The Federal Fiscal Unit for causes of human rights violations during the period of terrorism in the State of La Plata requested this Monday the sentence of life imprisonment for the repressors Miguel Etchecolatz and Julio César Garachico for the kidnappings and torture suffered by seven people in the Arana’s former clandestine center, including the bricklayer Jorge Julio López and the student kidnapped in the episode known as La Noche de los Lápices, Francisco López Muntaner; and the murder of two of those hostages.
This was requested this Monday by the assistant prosecutor Juan Martín Nogueira, alleging in the trial that since August 30, 2021, the Federal Oral Court (TOF) No. 1 of La Plata, made up of Andrés Fabián Basso, José Michelini and Alejandro Esmoris, has followed. , to determine the responsibility of Etchecolatz and the former street chief of the La Plata Regional Unit, Julio César Garachico, for the crimes that had as their victims in 1976 the twice-disappeared Jorge Julio López and six of his companions of militancy of a basic unit of the neighborhood of Los Hornos.
“The participation of (Miguel) Etchecolatz in the crimes investigated is absolutely proven. His participation is omnicomprehensive, omnipresent in every event on the Camps circuit. He was not only ‘the man behind the desk’, of ideation and transmission of orders, but he participated in all scenarios: behind, in the middle, forward,” said Nogueira.
“We say with militant pride that we are going to accuse Miguel Etchecolatz again. We are going to request life imprisonment, which will be added to his genocidal curriculum”
For the prosecutor, Etchecolatz was an “active participant in the repressive apparatus, he had his own initiative, he participated in numerous procedures” and considered that “the repressive Camps circuit should be called the Camps and Etchecolatz repressive circuit, honoring the historical truth”.
“Garachico, as chief official of the external service, is accused of being part of the repressive apparatus. He tortured Patricia Dell Orto, Ambrosio de Marco, Norberto Rodas, Alejandro Sánchez, Francisco López Muntaner, Guillermo Cano and Jorge Julio López and the qualified homicides of Dell Orto, Marco and Rodas,” he added.
In relation to Garachicothe representative of the Public Ministry stressed that “he was fully involved in the mechanism of illegal repression.”
“The facts judged here can be seen as part of the extermination plan against the population and the systematic plan against the civilian population and, in this sense, are subsumed into crimes against people’s rights. They are acts of genocide and crimes against humanity,” the prosecutor elaborated.
And he stressed that the persecution of a national group resulted in “genocidal acts that sought to discipline society to reorganize it.”
“It was a reorganized genocide and serious human rights violations against the civilian population. The whole society was threatened.”
Nogueira stated that “according to the crimes and aggravating circumstances, the penalties leave no room for more than life sentences,” determined.
In the case of Etchecolatzthe prosecutor demanded the application of the sentence of “life imprisonment as mediate co-author through the use of the power apparatus for the homicides qualified by treachery in competition of two or more people to the detriment of Norberto Rodas and Alejandro Sánchez, and the illegitimate deprivation freedom aggravated by having been committed with violence on two occasions, with the aggravating circumstance of being politically persecuted to the detriment of Rodas and Sánchez, in real competition with crimes against the law of nations, crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity”.
For Garachico, meanwhile, he demanded “the sentence of life imprisonment as co-author for functional control of the homicide qualified by treachery and in competition of two or more persons to the detriment of Patricia Dell Orto, Ambrosio De Marco and Norberto Rodas, and the illegitimate deprivation of liberty in abuse of functions, aggravated by violence and threats on seven occasions”.
Nogueira also requested that at the time of sentencing, “the exploration of the area where the La Armonía ranch operated and today Regiment 7 operates” be ordered, with the aim of investigating the possibility of the existence of mass graves of corpses in said property.
“It was a reorganized genocide and serious human rights violations against the civilian population. The whole society was threatened”
“We also ask that a copy of this sentence be sent to the College of Fine Arts, where Patricia Dell Orto and Francisco López Muntaner studied; that a plaque or monument be placed in the area of the basic unit (where the victims were active) stating that their installation is due to the reparation of this Court”, added Nogueira.
the trial It will continue on April 25 when it will be the turn of the arguments of the defense of the accused.
The allegations began on February 14 last, with those of the Union for Human Rights, the Nation’s Human Rights Secretariat and the Buenos Aires Undersecretary for Human Rights, in which they agreed to demand life imprisonment for the two repressors.
The lawyer Guadalupe Godoyon behalf of the Union for Human Rights, made a particularly emotional statement, in which he highlighted the time it took to start this trial and named survivors who have already died but whose testimony was valuable in identifying the repressors: Adriana Calvo , Cristina Gioglio and Nilda Eloy.
Then, when Godoy named Jorge Julio López, a tense silence ran through the courtroom.
The bricklayer, who was disappeared twice, the last time on September 16, 2006, was kidnapped and tortured in the Pozo de Arana, and the torture he received there is part of the crimes that are judged in this oral process.
In her speech, the lawyer stressed that the persecution of workers by the last civil-military dictatorship caused “something that usually happens in wars and is the extent of the damage” since, she listed, “neighborhoods were no longer what they were” “militancy became a bad word” and “social networks disintegrated”.
That damage “was aggravated by the subsequent impunity and involved harvesting more impunity seeking justice,” he added.
On March 14, the plaintiffs of the Justicia Ya group also presented their argument, from where they requested a similar sentence for the accused.
“We say with militant pride that we are going to accuse Miguel Etchecolatz again. We are going to request life imprisonment, which will be added to his genocidal curriculum,” said lawyer Pía Garralda, of Justicia Ya.
The lawyer lamented the fragmentation of causes against humanity in what she called “the administration of Justice by the dropper”, a process that, she questioned, “is a new form of impunity.”
Garralda, to complete his criticism, graphed that as of June 2021, 1,030 genocides were being tried “but if we take into account that 700 clandestine detention centers operated in the country, it would give us an average of almost two genocides per center and it is illogical to think that a center worked with two people”, he reviewed.
