This thread is intended as a collection point for various ongoing news update stories about the Dirty Wars, referring generally to the Latin & Central American Right-Wing and dictators' state-sponsorship of torture, death squads, disappearance & extermination of "Leftists" and citizens, especially in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicuragua, Honduras, among others.
Death of accused torturer probed
By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 8, 2008
Detained family members of an accused torturer poisoned days before he was to appear in court appealed for their freedom Tuesday amid suspicions the man was killed to keep him from talking about dictatorship-era abuses.
Hector Febres, poisoned last month by a large dose of cyanide, was found dead in his cell in a military brig Dec. 10, four days before a court was to rule on charges he kidnapped and tortured four dissidents during Argentina's 1976-83 military regime.
His widow, Stella Maris Guevara, and their grown children, Hector Ariel and Sonia Marcel, were detained hours later on orders of Federal Judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado, who is investigating Febres' death.
The family's defense lawyer, Claudio Casio, on Tuesday told the Noticias Argentinas news agency that allegations his widow and children were involved in a possible coverup of his death were baseless and should be dismissed. He said he filed an appeal for their release.
Febres had known he possessed risky information, gleaned as a former officer at the Navy Mechanics' School, the dictatorship's main secret torture center, according to excerpts of a legal document published by the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarin.
The document quotes Judge Salgado saying that Febres had made a "clear decision" to discuss his alleged role in military repression and "perhaps the destiny of children born in captivity," despite his awareness of the risks associated with implicating others.
At least 88 children born to political prisoners who disappeared during Argentina's dictatorship have been located, according to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group formed by missing prisoners' mothers, now devoted to finding their grandchildren.
Febres' death hinders efforts to track down more missing children — but the current investigation into his killing could pinpoint other abusers who might have wanted him dead, said Estela de Carlotto, president of the grandmothers' group.
"I've always thought that they killed him to silence him," she told The Associated Press. "He was in the very place where our grandchildren were born and then given away while their mothers were killed."
At trial last year, witnesses testified that Febres had been a fierce torturer regularly seen at the Navy Mechanics' School.
He died four days before a verdict was to be handed down in the case against him — a moment when defendants are afforded time to speak in open court.
Prosecutors say the military regime's seven-year "Dirty War" against dissent claimed nearly 13,000 lives. Activists put the death toll closer to 30,000.