This event ocurred in 2008, posting to illustrate background on these trials:Argentina Baby Snatch Witness Dies in Trial
Possibly killed before could talk about Dirty War disappearances
By Rob Quinn| Posted Feb 27, 08 9:46 AM CST
(Newser) – Days before he was to testify about the Dirty War disappearance of twins born to a political prisoner, a former Argentine army officer has been found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, the BBC reports. Police don't know if Paul Navone committed suicide but human rights groups think he might have been murdered to stop him from talking.
"It's highly likely that there are people who could have felt threatened by Navone's testimony," said a lawyer. Hundreds of babies were stolen from their dissident parents and given to childless couples sympathetic to Argentina's military junta from 1976 to 1983, when an estimated 30,000 leftists disappeared. Another army officer died of cyanide poisoning in December days before the verdict in his torture case.
http://www.newser.com/story/20179/argentina-baby-snatch-witness-dies-in-trial.html~~~~~3 convicted of switching child's identity in landmark Argentine 'dirty war' trial
JEANNETTE NEUMANN, Associated Press Writer
April 4, 2008 6:32 PM
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - A court on Friday sentenced the adoptive parents of a baby born to a missing political prisoner to up to eight years in prison for concealing the child's identity, in a landmark case with roots in Argentina's dictatorship.
The court also handed down a sentence of 10 years to a former army captain accused of giving the couple the baby after the real parents were abducted by state security forces during the 1976-1983 military regime and never reappeared.
The case marked the first time a child of a dissident who disappeared during Argentina's ''dirty war'' had taken her adoptive parents to court. Human rights groups say more than 200 such children were taken from abducted mothers and given to military or politically connected families to raise. DNA tests have allowed some of them to identify their real parents.
~snip~
Berthier's lawyer, Alejandro Maria Macedo Rumi, said during the trial there was no proof that Sampallo's parents were missing or disappeared. He added that the evidence against Berthier was given by ''former terrorists'' who had participated in leftist militant groups.
~snip~
In 2001, Sampallo's mother was six months pregnant when she and her father were abducted on Dec. 6, 1977, said Sampallo's lawyer. He said Sampallo was born in February 1978, while her mother was being held at a clandestine torture center.
More:
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565274892501909659http://www.theargentimes.com.nyud.net:8090/images/edition036/abuelas/abuelas03.jpg
http://www.theage.com.au.nyud.net:8090/ffximage/2008/02/20/majmaria_narrowweb__300x384,0.jpg http://images.usatoday.com.nyud.net:8090/Wires2Web/20080404/3909162987_Argentina_Hija_Desaparecidosx.jpg
Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragan
~~~~~ From The Times
November 28, 2007
The orphan files
What happens when you find out that the people you thought were your family helped to kill your real parents? In Buenos Aires, the orphans of the disappeared tell their stories
Thomas Catan
http://www.timesonline.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/multimedia/archive/00247/victoria185_247005a.jpgFor 27 years Victoria Donda believed that her name was AnalÍa, that she was born on a patch of wasteland in Buenos Aires and brought up by two loving parents. Three years ago she was told the awful truth: she was born in a secret torture centre run by the brutal junta that governed Argentina for seven years, she was ripped from her mother’s arms when she was 15 days old, and – most heartbreaking of all – the people she thought were her family were part of a regime responsible for the political abduction and murder of her real parents.
The truth was hard to take. “It was very hard, really horrible,” Victoria says. “Imagine if someone told you right now that your parents are not your parents.” She has a complex relationship with the couple who brought her up, a naval officer and his wife, whom she now calls her “appropriators”. The woman came from a poor background and was illiterate: “I taught her to read. She thought she was doing the right thing.” But she finds it difficult to talk about her “father” and refuses to mention his name. Juan Anto-nio Azic shot himself in the head in 2003 as he was about to be charged with child abduction and torturing prisoners. He survived, emerged from a coma and is now in a secure psychiatric unit awaiting trial.
“I’m his daughter: society can’t ask me to judge him,” Victoria says. “They raised me with love, and I love him still. He was responsible and he is in prison and I go to see him. He knows I think he needs to be under arrest. But I think love is not tied to whether you were responsible politically or not. Love works in a different way. If your child ends up being a serial killer, you don’t stop loving him. He will be imprisoned but you will keep on loving him. It’s the same thing.”
Victoria’s case is tragic, but it is far from unique. Between 1976 and 1983, human rights organisations estimate that between 10,000 and 30,000 people disappeared during the Dirty War, the junta’s attempt to “cleanse” Argentina of left-wing opponents. They won’t be coming back: witnesses from that time tell how prisoners were injected with paralysing drugs, stripped naked, crammed on to planes and dropped into the Rio de la Plata, so wide that you cannot see from one shore to the other. But what of their children – either abducted with their parents, or, like Victoria, born in one of those hell-hole detention centres?
More:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article2955564.ece