In a new request, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office of Río Grande , charged senior personnel of the Armed Forces with the imposition of torture, which it described as "staking out" committed against three soldiers who were also forced to accept written "pacts of silence" that they had to sign upon their return to the continent, in order not to reveal what they had suffered on the islands.
For this reason, the head of the Federal Prosecutor's Office of Río Grande, Marcelo Rapoport, requested the arrest and summons to give evidence of ten military personnel for the application of torture against three conscript soldiers, within the framework of the case in which the military authorities based in the Malvinas Islands between April 2 and June 14, 1982 are being investigated; for the order and execution of various crimes classified as crimes against humanity during the South Atlantic war conflict against young people called up for Compulsory Military Service.
The defendants in this new request held the positions of commander of the Third Infantry Brigade and the Fourth Infantry Regiment , as well as the top brass of both divisions. They also served as section chiefs or subordinates, accused of inflicting torture on three victims.
Rapoport maintained that the criminal acts “were not isolated and unconnected events, nor did they respond to personal motives of those who carried them out.” He added that “torture in the Malvinas was a widespread practice to which conscripts were subjected by the military authorities as a way of 'controlling' the vital problems generated among the troops by the lack of distribution of food and shelter” and stressed that “the deliberate lack of food due to the non-distribution of the same was the direct cause of the deaths of some soldiers.”
"This shows that each of the criminal acts included in this case not only had direct perpetrators, but also people who ordered the commission of these crimes and created the conditions for their occurrence," said the prosecutor.
According to the various statements made by the prosecution, military authorities based on the islands ordered and carried out various acts of torture against hundreds of conscript soldiers during the war, such as “staking”, which consisted of tying the victims by the extremities, and “burial”, with the earth up to the neck, and immersion in icy waters, in addition to the cruelty against soldiers with surnames of Jewish origin.
The case, which began in 2006, has not made any progress since May 2021, after a ruling by Chamber I of the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation , which, in response to an appeal filed by one of the defenses, determined by majority that other events similar to those brought now were not crimes against humanity and that, therefore, they were prescribed. That ruling was appealed by the MPF and by the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court, so the federal judge of Río Grande, Mariel Borruto - who had classified the crimes as crimes against humanity - chose to await that ruling to continue with the development of the investigation.
The facts
The new presentation by prosecutor Rapoport includes two events - with three victims in total - that occurred in Monte Kent and Monte Dos Hermanas , on Soledad Island , particularly in the area of Puerto Argentino.
According to the request, the first incident occurred at the end of May 1982 , when one of the soldiers was supposed to change guards with his partner, who fell asleep due to lack of food and sleep because of the constant nighttime bombings. As a reprimand, two corporals punished them both by staking them: they were tied behind their backs, one to the other, with their legs and arms extended, standing, and kept in that position for an entire night.
The two victims were taken prisoner of war by the British between June 10 and 12, and traveled back to the mainland on the ship Canberra. They arrived in Puerto Madryn and from there were sent to the military garrison of Campo de Mayo, where they spent 4 or 5 days “fattening up.” The prosecution described that there they were made to sign some papers and imposed a “pact of silence” regarding what they experienced on the islands.
The other incident involved a soldier , who in his testimony described constant mistreatment and discrimination due to his indigenous status. He explained that at the end of May 1982 he was punished for no apparent reason and was staked: they tied his hands and feet to a rock, with his clothes on but his jacket unbuttoned . In his testimony he did not remember how long this situation lasted, but he calculated that it was around five hours, during which it snowed and drizzled. And he recalled that, when they untied him, he returned to his tent with difficulty moving because of the cold.
The young man had the same experience returning to the country as the other two victims. At the Campo De Mayo garrison he also had to sign some papers “not to talk” about what happened on the islands.
The judicial process
The case of torture in the Malvinas Islands began in 2006, following a complaint filed by a former soldier before the Human Rights Secretariat of the province of Buenos Aires and then before the MPF. This initial complaint was followed by other complaints describing the torture he suffered at the hands of his superiors during his participation in the war.
Initially, the reconstruction of the deployment and the events was based exclusively on the testimonies and the collaboration provided by the Ministry of Defence. From 2015, with the declassification of all the archives of the armed forces relating to the Malvinas, it was possible to access certain and rigorous data that allowed the testimonies to be compared with supporting elements and to reconstruct the reported events with greater precision.
In October 2017, prosecutor Rapoport requested the assistance of the Office of the Prosecutor for Crimes against Humanity in processing the case. Within the framework of this request for assistance, a draft instruction request was drawn up - a necessary part for opening a criminal investigation - and a work plan for the advancement of the investigation.
On May 11, 2018, the prosecution filed a request for instruction that was limited to the crimes committed within the scope of action of the 5th Infantry Regiment, dependent on the 3rd Infantry Brigade , deployed on Gran Malvina Island. In that filing, the MPF initiated criminal proceedings on 22 of the most serious criminal acts that occurred in that military unit and charged the reported crimes to 26 officers and non-commissioned officers who served there.
Finally, between December 5 and 6, 2019, the first four statements were taken in the case of the defendants Miguel Angel Garde, Belisario Affranchino Rumi, Gustavo Calderini and Eduardo Grassino . The act took place by videoconference, with the presence of members of the Attorney General's Office together with prosecutor Rapoport. On February 18, 2020, Judge Borruto ordered the prosecution of the four defendants for the crimes of torture and threats, and characterized the facts of the case as crimes against humanity.
On May 4, 2021, Chamber I of the Federal Court of Criminal Appeals, by majority, decided to uphold the appeal filed by the defense of another of the defendants, who claimed that the crimes for which he was accused do not fall into the category of crimes against humanity, and that therefore they would be subject to a statute of limitations. The ruling was appealed by the MPF and by the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court. Judge Borruto chose to await the ruling of the highest court to continue with the development of the investigation and suspended the summons to question the remaining defendants that had already been set.
In this context, on November 18, 2022, the interim Attorney General of the Nation, Eduardo Casal , ruled before the Supreme Court that it was appropriate to uphold the extraordinary appeal filed by the Attorney General before the Federal Court of Cassation, Javier de Luca , and to annul the ruling of the highest criminal court, since it was arbitrary "for having focused on the consideration of a non-final ruling and replaced the criteria of the judges in charge of the investigation in the matter itself with a partial examination of the relevant issues and without ruling on all the questions that were relevant to the solution of the case, which also constitute issues of an unavoidable federal nature."
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