Attorney Asks for 9138-Year Sentence for Argentinean Torturer

[struggle4progress]

Madrid, Mar 7 (Prensa Latina) Spanish Supreme Court attorney´s office increased Monday its request of life imprisonment for Argentinean torturer Adolfo Scilingo, and asked for a total 9318-year sentence.

The ex captain is tried here for genocide, terrorism and tortures supposedly committed during the Argentinean dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.

Testimonies noted the accused participated in tortures to prisoners at the Navy´s Superior School of Mechanics (ESMA). Attorney Dolores Delgado accused him of alleged responsibility in 30 murders during the so-called "Death Flights."

He is also accused of injuring 93 persons and the disappearance of 255. <snip>

http://www.plenglish.com/Article.asp?ID=%7B85E2758B-5BE2-4D8C-BC90-2023BF308269%7D&language=EN

[Spinzonner]

1. Tossing his Ash in jail for a hell of a long time

[struggle4progress]

2. Spain seeks 9,138-year jail term (BBC)

<snip> Adolfo Scilingo, whose trial started in mid-January, faces 30 counts of genocide, 30 of murder, 93 of physical injury and 255 of terrorism.

The crimes were allegedly committed in the "Dirty War" of the 1970s/80s when Argentina was under military rule.

This is Spain's first trial involving human rights crimes committed abroad. <snip>

In a taped confession, Mr Scilingo spoke of the so-called "death flights", in which dissidents were stripped naked and thrown alive into the ocean from military planes. <snip>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4326913.stm

[Judi Lynn]

6. The first time I heard they had taken the children of their prisoners

in Argentina, and had given them off to Argentinian military officials' families or whomever, it was in 1999. I could scarcely believe my ears. I've heard a lot more about it since then.

What contempt it shows for an entire group of people to imprison, torture, and murder the parents, and steal the children, simply because you don't like their politics.

That's a slight bit beyond "suppression" of dissent, isn't it?

From the BBC article from struggle4progress:

According to human rights groups, up to 30,000 political opponents were kidnapped, detained and later executed between 1976 and 1983.
(snip)

Hell, he and his cohorts killed so many people ("he gassed his own people) in only SEVEN years. Will there never be an end to fools getting this kind of power over others?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From what I've read, this creep's wife has claimed he became despondent over the years, became an alchoholic, etc., etc. because what he had experienced was haunting him.

Haunting HIM? This is the last face thousands of people may have had the strength to focus on right before their lights went out.

[struggle4progress]

7. I have absolutely no legal, moral, or political sympathy for him. But ...

... at a spiritual level, I think there is truth in the view that "you're hurting yourself when you do that to somebody else," so find such claims of subsequent pain and depression credible, and hope that he has had the courage to face his past acts honestly.

[gratuitous]

3. Ring, ring!

It's the wake-up call for Alberto Gonzales.

And Donald Rumsfeld.

And John Ashcroft.

And George W. Bush.

And Dick Cheney.

And John Yoo.

Feeling a little apprehensive, fellas?

[Judi Lynn]

4. All "Dirty War" roads lead back to Kissinger (& others) or so it seems....

Published on Thursday, December 4, 2003 by the Miami Herald
Transcript: U.S. OK'd 'Dirty War'
New evidence suggests that Henry Kissinger gave the Argentine military 'a green light' in its 1970s-80s campaign against leftists.

by Daniel A. Grech

BUENOS AIRES - At the height of the Argentine military junta's bloody ''dirty war'' against leftists in the 1970s, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Argentine foreign minister that ''we would like you to succeed,'' a newly declassified U.S. document reveals.

This document is a devastating indictment of Kissinger's policy toward Latin America. Kissinger actually encourages human-rights violations in full consciousness of what was going on.

The transcript of the meeting between Kissinger and Navy Adm. César Augusto Guzzetti in New York on Oct. 7, 1976, is the first documentary evidence that the Gerald Ford administration approved of the junta's harsh tactics, which led to the deaths or ''disappearance'' of some 30,000 people from 1975 to 1983.

The document is also certain to further complicate Kissinger's legacy, which has been questioned in recent years as new evidence has emerged on his connection to human-rights violations around the world -- including in Chile, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Kissinger and several top deputies have repeatedly denied condoning human-rights abuses in Argentina.
(snip/...)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1204-01.htm

[davsand]

5. Those were just frat hi-jynks--right?

Wasn't that how Rush Limpdick described the folks over in Abu Garaib that were torturing prisoners? Thus far we've punished HOW many of them?

I could wish the US would follow the lead of the Argentineans, but somehow I don't expect to see it anytime soon.


Laura

[rug]

8. I bet he can plead it down to 3157 years