Life imprisonment confirmed in Italy for 14 South American repressors of the Condor Plan

After 22 years during which complaints from relatives of 43 missing Latin Americans, also holders of Italian nationality, have succeeded in initiating criminal proceedings, the Supreme Court of Italy, the Court of Cassation, confirmed this Friday the life sentences of fourteen Uruguayan and Chilean soldiers accused of the disappearance, torture and death of their victims, as part of the terrible Condor Plan launched by the military dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, from Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru.

Three former Chilean soldiers who did not appeal the judgment of the Court of Appeal, their life sentences were upheld some time ago. This is the colonel Rafael Ahumada, Petty Officer Orlando Moreno Vazquez and Brigadier Manuel Vázquez Chaunan. The final maximum sentences are 17 in total.

Argentina did not want to sign the Italian notifications to the accused repressors because it decided do it yourself.

The Condor Plan created a vast solidarity between repressors that the victims were exchanged and that they acted in their territories with complete impunity.

Final sentence

The sentence is final, it puts an end to a judicial proceeding which it seemed endless. The judges of cassation revalidated the sentence of July 2019 in the second instance of the Court of Appeal of Rome against 24 repressors.

The list of defendants has greatly diminished the death of a party repressors.

The cases of the three Peruvian soldiers sentenced to life imprisonment have also been disaggregated. Among them, former president Francisco Morales Bermúdez. One of the three, Commander Germán Ruiz Figueroa, has died.

The repressors were represented by public defenders. The only soldier present at the hearings of first and second instance was the captain of the secret services of the Uruguayan navy. Jorge Néstor Troccoli, 74 years old.

Tróccoli escaped Uruguay for Italy in 2007, thanks to the fact that he has dual nationality. He attended part of the hearings at first and second instance. But today, he did not attend the Supreme Court hearing which upheld his life sentence.

“Now waiting for you immediate arrest“said one of the lawyers for the families of the victims. Twenty of the 43 victims were Uruguayans. kidnapped in Argentina, in which Tróccoli was accused of participating.

Thirteen other Uruguayans disappeared in Argentina and six Argentines were kidnapped in four South American countries as part of the Condor plan. The kidnapped have been transferred from one country to another tortured, murdered and disappeared without the country to which they belonged appearing to be responsible.

The journalist also attended the sentence of the Italian cassation Zelmar Michelini, eldest son of Uruguayan parliamentarian Zelmar Michelini, assassinated in Buenos Aires during an operation of the Condor plan.

Hector Gutierrez Ruiz, who had been president of the Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies, was also killed. Michelini was accompanied by his Argentine wife.

“We have marked a path”

Cristina Mihura, widow of Bernardo Arnone, disappeared in Buenos Aires, who was one of those who started the process for the Condor Plan cases and attended more than a hundred hearings during the three stages of the trial, said: “I think we have marked a path.”

“The final judgment has enormous value. It is first European recognition that the South American dictatorships had created the Condor Plan. After the disappearance of her husband, she managed to take refuge in Sweden and then came to Italy. “I will continue like other relatives in the fight to find his remains,” he said.

She said that “a very important moment was in June 1999 when we were able to present the complaint together with other women, Uruguayans and an Argentinian, thanks to the law which allowed crimes against Italians to be prosecuted. The trial has become a point of reference ”.

The largest group of people sentenced to life imprisonment are Uruguayans. In addition to the captain of the ship Tróccoli, there are the repressors José Ricardo Arab Fernandez, José Horacio Gavazzo (deceased), Juan Carlos Larcebeau, Pedro Antonio Mato Narbondo, Luis Alfredo Maurente Mata, Ricardo Medicna Blanco, Ernesto Abelino Ramas Pereira, José Sande Lima, Jorge Alberto Silveira Ernesto Soca and Juan Carlos Blanco.

Rome, correspondent

ap