Argentine Judge Orders Arrest of Spanish Ex-Officials
|
Version 0 of 1. BUENOS AIRES — A judge in Argentina has ordered the arrest of 20 former Spanish officials accused of torturing dissidents during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, from 1939 to 1975, renewing efforts to pursue cases of human rights abuses beyond the country’s borders. The judge, María Romilda Servini de Cubría, said in her ruling late Friday night that she was invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction for human rights issues against the Spaniards, who include the former cabinet ministers José Utrera Molina, 88, and Rodolfo Martín Villa, 80. The principle permits courts to investigate accusations of human rights abuses in foreign countries. A Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, used the principle to indict an Argentine Navy captain who is now serving a prison sentence in Spain after he was convicted of human rights abuses in 2005. In the 1990s, Judge Garzón also tried to prosecute Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. Judge Servini de Cubría is seeking the former officials’ extradition to Argentina so she can question them about accusations of human rights abuses. Spaniards who claim they were victims of torture are seeking justice here because they were blocked by a 1977 amnesty law passed in Spain as a way to smooth the country’s return to democracy. They filed a lawsuit in Buenos Aires in 2010. A decade ago, Argentina overturned similar amnesty laws that protected military officials who oversaw a “dirty war” against guerrillas and people associated with leftist ideology during the country’s 1976-83 dictatorship. About 30,000 people were kidnapped and murdered. Judges here subsequently moved to prosecute officials accused of human rights violations, even expediting some cases, and there have been more than 400 convictions. The trials are continuing. Human rights organizations have also been able to locate people who were born in the military’s torture centers, then taken from their mothers and reared by the families of government and military officials. An association in Spain that has pushed the plaintiffs’ case said Judge Servini de Cubría’s ruling represented “significant progress” in their fight for justice. “We celebrate Argentina’s justice system acting on behalf of the victims of the Franco dictatorship,” it said in a statement. Judge Servini de Cubría has been working on the case since 2010, and she traveled to Spain in June to gather evidence and testimony from some of the roughly 150 plaintiffs. She issued her first arrest warrants against a handful of Spanish former police officials last year. But two of the men are dead, and the courts in Spain refused to extradite the other two. Mr. Utrera Molina, who was a housing minister under Franco and then secretary general of his party in 1974 and 1975, is accused of signing the death sentence of Salvador Puig Antich, an anarchist who was executed in 1974 with a garrote. Mr. Martín Villa, who was labor minister between 1975 and 1976, is accused of being responsible for the police repression of a workers’ protest in March 1976, which led to the deaths of five people. Victims and their families came here last year, holding meetings with politicians and giving evidence to Judge Servini de Cubría. After pleading with her to investigate the role of Mr. Utrera Molina in her brother’s death, Merçona Puig Antich said: “I’ve asked her for justice so that we can talk about these things in our country and close this chapter in a healthy way, because right now that’s not the case.” |