Argentina Won't Extradite Officers
nytimes.com
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 18, 2001
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentina has refused to extradite a former army general and 18 other officers wanted by overseas courts in connection with atrocities committed during the 1976-83 dictatorship.
Former Gen. Guillermo Suarez Mason was sought by prosecutors in the German city of Nuremberg in connection with the 1977 abduction and killing of a German citizen, Elisabeth Kasemann, in Argentina during the so-called ``Dirty War'' against dissidents.
The other 18 former military officers were wanted by a Spanish magistrate on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture involving Spanish citizens in Argentina.
Defense Minister Horacio Jaunarena signed the resolutions on Friday rejecting the extradition requests, defense officials said Saturday.
Earlier this year, Argentine authorities rejected a separate Italian extradition request for Suarez Mason, who had commanded the Buenos Aires military zone.
Defense Ministry officials said Jaunarena rejected the requests on the grounds of ``territorial principle'' and said any acts committed on Argentine soil should be judged by Argentina's courts.
During the dictatorship, Kaseman was a university economics student in Argentina and was involved in a leftist movement. Abducted in March of 1977, she was reportedly tortured at a secret detention center before being handcuffed, hooded and shot dead on May 24, 1977.
Nuremberg court authorities contend that Suarez Mason was responsible even though he is not accused of direct involvement in the abduction or killing.
Suarez Mason, now 74, is under house arrest by a judge probing separate accusations that babies born to mothers in captivity at detention centers during the Dirty War were taken from them and their identities changed.
Many of the 18 other officers sought by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon had reputedly worked at the Navy Mechanics School, a military academy in suburban Buenos Aires that housed one of the most feared detention centers of the dictatorship. Others were police or state agents in Santa Fe province, north of Buenos Aires.
Jaunarena signed the resolutions against extradition in place of Foreign Minister Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini, who was traveling Friday with President Fernando De la Rua in Europe.
The ``territorial principle'' has been invoked several times in the past when foreign courts have sought military officers wanted for the disappearance of foreign citizens during the dictatorship.
Argentina says many officers were already tried for human rights abuses before being pardoned in the 1990s by then-President Carlos Menem.
At least 9,000 people are officially listed as missing or dead from the campaign that right-wing military officers waged on leftists and other political dissidents during the dictatorship. Human rights organizations put the toll of dead and missing at nearly 30,000. |
