The Federal Oral Criminal Court No. 1 (TOCF 1) of La Plata
yesterday handed down ten sentences of life imprisonment and one of 25 years in prison
, while it acquitted one of the accused for crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship. , in the trial in which the crimes against
605 victims of the clandestine detention centers that operated in the investigation brigades of the Buenos Aires Police of Banfield, Quilmes, Lanús and San Justo were judged.
These are the centers known, the first two as the “wells” of Banfield and Quilmes, and “El Infierno”, in the jargon used by the repressors.
Among the cases tried is “La Noche de Los Lápices”, the kidnapping and disappearance of high school students who were demanding a student ticket.
Pablo Díaz, one of the survivors of the kidnappings for the demand for the student ticket in La Plata, recalled that “we were seven students in the Banfield Well.
Today six are still missing
and we still want to know where they are”, in reference to María Claudia Falcone, Claudio de Acha, Horacio Úngaro, Francisco López Muntaner, María Clara Ciocchini and Daniel Racero.
The judges imposed life imprisonment for
the former head of the Mechanized Infantry Regiment No. 3 of La Tablada, Federico Minicucci;
the former members of the Intelligence Detachment 101 of the Army in La Plata: the head of the Interior Meeting Section, Carlos María Romero Pavón, the head of the Special Operations Section, Jorge Héctor Di Pasquale; the head of the Reunion Central, Roberto Armando Balmaceda; the head of Psychological Activities, Guillermo Alberto Domínguez Matheu. They also decreed life imprisonment for the then captain Carlos Gustavo Fontana;
the former Buenos Aires Government Minister, Jaime Smart;
the former director of Metropolitan Area Investigations of the Buenos Aires Police, Juan Miguel Wolk; the then doctor of the Investigations Directorate,
Jorge Antonio Bergés
, and the former inspector officer of the Banfield and Lanús Investigations brigades, Luis Horacio Castillo.
Relatives of the victims listen yesterday to the verdict of the trial for the case of "The Night of the Pencils" and others. Luis ROBAYO / AFP)
On the other hand, the former head of the Command and Service Section of the Intelligence Detachment 101 of the Army, Alberto Julio Candioti, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The president of the court, Ricardo Basilico, read the sentence - which he signed along with his colleagues Walter Venditti and Esteban Carlos Rodríguez Eggers - for more than four hours in the courtroom on the first floor of the federal courts in La Plata. On July 5, the TOCF will announce the reasons for the decision.
The court declared that the facts that are the subject of this process "are constitutive of crimes against humanity and must thus be classified" and as crimes against the law of nations, in accordance with article 118 of the National Constitution and the
Convention on the Imprescriptibility of the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
. In the minority, Basilico considered that "the facts, in addition to being crimes against humanity, were committed within the framework of a genocide."
Finally, the judges determined
the acquittal
of the former second head of the Property Crimes Division of the Investigations Directorate, Enrique Augusto Barre.
In classifying the facts, the court convicted the crime of forced disappearance in cases of people who remain missing; in cases of abduction, retention and concealment of boys and girls who were born during their mothers' captivity and who have not yet been located.
Plaintiffs and defenders listen yesterday to Judge Ricardo Basilico reading the verdict.
And the judges also took into account the aggravating circumstances provided for forced disappearance due to the resulting death (those cases in which the remains of the victims were found and identified), of pregnant women and people
under 18 years of age
. Among the latter are several high school students who are victims of "the night of the pencils."
He also convicted of the different crimes that involved
the exercise of sexual violence
in clandestine detention centers, such as indecent abuse and sexual abuse with carnal access, and for illegal deprivation of liberty and application of qualified torture, qualified homicides, reduction to servitude and forced abortion.
In the verdict, the court also ordered, among other measures of formal rigor, the carrying out, on a "very urgent" basis, of health experts by the Forensic Medical Corps for the convicted persons who are currently serving house arrest. The only prisoner at the disposal of the Federal Penitentiary Service is Di Pasquale.
The judges indicated that the expert report must indicate whether those who remain in their homes have pathologies that enable them to continue in prison in that condition and an evaluation of the impact on health that their transfer to prison would entail.