Retired ’dirty war’ army major captured
By MAYRA PERTOSSI
Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentine police on Monday detained a retired army major accused in the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of a young French woman in 1976, during the nation’s military dictatorship.
Jorge Antonio Olivera was detained on the street in Vicente Lopez, a northern Buenos Aires suburb, by federal police, according to a news release published Monday by the Human Rights Secretariat.
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Olivera is accused in the "forced disappearance, kidnapping and torture" of French-Argentine citizen Marianne Erize on Oct. 15, 1976, when Olivera was a lieutenant in the 22nd Mountain Infantry Regiment, the secretariat said.
Erize was 22 when she disappeared, and although she wasn’t politically active, she did volunteer at a parish church with leftist liberation theology priest Carlos Mugica, who was killed by ultra-right groups in May 1974.
Erize was 22 when she disappeared, and although she wasn’t politically active, she did volunteer at a parish church with leftist liberation theology priest Carlos Mugica, who was killed by ultra-right groups in May 1974.
After fleeing Buenos Aires following the priest’s death, Erize was seized in the province of San Juan. Her body was never found.
In August 2000, Olivera was detained in Italy at the request of French authorities, but was freed after presenting what was later found to be a falsified death certificate saying Erize had died on Nov. 11, 1976 - 26 days after being illegally detained.
An Italian court ruled that Olivera couldn’t be accused of Erize’s disappearance after he presented the death certificate nor could he be charged with her kidnapping since the case had exceeded the 22-year statute of limitations.
During Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship hundreds of people were made "to disappear" for their association with suspected dissidents. Official records put the number of disappeared at 13,000, while human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000.
Fourteen former Argentine state security agents and their civilian allies have been found guilty of human rights crimes, including forced disappearances and kidnapping, as of January 2008.
