ARGENTINA/FILE: Dutch citizen Julio Alberto Poch denies involvement in death flights during Argentine dictatorship

Record ID: 447261

  • Title: ARGENTINA/FILE: Dutch citizen Julio Alberto Poch denies involvement in death flights during Argentine dictatorship
  • Date: 18th February 2013
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (FEBRUARY 18, 2012) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF FEDERAL COURT BUILDING VARIOUS OF LAWYERS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS OUTSIDE THE COURTHOUSE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LAWYER FOR THE HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP LOS HIJOS, VALERIA CANAL, SAYING: "I'd like to know what the sincerely think, that they say it, the know a lot. There is a lot in their mouths and there is a lot that family members have been waiting to hear for more than 30 years to hear and we still haven't heard it. So this, the uncertainty, wanting to hear them speak. I'm not interested in their resumes, I'm interested in what they don't say." POLICE VEHICLE OUTSIDE THE COURTHOUSE FORMER ARGENTINE ADMIRAL MARIO PABLO PALET ACCUSED IN DIRTY WAR TRIAL, GETTING OUT OF POLICE VEHICLE AND GOING INTO THE COURTHOUSE
  • Embargoed: 5th March 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Crime,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADJC5EUKG11CYI492LITGLF9CG
  • Story Text: An Argentine-born man, who is also a naturalized Dutch citizen, accused of flying military planes used to drop political prisoners into the sea during Argentina's dictatorship years denied having any involvement in the so-called 'death flights' during a federal court hearing in Buenos Aires on Monday (February 18).
    Julio Alberto Poch, a retired Argentine navy lieutenant with Dutch citizenship, is one of eight pilots facing human rights charges for their participation in the kidnapping, torturing and disappearing of political prisoners at the infamous ESMA navy facility during Argentina's Dirty War era.
    When Poch took the stand in the federal courtroom he denied having any involvement.
    "Judges, I also want to affirm, one more time, categorically, that I did not take part in those death flights. Not as a pilot, copilot, or crew member. I don't know anything about whether the death flights existed or not; whether they happened or not. Everything I know about that, and what I am going to say later, I know from what has been published in the media, from what I've read in books and I will mention them later. If these flights did exist it seems horrible, abhorrent and inhuman to me, but I never said I was involved with them. This is a complete absurdity," Poch said.
    Poch submitted as evidence his flight logs and a personal calendar.
    The Dutch citizen has maintained his innocence and said he flew fighter planes during his service years that hence would not have been capable of carrying the passengers who were drugged and dropped to their death into the Atlantic or the River Plate below.
    Human rights activists gathered outside the courthouse expressed doubts in the pilot's claims.
    Valeria Canal, a lawyer for the HIJOS organization, which is a Spanish acronym for Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Oblivion and Silence, said she hoped the truth would come out.
    "I'd like to know what they sincerely think, that they say it, they know a lot. There is a lot in their mouths and there is a lot that family members have been waiting for more than 30 years to hear and we still haven't heard it. So this, the uncertainty, wanting to hear them speak. I'm not interested in their resumes; I'm interested in what they don't say," Canal said.
    Three of eight pilots accused in the current case, including former admiral Mario Pablo Palet, made statements on Monday.
    Poch was extradited to Argentina from Spain in May 2010. The extradition came after an Argentine judge traveled to Europe and spoke to the pilot's colleagues who said he had boasted about hurling drugged prisoners into the River Plate or the Atlantic Ocean during Argentina's so-called Dirty War.
    At the time he denied the charges, but still accepted extradition.
    The death flights remained a mystery for years until an Argentine journalist tracked down one of the planes used in the deadly flights.
    The boxy, 19-seater aircraft called a Skyvan was found in the United States and had been sold by the Argentine coast guard but it still had its old flight records, dating back to the dictatorship, with the names of the pilots who carried out the flights.
    When investigations into the death flights got underway, a police report from 1977 was uncovered which detailed the discovery of an unidentified body that had washed up on the shore.
    A police autopsy on the body concluded at the time that the person had died from multiple traumatic injuries caused by a fall from altitude.
    DNA testing later proved the body belonged to the French nun Leonie Duquet.
    A photograph linked to the ESMA depicting Duquet with another French nun who disappeared at the same time, Alice Domon, later surfaced.
    According to a government report, more than 11,000 people died or disappeared during the Dirty War, a crackdown on alleged leftists and other opponents of the military regime that ruled from 1976 to 1983, but human rights groups say the number is closer to 30,000.
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