Argentinean torturer faces charges after extradition to Spain
01 May 2003
Ricardo Cavallo, a former Argentinean frigate captain, was remanded in custody by judge Baltasar Garzón on 29 June 2003 in Soto del Real high security prison to the north of Madrid, following his extradition from Mexico the day before. He is charged with genocide, torture and terrorism during the years of the Argentinean military junta.
At the preliminary hearing, Cavallo refused to make a statement, an attitude that he justified on the basis of his membership of the military (implying that he must follow orders), and sought to involve the Argentinean government in his case by asking for instructions on how to behave and what to declare. This was rejected by the Argentinean government which denied him "any kind of official assistance".
The charges against him relate to the kidnapping and disappearance of hundreds of Argentinean left-wingers, many of whom were tortured in the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, (ESMA, Army Mechanical School), which became a centre for the torture of dissidents. Cavallo (aka Serpico), is accused of murder, the kidnapping of 110 people and the "disappearance" of 227. He also allegedly confiscated and falsified documents to appropriate the property of people that were murdered for himself and his fellow torturers, and was allegedly involved in handling some of the babies stolen from prisoners and given to families sympathetic to the military.
Cavallo was detained by Mexican police on 24 August 2000 during a stop-over in Cancún as he was flying to Buenos Aires when he was recognised by people alleging he had tortured them. They saw him on television as he defended his business enterprise, a national register for vehicles, which had been criticised in the press. In Argentina, he would be ensured immunity by legislation introduced under Raúl Alfonsin in 1987 (the laws of Obediencia Debida and Punto Final), that applies to crimes committed under the dictatorship, and are currently the object of appeals on grounds of unconstitutionality before the Argentinean Supreme Court.
Around 5,000 people were reportedly tortured in the ESMA during the junta's military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983, most of whom died. Some were thrown, sedated, out of military aeroplanes into the Río de la Plata. Collective proceedings were filed by Judge Garzón in November 1999 against 98 members of the Argentinean armed forces for crimes against humanity. The charges are not related to crimes committed against Spanish citizens, but rather they are the result of a sentence by the criminal section of the Audience Nacional (Spain's high court) in October 1998 ruling that the Spanish justice system has jurisdiction over "crimes against humanity" committed under the Chilean and Argentine dictatorships.
The question of the limits of Spanish jurisdiction will be looked at by the Supreme Court in relation to the case of another former corvette captain, Adolfo Scilingo, involved in the torture and killings of political dissidents in the ESMA. Scilingo handed himself in voluntarily in Madrid in 1997 to act as a witness, and confessed to participating in the flights during which dissidents were thrown into the Río de la Plata. He is held in the same prison as Cavallo, and recognised him in photographs he was shown by investigating judges. The ruling may affect the Cavallo case, although the main difference between the two cases is that Scilingo's victims were Spanish, so Spain's jurisdiction may apply even under a narrower interpretation than is required for proceedings against Cavallo. Nonetheless, the lawyer acting in the case of two French nuns who disappeared in the ESMA in 1977 requested authorisation for a French judge to interrogate Cavallo in Madrid, and five Argentinean witnesses will travel to Madrid to take part in proceedings, according to defence sources.
Important precedents involving members of South American military dictatorships arrested outside their countries to be tried abroad include<