An emblematic torturer of the Paraguayan dictatorship, sentenced to 30 years in prison

An Asunción court this Tuesday sentenced Eusebio Torres Romero, 88, to 30 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence, for the whippings, drownings, blows in the back, electric shocks or kicks that he gave to the complainants during their illegal imprisonment in 1976, during the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner.

Paraguayan Carlos Casco was no longer expecting a sentence against the police officer who tortured him, his brother Luis, and his wife, María Teresa Dejesús Aguilera, for months when she was pregnant.

But still the three made the complaint in 2011 against him.

He also did not expect the sentence to be exemplary, but it was, after a historic trial, the first oral and public trial against a torturer of the dictatorship in Paraguay, a regime that lasted 35 years, the longest in America.

Former commissioner Eusebio Torres follows the visit to the cells from the phone of his son and defense lawyer. Santi Carneri

The Paraguayan dictatorship began in 1954 with a coup d'état and would end in 1989 with another.

The longevity of the regime was thanks to the support of the United States Government and the sustained and systematic repression it maintained against the population; according to the calculations of the Human Rights Coordinator of Paraguay, one third of the population at the time suffered torture.

The person responsible for many of them, according to dozens of witnesses, was Eusebio Torres, the police officer and lawyer who has been convicted of the punishable act of torture, which does not prescribe, as the court highlights because it is a crime against humanity.

He also explains that the sentence is especially designed for “those who, for one reason or another, could go back to their old ways, know that they are going to be punished.”

“Justice was done, not revenge, we wanted justice to be done against this police officer who tortured me.

What had to be given was given,” Carlos Casco, 69 years old and with gray hair, gently savored at the end of the trial with the audience in the courtroom standing applauding and singing: “Dictatorship never again!”, “ Torture never again!”, “Where are the missing?”

Carlos Casco was 21 years old, he was studying medicine in the Argentine province of Corrientes, south of Paraguay, and had decided to return to his country to see his family.

In Paraguay he was part of the Military Political Organization (OPM), one of the many armed initiatives that Paraguayans carried out to try to overthrow the dictator Stroessner, who time and again falsified elections, imprisoned, killed and disappeared opponents.

Casco crossed the majestic, turbulent and wide Paraná River to the port of Asunción and there he was arrested and taken to the cells of the Police Investigation Department.

This dark den, with narrow corridors and damp walls in the heart of the capital, was the scene of electric shocks to the genitals, suffocation in excrement, beatings and endless threats that Paraguayan civilians received from the authorities during the dictatorship. .

As the evidence and the 20 testimonies of victims during the trial have shown, there Eusebio Torres also imprisoned Carlos's wife, María Teresa, and Carlos's brother, Luis, who were not part of any organization, but were tortured anyway.

She was six months pregnant.

After the torture, they were taken to the Emboscada prison, an hour from the capital, where the regime concentrated the majority of political prisoners.

Carlos Casco tours the dungeons where he was locked up in 1976.Santi Carneri

There, under the shade of a gigantic handsome tree, they spent their days supporting each other for two years, healing their wounds by working and doing art: theater, music, dance, writing, were the remedies, along with the plants. and love, which cured Torres' victims.

This is how another victim of torture at the time, Celsa Ramírez, remembers it in the documentary film Guapo'y, which today tours film festivals around the world.

The sentence read by judges Juan Ortiz, Rosana Maldonado and Manuel Aguirre recalls that Torres tortured under direct orders from the Ministry of the Interior and the dictator Alfredo Stroessner.

Also that the Government of the Colorado Party between 1954 and 1989 was not “authoritarian”, but “a full dictatorial regime” that prevented the freedom of movement of people in a timely manner and practiced systematic repression of the population.

The court highlights the importance of this trial because “it establishes that torture was carried out systematically” during the dictatorship.

Torture was carried out “throughout the country,” he says, not just in Asunción.

“This opens hope for the more than 40 cases of torture in the dictatorship that are filed in the Prosecutor's Office.

We consider that it is a victory that shows that there can be justice in Paraguay and opens a promising future for other cases,” Antonio Pecci, journalist and also victims of former commissioner Torres, told EL PAÍS.

“Today this court did justice by remembering that crimes against humanity do not prescribe and that anyone who commits this type of crime will receive punishment,” said the Human Rights Coordinator (Codehupy).

The dictatorship of the Colorado Party in Paraguay left more than 400 people missing, extrajudicial executions and tens of thousands of people tortured, as well as many years of impunity for its perpetrators and heirs, an impunity that seems to be beginning to break down.

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