18 defendants are tried for the crimes against 299 victims of clandestine detention centers in La Plata

For the first time, crimes against kidnapped persons will be addressed in court in the Infantry and Cavalry Corps of the Buenos Aires Police and in the 8th Police Station of La PLAta. The first of them was activated from the first hours of the coup. At the police station, the release of prisoners who were missing was prepared.

Son eighteen defendants for the operation of two clandestine detention centerstorture and extermination (CCDTYE) and the crimes perpetrated cin 299 victims During the era of state terrorism. The trial began today before the Federal Criminal Oral Court No. 1 of La Plata.

The clandestine detention centers will operate in the facilities of the Infantry and Cavalry Corps of the Buenos Aires Police in La Plata, located in buildings located at the intersection of avenues 1 and 60, and in the 8th Police Station of that city, on the corner from 7 and 74.

infantry and cavalry

In the police forces located at 1 and 60 of the Buenos Aires capital, clandestine detention activities were activated from the moment the Armed Forces seized power in the early morning of March 24, 1976.

The survivors of those detention, torture and disappearance centers will tell that the victims were confined in sheds. There they ended up, for the most part, workers and union delegates from companies in the area.

is the former Intelligence Directorate of the Buenos Aires Police (DIPBA) Documents on the victims were found made by police personnel. Given this, Room III of the Federal Chamber of La Plata described: “The files made, in which in some cases the fingerprints of the detainee appeared, made it possible to reliably determine his identity and his background -particularly, those linked to his political and trade union activity-. turn, Through interrogations -carried out in the form of a spontaneous statement- those responsible for the captivity delved into the training of the victim, in his union and political activity within the place where he worked and, especially, they sought to identify other people who met the profile that the leadership of the National Executive Power had outlined”.

The eighth Commissioner

At the eighth police station in La Plata, detainees arrived from clandestine detention centers and there they were “laundered” and placed at the disposal of the National Executive Power to refer them to prison units or release them.

“In that context the detainees were noted in the books of the Police Station that were also used to record common detainees that were at the disposal of judges in the framework of judicial cases”, said the prosecutor’s office in the request for trial that counted 106 cases of people who passed through there.

Missing and survivors

Most of the kidnapped people who passed through the two clandestine detention centers survived, but were missing Ana Teresa Diego, María del Rosario Portela, Gladis Mabel Amuchástegui, Mario Salerno, Jesús María Plaza and Edgardo José Cardinali, Elena Arce, Nora Formiga and Margarita Delgado, Jorge Caravelos, Lucía Mirta Swica, Hector Baratti, Humberto Fraccaroli, Eduardo Bonin and Ramón cascallares.

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The judicial debate and the defendants

The trial is in charge of the acting judge Karina Mabel Yabor (president) and the also surrogates Andrés Fabián Basso and Ricardo Basílico (acting as fourth magistrate or substitute judge for Silvina Mayorga). This instance is the result of the accumulation of four causes: two corresponding to the events of 1 and 60 and another two to those of section 8va. These are investigations that were processed separately in the investigation and accumulation phase, which in the trial phase were promoted by the Federal Fiscal Unit of La Plata, which intervenes in processes for crimes against humanity and related crimes.

The defendants are eight former soldiers from the 7th Infantry Regiment and three from the 101 Intelligence Detachment, a former member of the Federal Police, four former Buenos Aires police officers and two civilians.

By the 7th Regiment, former Intelligence officers Jorge Alberto Crinigan and Luis Gustavo Diedrichs, former Operations officers Ismael Ramón Verón and Lucio Carlos Ramírez, former head of Company A Lucas Marcelo Castro, former Personnel officers Enrique Francisco Welsh and Rubén Vicente Sánchez, and former Logistics officer Enrique Armando Cicciari; the first corporal of the Federal Police Carlos Hugo Leguizamón; former Buenos Aires police officers Claudio Rubén Mejías, Tomás D’ottavio and Raúl Ricardo Monzón, who work as officers at facilities 1 and 60, and Juan Antonio Vidal, former head of the so-called Grupo Cóndor.

They are also judged former officers of Detachment 101 of Army Intelligence Carlos María Romero Pavón, Roberto Armando Balmaceda and Jorge Héctor Di Pasquale and the civilians Carlos Ernesto Castillo, a member of the National University Concentration (CNU) and the lawyer Jaime Lamont Smart, who was the Minister of Government of the province of Buenos Aires at the time of the events.

Fifteen of the eighteen defendants are being held in house arrest and three are deprived of their liberty in Unit 34 of the Federal Penitentiary Service: Sánchez, Di Pasquale and Castillo.

Hearings will be held on Thursdays through a blended system. Each party will choose the modality they wish to adopt, which will be face-to-face or online, through the Zoom platform. The trial takes place in the courtroom on the first floor of the federal courts of La Plata, located at 8 and 50, and It is broadcast on the Youtube channels of the National Judiciary, La Retaguardia and the Provincial Commission for Memory.

A trial that comes 40 years later

The number of witnesses offered by the parties and admitted by the court is 374, but of them at least 100 would have died and it remains to be seen whether among the remaining persons there are any who are not in a position to testify.

As for the defendants, the number of deaths is high: Héctor Reynaldo Amuchástegui, Gustavo Adolfo Cacivio, Ricardo Armando Fernández, Emilio Alberto Herrero Anzorena, Anselmo Pedro Palavezzati, Roberto Arturo Gigli, José Luis Benítez, José Clemente Forastiero, Adalberto Oscar Rincón, Alberto José Pulvermacher, Raúl Guillermo Pascual Muñoz, Carlos del Señor Hialgo Garzón and Rubén Rodolfo Sabich. In addition, the process with respect to Miguel Ángel Amigo, Oscar Antonio Gómez Mígenes and Juan Rafael Pochelú due to supervening incapacity has been suspended.