Argentine "Dirty War" Trial Focuses on Priest
    By Sam Ferguson
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Thursday 02 August 2007

    La Plata, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina - Hector Timerman, the Argentine consul general to the United States in New York and the son of "disappeared" journalist Jacobo Timerman, alleged last week that Father Von Wernich, a Catholic priest facing trial for his involvement in Argentina's clandestine "Dirty War," was in the room as his father was tortured. Timerman is the first witness in two weeks of testimony to assert that Von Wernich saw firsthand physical acts of torture. The tribunal overseeing Von Wernich's case also heard from several other victims, as testimony was wrapped up regarding the Puesto Vasco and Coti Martinez clandestine detention centers.

    Jacobo Timerman, who died in 1999, was Argentina's most famous victim of the "dirty war." Timerman, director of La Opinion newspaper, was one of the thousands, perhaps as many as 30,000, kidnapped by Argentina's military government, which ruled from 1976-1983. Timerman, sequestered in 1977, spent two and a half years in captivity. The first several months were under the hands of Ramon Camps, head of the Buenos Aires police force and a hard-liner in Argentina's military government. Timerman, who had "relatives interned in concentration camps," according to testimony by Osvaldo Papeleo, was subject to notoriously brutal torture. Posters of Hitler and swastika flags were flown in the torture rooms where he was beaten.

    Because of Timerman's international contacts as a journalist, however, great pressure from abroad was brought to bear on the Argentine military government to recognize his captivity and release him. Timerman's habeas corpus case was the only successful one to be endorsed by the Argentine Supreme Court, an institution that was otherwise deferential to the military government. Timerman was eventually released and expelled from the country, escaping to Israel. Timerman, born in Ukraine, had his citizenship revoked. He later wrote a book, "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number." which helped further precipitate the collapse of the military regime by bringing its human rights abuses to light.

    Father Von Wernich was the police chaplain for Camps and the Buenos Aires police force. He has been indicted as an accomplice on seven counts of murder, 30 counts of torture and 41 counts of kidnapping. Hector Timerman alleged that Von Wernich was in the room at the time his father was tortured. Hector related that "when my father was interrogated and tortured, he had his eyes blindfolded, but, sometimes the blindfold fell from the force of the electric shocks, and this is how he identified [Von Wernich]." This is the first evidence, in two weeks of oral testimony, that places Von Wernich inside a torture room as the police carried out physical acts of violence. Hector added that the priest acted as a "repressor, not as a confessor."

    Several other witnesses have testified that Timerman was victim to anti-Semitic torture. Among other anti-Semitic acts, his interrogators would ask him about the "Andean plan," a supposed Zionist plot to capture Argentinian Patagonia.

    All other witnesses to date have claimed to have seen Von Wernich inside one of Buenos Aires's clandestine detention centers, but all claim he visited them in their cells after they had been tortured.

    The evidence offered by Hector would likely be prohibited in an American court, where hearsay rules prevent secondhand accounts of fact from entering the record. However, because in Argentine courts judges question witnesses, not lawyers, such evidence is allowed.

    The military government, after acknowledging Timerman's captivity, allowed his family to visit him on one occasion, after he had been "disappeared" for more than a month. Hector remembers Timerman telling his family, "forget about me, I will never be able to leave."

    Hector also said that three civil authorities collaborated with the military government to sequester and torture his father: Jaime Smart, minister of the Buenos Aires government under the dictatorship; Alberto Varela, minister of justice under the dictatorship, and Roberto Durrieu, sub secretary of justice under the dictatorship. Durrieu and Varela are scheduled to appear as witnesses in the case on September 13, to testify on behalf of Von Wernich.

    On Thursday last week, lawyers representing torture victims introduced into evidence a letter from Norberto Cozzani, a member of Camps's intelligence unit, which named both Durrieu and Varela as participants in repression. Myriam Bregman, attorney for Justicia Ya, commented to the tribunal that "we hope that investigations start against the civilians that collaborated" with the military government.

    Other Witnesses Testify

    Von Wernich, who has opted to sit out of the proceedings against him, a right to which defendants in Argentina are entitled, appeared once again in court last week wearing a flak jacket so that Luis Taub, kidnapped in September of 1977, could identify the priest. Taub, upon seeing Von Wernich, commented "yes, this is the person, I'm sure, I don't have any doubt." Taub was detained in Coti Martinez, along with Timerman.

    Juan Destafano, former president of the Racing soccer club, also confirmed an incident where Von Wernich spoke with detainees in the Puesto Vasco interrogation and detention facility, to which other witnesses have testified. Destefano, kidnapped in June 1976, commenting on the presence of a religious figure in the clandestine detention center told the tribunal, "I couldn't understand how a representative from the church could be in a clandestine detention center."

    Vicente Romero provided the tribunal with some context to the proceedings. Romero, a Spanish citizen who was reporting on Latin America for the Pueblo newspaper in Madrid, interviewed Camps in 1983. Camps referred to his work as "saving a Christian nation" and said that Von Wernich was his "friend and moral support." Romero was forced to leave Argentina on several occasions, as the press minister threatened his life if he published stories damaging to the Argentine government.

    A small exchange of words also broke out during an intermission in the hearings between Cecilia Pando, a well-known supporter of the military government, and a group from Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, an organization of mothers of the disappeared. Cecilia held up a picture of a military official and said to the mothers "he was killed by the subversives." The word "subversive" is a politically charged phrase, and its usage often signifies where one falls on the political spectrum in Argentina. Pando had been Von Wernich's only public supporter during the proceedings. She was removed from the court room, and has been banned from re-entering.

    Hearings have been on holiday this week and will resume August 6, at which point the trial will center around Von Wernich's appearance and work at three other detention centers throughout Buenos Aires Province.