Argentina's top court cuts sentence of human rights abuser

[tenorly]

Argentina's Supreme Court on Wednesday reduced the jail sentence of a man serving time for crimes against humanity committed during the country's 1976-83 dictatorship.

Luis Muiña, 61, was sentenced in 2011 to 13 years in prison for the kidnapping and torture of five people during a 1976 military operation in Alejandro Posadas Hospital, west of Buenos Aires.

Three of the top court's five justices decided that his days spent in prison before a firm conviction should count double toward his sentence, meaning Muiña could get out eight years earlier.

The court said the ruling was based on an interpretation of a repealed law that had never been previously applied to human rights convictions. The so-called 2x1 law was in effect from 1994 to 2001, when most dictatorship-era human rights criminals were still free. A law signed by former President Néstor Kirchner in 2003 had rescinded amnesty granted to most perpetrators in 1986.

"This ruling determined that common crimes are the same as crimes against humanity," said Andres Gil Domínguez, a constitutional lawyer. "It's a new judicial and ideological way of looking at human rights crimes by the Supreme Court."

The view was shared by former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, during whose 2007-15 administration most of the 681 convictions so far for crimes against humanity were issued. Human rights groups, Kirchner's center-left FpV, and leftist parties condemned the ruling, which raises the possibility that other Dirty War perpetrators might likewise ask the courts for release.

The narrow ruling came down to two Kirchner appointees (including Chief Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti) dissenting, and both justices appointed by current President Mauricio Macri voting in the majority. The tie-breaking vote, that of Kirchner appointee Elena Highton de Nolasco, came as a surprise to Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo head Estela Barnes de Carlotto, who noted that Justice Nolasco had previously ruled against cases filed by Dirty War apologists.

Carlotto, one of Argentina's most prominent advocates for victims of the Dirty War and their relatives, intends to appeal to international tribunals.

At: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article148464264.html

And: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagina12.com.ar%2F35399-les-estan-abriendo-la-puerta-a-los-genocidas

[Judi Lynn]

1. Turning the monsters loose. Figures. Torturing leftists to death is fine in the eyes of fascists.

Being pure evil doesn't seem to bother these people when they believe there's no one who's able to stop them.

This is vile. It is a real experience watching these "people" put their dictatorship in place, and try to organize things just the way they want them. It's a real education for those in the world, nearly everyone, who didn't live through the Third Reich.

We all know they are going down, in time, but it's a shock to see them trying to do it all over again, isn't it?

[center]

Luis Muiña, with the dark hair, sits with the ex-dictator, Reynaldo Bignone.
How can one small world produce so many monsters, anyway?[/center]
Thanks for the latest information. We really need to know what's happening.

[tenorly]

2. Human rights advocates are already calling this a back-door amnesty.

They estimate that 700 Dirty War convicts could request release from prison, and that, using the ruling's standards, some 275 might indeed obtain it.

One has in fact just obtained release after only three years in prison: Dr. Norberto Bianco, who was sentenced to 13 years in 2014 for delivering over a dozen babies from women held captive (and later killed) at the Campo de Mayo army base; as he and his wife could not have children, he himself kept two of the infants.

Bianco had fled to Paraguay in 1986 after being informed that the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo had learned of his role and were pursuing legal action. He willingly returned to Argentina in 1998, however, after being convinced that he'd never stand trial (this was in the Menem era).

I guess he was right.