Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL
Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL
Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL
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Fewer Places to Hide? The Impact of Domestic War Crimes Prosecutions on<br />
International Impunity<br />
mitted “in the context of a genocide that took place in Argentina between<br />
1976 and 1983”. This was the second maj<strong>or</strong> ruling to be handed down<br />
since the amnesty laws f<strong>or</strong> crimes against humanity were lifted in 2005.<br />
On 13 February 2007, the Argentine government indicted and issued<br />
an extradition request to Spain f<strong>or</strong> Isabel Perón, a f<strong>or</strong>mer president,<br />
while the f<strong>or</strong>mer chief of staff to Perón and subsequent president, J<strong>or</strong>ge<br />
Videla, has also been indicted. Videla and 20 other persons were also<br />
indicted on 24 November 2008 f<strong>or</strong> crimes committed in police facilities<br />
and the San Martín prison in Córdoba, an area southwest of Buenos Aires<br />
in the foothills of the Andes. On 28 April 2008, a court in Spain denied<br />
the extradition request in the Perón case since the alleged crimes did not<br />
amount to crimes against humanity, a prerequisite f<strong>or</strong> acceding to such a<br />
request.<br />
After the opening of the trial of f<strong>or</strong>mer chaplain Christian von Wernich<br />
on 5 July 2007, who was convicted to life imprisonment on 9 October<br />
2007, another trial of ten military officers started a week later on 10<br />
July 2007 in Buenos Aires. Notable among the accused are General Cristino<br />
Nicolaides, a member of the last junta in power in the early 1980s,<br />
who escaped prosecution thanks to a secret agreement with the democratic<br />
government in 1983. Nicolaides was the head of intelligence battalion<br />
601 in the late 1970s. He and seven others were convicted on 18 December<br />
2007 and <strong>or</strong>dered to serve prison terms of between 20 years and<br />
25 years f<strong>or</strong> kidnapping and killing several members of a leftist guerrilla<br />
group, Montoneros.<br />
On 13 July 2007, the Supreme Court also overturned the presidential<br />
pardon granted to General Omar Riveros, accused of human rights<br />
violations in the 1970s.<br />
On 1 February 2008, two retired military officers were arrested in<br />
connection with the massacre of 16 leftist guerrillas in 1972 on a military<br />
base in the Patagonian city of Trelew. They are Ruben Paccagnini (81)<br />
who captained a ship and headed the military base Almirante Zar Trelew,<br />
and Emilio Del Real (73), a frigate captain who allegedly was at the 22<br />
August 1972 shooting of the guerrillas. On 25 April 2008, f<strong>or</strong>mer police<br />
chief and may<strong>or</strong> Luis Abelardo Patti was arrested f<strong>or</strong> his involvement<br />
during the “dirty war”, while on 27 May 2008 the trial of Luciano Menendez,<br />
who was the commander of the regional Third Army C<strong>or</strong>ps at the<br />
time, and seven others began f<strong>or</strong> activities during that same time period<br />
<strong>FICHL</strong> Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 35