Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL
Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL
Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>Complementarity</strong> and the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction f<strong>or</strong><br />
C<strong>or</strong>e International Crimes<br />
which resulted in a conviction f<strong>or</strong> all of them on 25 July 2008. Another<br />
trial involving Menendez and Antonio Bussi, an 82-year-old f<strong>or</strong>mer general<br />
who led military operations in Tucuman province, began on 6 August<br />
2008 based on charges related to a 1976 kidnapping and disappearance of<br />
an Argentine senat<strong>or</strong>. They were convicted on 4 September 2008.<br />
On 6 August 2008, a court in the n<strong>or</strong>th-eastern Argentine province<br />
of C<strong>or</strong>rientes handed down sentences ranging from 18 years to life in<br />
prison to four f<strong>or</strong>mer soldiers f<strong>or</strong> t<strong>or</strong>turing and killing political prisoners.<br />
Receiving a life sentence was Julio Barreiro, while Carlos de Marchi and<br />
H<strong>or</strong>acio Losito were each sentenced to 25 years in prison. The court sentenced<br />
to 18 years in prison Raul Raynoso and acquitted Carlos Piriz.<br />
On 13 August 2009, Santiago Omar Riveros, a f<strong>or</strong>mer general who<br />
commanded the not<strong>or</strong>ious detention centre Campo de Mayo military barracks<br />
on the outskirts of Buenos Aires during Argentina‟s military rule,<br />
was sentenced to life in prison f<strong>or</strong> human rights abuses. He was found<br />
guilty of involvement in the 1976 murder of 15-year-old communist youth<br />
member, Fl<strong>or</strong>eal Avellaneda, who was t<strong>or</strong>tured to death. Riveros‟s f<strong>or</strong>mer<br />
intelligence chief, Fernando Verplaetsen, was also jailed f<strong>or</strong> 25 years in<br />
connection with the boy‟s killing while four other officers were given jail<br />
terms of between eight and 18 years.<br />
On 23 October 2009, retired general J<strong>or</strong>ge Olivera Rovere and retired<br />
colonel Jose Menendez were sentenced to life imprisonment f<strong>or</strong><br />
crimes committed during the Argentine military dictat<strong>or</strong>ship. Rovere, who<br />
had auth<strong>or</strong>ity over several detention centres during the dictat<strong>or</strong>ship, was<br />
found guilty of four murders and responsible f<strong>or</strong> 116 abductions and disappearances.<br />
Menendez served as second chief of the Air Defense Artillery<br />
101 between 1976 and 1979. Three others were acquitted during the<br />
proceedings.<br />
On 2 November 2009, a trial began f<strong>or</strong> Argentina‟s last dictat<strong>or</strong>,<br />
Reynaldo Bignone, a retired general, as well as f<strong>or</strong> five f<strong>or</strong>mer generals<br />
and two others who are accused of kidnappings and murders that prosecut<strong>or</strong>s<br />
say took place in the Campo de Mayo military base. General Bignone<br />
is accused of holding ultimate responsibility f<strong>or</strong> myriad cases of t<strong>or</strong>ture,<br />
illegal break-ins and deprivations of human rights from 1976 to 1978,<br />
bef<strong>or</strong>e he was appointed president by the military junta in the waning<br />
years of the dictat<strong>or</strong>ship. As president from 1982 to 1983, General Big-<br />
<strong>FICHL</strong> Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 36