A 30-year-old woman is suing her adoptive parents for kidnapping in a case that opened in an Argentine court on Tuesday, becoming the first child of disappeared political prisoners to press such charges.
Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragan accused her adoptive parents Osvaldo Rivas and Maria Cristina Gomez Pinto of falsifying adoption documents to hide her identity. She made no comments on leaving court on Tuesday.
Thousands of leftists and dissidents vanished after being abducted by security forces during Argentina's 1976 to 1983 military regime, and human rights groups say more than 200 children were taken and given to military or politically connected families to raise.
Sampallo, who in 2001 learned that she is the daughter of missing political prisoners Mirta Mable Barragan and Leonardo Ruben Sampallo, is one of 88 young people who determined their identity with DNA tests coordinated by the human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Sampallo's mother was six months pregnant when she and her father were abducted on Dec. 6, 1977, said Sampallo's lawyer, Tomas Ojea Quentin.
He said Sampallo was born in February 1978, while her mother was being held at a clandestine torture center.
Ojea Quentin said former army captain Enrich Berthier is facing related baby theft charges in the case. He is being held at a military unit, while Sampallo's adoptive parents are reportedly free.
Lawyers for Berthier and the Gomez Pintos refused comment when they left the courthouse.
The case marks the first time a woman has taken her adoptive parents to court in Argentina. There have been at least three earlier trials involving suspected illegal adoptions dating to the dictatorship that resulted in convictions -- but the plaintiffs were not the adopted children.
Also on Tuesday, a former military officer wanted in connection with the 1972 killings of 16 leftist guerrillas surrendered, hours after returning from the US, government news agency Telam said.
Carlos Marandino is the fourth former naval officer arrested this month on torture and murder charges linked to the "Trelew Massacre" of rebels who fled an Argentine prison, presaging the so-called dirty war.
Marandino walked off a jet at Buenos Aires's Ezeiza Airport and was detained without resistance, Telam reported.
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