The sister of the disappeared conscript Alberto Agapito Ledo assured this Tuesday that If the Supreme Court does not review the casethe soldier’s family could be brought before international courts to claim against the Argentine State for the acquittal of the former head of the Army César Milani.
Grace Ledosister of the Riojan conscript disappeared June 17, 1976maintained in radio statements that “these days it has been 3 years since the trial ended in Tucumán”, and when reviewing the case he pointed out that “there were two defendants, César Milani, and former captain Esteban Sanguinetti”.
“Sanguinetti was sentenced to 14 years in prison, we had asked for life imprisonment, and Milani had been asked for six years in prison, but he was acquitted,” Graciela Ledo said in dialogue with the local Rioja Virtual radio station.
And on the possibility of resorting to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, he announced that if the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation does not review Milani’s acquittal, they will appear “before international courts.”
“After Milani’s acquittal, we have filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court, where the case is now. We are waiting for the Court to resolve this. And if that does not happen, we will go to international courts,” he announced.
Likewise, Graciela Ledo recalled that Milani was also acquitted for the kidnapping and torture suffered by Pedro Olivera and his son Alfredo Ramón, although in this case “that cause is still in Cassation and without resolution,” he observed.
And he added: “In these two causes we have been quite alone throughout the process. We had the accompaniment of AMP (Association of Teachers and Professors of La Rioja) and the Secretary of Human Rights, Délfor Brizuela, and that’s all.”
Milani was acquitted in December 2019 by the Federal Oral Court (TOF) of Tucumán, made up of judges Carlos Jiménez Montilla, Gabriel Eduardo Casas and Enrique Lilljedahl.
The acquittal was confirmed in December 2021 by Room I of the Cassation Chamber, made up of Daniel Petrone, Diego Barroetaveña and Ana María Figueroa.
In the Cassation ruling, of 135 pages, the judges maintained that in the proceedings “it is noted that it has not been possible to demonstrate that he (Milani) had been the one who prepared the desertion certificate of the conscript Alberto Agapito Ledo, nor that if he had done so , would have known that he had been kidnapped from the camp”.