Miguel Etchecolatzformer commander of the Buenos Aires police and right-hand man of the general Ramon Camps during the last dictatorship, he died today in the Argentine capital at the age of 93. Born in Azul on May 1, 1929, Etchecolatz was convicted in various trials starting in 1986 for multiple crimes involving disappearances, illegal arrests and torture committed in the years between 1976 and 1983 when the military was in power in Argentina. The last of these sentences, for the eighth time in ergatolo, was signed by a judge in La Plata on May 13 and concerned torture and violence suffered by seven people between October and November 1976. It must be remembered that the name of Etchecolatz has been associated in recent years with that of the first ‘disappeared in democracy’, the carpenter Jorge Julio Lopez.
His death in the Sarmiento clinic in San Miguel, Buenos Aires, was announced by the La Plata Court and confirmed by Guadalupe Godoy, one of the lawyers who led the case against him in the case of the disappearance of López. “Etchecolatz is dead. In a common prison and without saying where he was, ”he tweeted. Although in recent weeks he had been granted house arrest for health reasons, this prerogative did not materialize due to the number of sentences that led him to die in a common prison. Godoy explained this morning: “The house arrest that the Supreme Court had granted him were for one case only, but they were not applied”.
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During his tenure, in the years of the military dictatorship of Jorge Ragael Saw, he led the death squads charged with assassinating and kidnapping opponents and directed the 21 clandestine detention centers, created by his superior: General Camps. In 1986, when democracy was restored in the country, Etchecolatz was tried and found guilty of 91 murders for which he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. However, the sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court following the enactment of the law of due obedience, a provision issued by the Argentine Parliament during the government of Carlos Menem to relieve from all responsibility the representatives of the armed forces who had committed crimes against opponents during the period of the military dictatorship. The former policeman was sentenced to 7 years for kidnapping babies, a crime not included in the law of due obedience. He was granted house arrest for health reasons, but the measure was lifted when a gun was found in his home in 2006.
When the law of due obedience was revoked by the government of Nestor Kirchner, Etchecolatz was the first official of the dictatorship to be subjected to a retrial. On 19 September 2006, the ex-policeman was sentenced to life in prison by the La Plata court for the kidnapping, torture and murder of six people and for the kidnapping and torture of two others. In 2017 he was transferred to house arrest for health reasons, amid numerous controversies, and in 2018 he was returned to Ezeiza prison. After being sentenced to life in prison, Etchecolatz was sentenced to life in prison after several sentences in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2021.
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The national deputy Myriam Bregman, who was part of the indictment that brought Etchecolatz to trial in 2006, summed it up in one word: “Genocide”. In an interview with TN, he said that the man was aware of what he had done until the end. “He had many opportunities but he never said a word about the fate of the disappeared. So, when we sometimes spoke of” ex genocide “or” ex repressor “, we lawyers said that he was not” ex “, because he renewed the his commitment against disappearances “. The disappearance of Julio López is an example of this.
López he had testified against him in a trial and since 2006 he has disappeared into thin air, a few days before appearing at a hearing in which he was supposed to repeat the charges against General Camps’ right-hand man. Years later, on October 24, 2014, Etchecolatz and 14 other former soldiers were convicted of crimes against humanity committed in the clandestine La Cacha center. While reading the sentence, tells the Argentine newspaper The nationhe had in his hands a piece of paper on which the name of Jorge Julio López could be read.
The Triple Border
by Carlo Bonini (editorial coordination), Laura Lucchini and Daniele Mastrogiacomo. Multimedia coordination by Laura Pertici. Gedi Visual production
