Alfredo Ignacio Astiz (born 8 November 1951) was a Commander, intelligence officer, Marine and maritime commando in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla during the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (19761983). He was known as El Ángel Rubio de la Muerte (the "Blond Angel of Death"

, and had a reputation as a notorious torturer. He was discharged from the military in 1998 after defending his actions in a press interview.
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In December 1977 Astiz organized the kidnapping of about a dozen people associated with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, including the founders Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti and two others. The non-violent group of mothers organized to learn the fates of their missing children and protested against the thousands of "disappeared." He also kidnapped two French nationals who were Catholic nuns, Leonie Duquet and Alice Domon. None was seen alive again after having been tortured at ESMA and "transferred", a euphemism for being taken elsewhere to be killed.
Astiz was witnessed torturing the nuns at ESMA by beating them, immersing them in water and applying electrified cattle prods to their breasts, genitals and mouths. A staged photograph intended to portray their support of the Montoneros, a Peronist leftist group, was leaked to the press. Despite repeated efforts by France to trace the nuns, the Argentine government denied all knowledge of them.
In late December 1977, unidentified bodies began washing up on beaches hundreds of kilometers south of Buenos Aires after heavy storms. Autopsies revealed they had died on impact, apparently having been thrown out of aircraft over the ocean, intended never to be discovered. In March 1978 Agence France-Presse reported that the bodies were believed to be the two nuns and several members of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, but this was not confirmed by the government. These and other bodies washed ashore were buried in mass graves at General Lavalle Cemetery, about 400 kilometers south of Buenos Aires.
In July 2005 several bodies of unidentified women were found in a mass grave in General Lavalle Cemetery. Forensic DNA testing by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team identified the remains of Duquet, Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti, and two other founders of the Mothers of the Plaza in August 2005.[4] Domon's remains have not been found.