ARGENTINA: SPAIN REFUSES TO ALLOW EXTRADITION OF 40 PEOPLE ACCUSED OF HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMES DURING ARGENTINA'S "DIRTY WARS"

Record ID: 646101

  • Title: ARGENTINA: SPAIN REFUSES TO ALLOW EXTRADITION OF 40 PEOPLE ACCUSED OF HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMES DURING ARGENTINA'S "DIRTY WARS"
  • Date: 29th August 2003
  • Summary: (U7) BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (AUGUST 29, 2003) (REUTERS) SLV JUDGE RODOLFO CANICOBA CORRAL WALKING TO COURT WIDE OF TELEVISION CAMERAS SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) JUDGE RODOLFO CANICOBA CORRAL SAYING: "If the extradition requests do not arrive by the deadline [0400 GMT on September 01] or if I get some information beforehand that says Spain will not request the extraditions, I am going to prepare the releases [of the prisoners] and the proceedings. This is all I can tel you."
  • Embargoed: 13th September 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Crime,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1J0YZ12SCEL9TR48DHW5LHXUT
  • Story Text: Spain refuses to seek the extradition of 40 people accused of human rights crimes during Argentina's "Dirty War".
    Spain on Friday (August 29) refused a judge's plea to seek the extradition of 40 people accused of genocide and terrorism during Argentina's "dirty war", saying possible prosecutions in their home country should take priority.
    The government asked authorities in Buenos Aires to tell it when the Argentine Supreme Court decided whether to scrap immunity for former military officers of the 1976-83 dictatorship, a move which could see the 40 put on trial in Argentina.
    Former officials sought by crusading Spanish High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon include 1976 coup leader Jorge Videla and former naval captain Alfredo Astiz, known as the
    "blonde angel of death".
    Spain also asked the Argentine government to keep the 40 men at the disposition of the judiciary while the Supreme Court made its deliberations.
    However, an Argentine judge said most of them were likely to be released in the coming days having spent the maximum 40 days in detention.
    "If the extradition requests do not arrive by the deadline [0400 GMT on September 01] or if I get some information beforehand that says Spain will not request the extraditions, I am going to prepare the releases [of the prisoners] and the proceedings. This is all I can tell you," said Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral.
    The decision appeared to deal a setback to an investigation by Garzon into human rights abuses under Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s and ruled out for now an international human rights trial.
    Lawyers representing some 30,000 people who were killed or "disappeared" in the Argentine military's "dirty war"
    against leftists and their sympathisers brought the cases in Spain because Argentine amnesty laws protected those accused of human rights crimes during the dictatorship.
    Earlier this month, Argentina's Congress annulled the amnesty laws for military officers who had tortured and murdered leftists, opening the door to human rights prosecutions and weakening Garzon's case for extradition to Spain.
    "Spain has taken the decision based on the law passed by the Argentine Parliament that the amnesty laws will be nullified but some people think this pronouncement by the Parliament will not be judicially effective," said lawyer Ricardo Monner Sans.
    The Supreme Court in Buenos Aires now has the final decision on whether to allow human rights trials.
    The court, widely seen as politically influenced with some members facing impeachment for corruption, has not signalled whether it will make a ruling.
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