six of the most dark members of the task force of the School of Mechanics of the Navy (ESMA) no longer have military status. Is about Jorge “Tigre” Acosta, Adolfo Donda, Ricardo Cavallo, Alberto González, Jorge Radice and Antonio Perníasto whom the Minister of Defense, Jorge Taiana, decided to discharge them from the Argentine Navy for having been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Argentine courts for the kidnappings, torture, murders and disappearances they perpetrated while they were the lords of life and death in the Navy concentration camp. The human rights organizations They highlighted the measure of the Ministry of Defense and asked that it be extended to the rest of the repressors with a firm sentence.
When Rubén Jacinto Chamorro had to qualify Acosta, he said that comprised the 2 percent of the most important men in the Navy. As of Taiana’s resolution, whoever was the head of the intelligence group that operated in the ESMA will no longer have that privilege. Neither will several of the men who, together with him, designed or carried out operations to kidnap people or who simply stained their fingers with blood, as the “Tiger” vehemently claimed.
The six repressors were convicted in 2011 –in the first trial for crimes in that clandestine center that came to an end after the failed experience of the process against the prefect Héctor Febres, which did not conclude due to his mysterious death–. Nine years after that sentence and the delays in Cassation and in the Court, the Federal Oral Court (TOF) 5 informed the Ministry of Defense that the sentence was final –something that the Supreme Court should have done and evidently did not– and asked him to proceed with what the judges had ordered, which was to discharge them.
Law 19,101 on Military Personnel establishes that the members of the forces lose military status and are discharged if they are declared in absentia or if they are convicted by common or federal courts – as is the case of the six sailors who served in the ESMA –. During the government of Mauricio Macri, the Minister of Defense had delegated the decision of casualties to the chiefs of the forces.
However, Taiana maintained that, as the sentence was of unavoidable and unpostponable compliance, he would be the one who would sign the casualties of the six members of the WG 3.3.2. “Within the framework of commitment assumed by the Ministry regarding a policy of implementation of human rights and integration of the Armed Forces with civil society, it is unacceptable and contrary to law that there are personnel with military status who are, at the same time, convicted of crimes of It hurts humanity”, says the resolution signed by the minister and to which he agreed Page 12.
Acosta, Pernías and company had been tried in that process for, among other cases, the murder of journalist Rodolfo Walsh and for the kidnappings of the three founders of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo –Azucena Villaflor, Mary Ponce de Bianco and Esther Careaga–, the French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet and the other members of the group that met in the church of Santa Cruz to coordinate the tasks to denounce the disappearances of the dictatorship . To carry out this operation, the Navy infiltrated Alfredo Astiz in family groups.
Astiz was also convicted in the trial that concluded in 2011, but he had already lost military status before, explained sources from the portfolio to this newspaper, and, for this reason, it was not included in the resolution signed by Taiana. The others sentenced to life were Raúl Scheller, Oscar Montes, Néstor Savio, Julio César Coronel and Ernesto Weber – a member of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA) known as “220” for the use of the cattle prod. Lower sentences received Manuel García Tallada, Juan Carlos Fotea, the doctor Carlos Capdevilla and the prefect Juan Antonio Azic.
“We cannot fail to point out that these genocides keep the pacts of silence that prevent us from knowing where the bodies of the thousands of victims are, as well as continue to commit the crime of appropriation and substitution of identity of daughters and sons of victims of forced disappearances that we are still looking for,” they maintained from the table of organizations. “We hope that the measure will be extended to all those convicted with a final sentence for crimes against humanity. Civilian control of the armed forces must guarantee the effective dismissal of all those responsible for serious human rights violations“, they added.
what was advanced
After that sentence, the members of the ESMA gang continued to add sentences – which still have to be reviewed by the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation -. Last year, TOF 5 –composed of Adrián Grünberg, Adriana Palliotti and Obligado– sentenced “Gato” González and Acosta for crimes against sexual integrity suffered by three women who were kidnapped in the concentration camp on Avenida of the Liberator. In recent months there has also been a investigation against Radice and her sister, Norma Berta Radice, for the theft of the goods of the people who were kidnapped in the ESMA.
In the case of “Tiger” Acosta, it is being discussed whether he is entitled to parole for the time he has been detained. The Federal Court of Cassation lowered the amount of the sentence –which he had received for crimes in the ESMA and for his role in the systematic plan to rob boys and girls– and left him close to accessing that benefit, a decision that the agencies of human rights appealed.
The agency statement
The undersigned human rights organizations celebrate the decision of the Minister of Defense Jorge Taiana to discharge six soldiers convicted with a final sentence for crimes against humanity committed in the clandestine detention, torture and extermination center that operated in the ESMA.
These are the genocidal Adolfo Miguel Donda, Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, Alberto Eduardo González, Jorge Carlos Radice, Jorge Eduardo Acosta and Antonio Pernías, who were stripped of their military status.
We cannot fail to point out that these genocides maintain the pacts of silence that prevent us from knowing where the bodies of the thousands of victims are, as well as continue to commit the crime of appropriation and substitution of identity of daughters and sons of people who are victims of forced disappearances. that we are still looking for. We hope that the measure will be extended to all those convicted with a final sentence for crimes against humanity.
Civilian control of the armed forces must guarantee the effective dismissal of all those responsible for serious human rights violations.
Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo
Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founding Line
Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained for Political Reasons
SONS Capital
Relatives and Companions of the 12 of the Holy Cross
Permanent Assembly for Human Rights
Permanent Assembly for Human Rights La Matanza
Center for Legal and Social Studies
Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights –MEDH
Argentine League for Human Rights
Memory Commission Truth and Justice North Zone
Argentine Historical and Social Memory Foundation
Good Memory Association.