  | You have information to share ?
Or mistakes to correct ?
click here...
|
|
| |  | | Emilio Eduardo Massera | | | judgement place : | Argentina  | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Sentenced, amnestied, accused | | position : | Admiral, Navy commandant |
|
| | | | As soon as he becomes president, Alfonsin sets up a commission the CONADEP, led by the famous writer Ernesto Sabato, in charge of getting right to the bottom of the forced disappearances perpetrated by the military regime during the last ten years. In a report called "nunca más", the commission acknowledges 9000 cases of disappearances, a figure estimated today at more than 15'000.
On 22nd April 1985, a historical trial opens in Buenos Aires to judge the main actors of the dictatorship. General Jorge Videla and Admiral Emilio Massera are sentenced to life imprisonment for the crimes of assassination, illegal confinement and torture. Other leaders of the junta are sentenced to various years of imprisonment. President Carlos Menem will pardon them all five years later. So Emilio Massera will be free after only a few years' prison.
In December 1986, "the final full stop law" is adopted because of the army's discontent after those trials. In 60 days, the complaints against the members of the army and of the police suspected of human rights violations are brought to an end. Next year, new upheavals of the armed forces drive President Alfonsin to go even further by promulgating the law called "owed obedience" which guarantees impunity to all lower military ranks than colonel.
In November 1998, Judge Maria Servini de Cubria orders Massera's arrest. As official of the ESMA, he is held responsible for the babies' appropriation, an offence which had been expressly excluded from the amnesties laws and for which he hadn't been judged in 1985. He is put under house arrest. The year after, the Buenos Aires' Federal House of Appeal rejects Massera's plea, which considered that those crimes were included in the 1985 judgment and that they were prescribed. The court's decision creates a precedent by naming those offences crimes against humanity, and so declaring them imprescriptible. Based on a new amendment introduced in the 1994 constitution, the House of Appeal admits the primacy of international law over constitutional law. The Supreme Court confirms the Court of Appeal's judgment. Proceedings against Massera for appropriation of property, which used to belong to disappeared people, are started.
In March 2001, and this is a historical decision, Federal Judge Gabriel Cavallo accepts a complaint filed by the lawyers of an Argentina Chilean couple against army officers for human rights violation, therefore the amnesty laws are declared unconstitutional and invalid. In July 2002, the Federal Court of Appeal confirms the judgment. The door to track army officers suspected of human rights violations is open again.
The will to end impunity becomes stronger with the election of a new president Nestor Kirchner on 25th May 2003. Two months after his access to power, he quashes a decree, which blocked any possibility to extradite army officers responsible for the repression during the dictatorship. He also openly supports the invalidation of the amnesty laws.
Still in July 2003, 45 former army officers, amongst whom Massera, are under a warrant for arrest from the Spanish justice. Spain asks for their extradition to judge them for State terrorism, genocide and torture. At the beginning of December, Germany also orders a warrant for arrest against Videla, Massera and other army officers suspected of being responsible for the death of two German students who were assassinated in secret detention centres during the "dirty war". France also asked for Massera's extradition.
In December 2003, Massera suffers a brain stroke and falls into coma for a while until he slowly recovers. His lawyers hurry to declare their client mentally unable to defend himself in front of a Court. Judge Maria Servini de Cubria, a decision which is confirmed in appeal, rejects the argument. The procedure against Massera for minors' appropriation is presently finished. A new expertise is running to determine if he is in a position to face a trial.
In August 2004, Massera is condemned to pay 210'000 pesos of compensation to a survivor whose family practically all disappeared at the ESMA. He paid up. | |    | | Trial Watch would like to remind its users that any person charged by national or international authorities is presumed innocent until proven guilty. | |  |  | | nationality : | | | Argentina | | | date of birth : | | | 19.10.1925 | | | period of charges : | | | 24.03.1976 - 16.09.1978 | | | charges : | | | Torture | | | profile last modified : | | | 28.10.2006 |
| |
| | |
|
|
