paraguayan human rights activist Luis Alfonso Resck called Montanaro “a brutal torturer.”
When a military coup toppled the dictatorship in 1989, Montanaro sought refuge in the Honduran consulate in Asuncion. Days later he arrived in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, where he lived until last week.
His unexpected return could give Paraguay the chance to move forward with the pending prosecutions.
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