The Supreme Court threw out a 1989 presidential pardon that absolved a former army general of alleged human rights abuses during Argentina's dictatorship.
Friday's ruling that the pardon of General Santiago Omar Riveros was unconstitutional opens the door for lower courts to reconsider dozens of other pardons granted after the end of the 1976 to 1983 military regime.
The court's seven members voted 4 to 2, with one abstention, that Riveros can be tried for illegal abductions, torture and killings of dissidents during a crackdown known as the Dirty War.
missing
Nearly 13,000 people are officially reported as missing from the junta era, though human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000 victims.
President Nestor Kirchner has made settling dictatorship-era human rights cases a priority. Since 2005, when the Supreme Court struck down 1980s laws granting blanket amnesty to people involved in official repression, dozens of former military and police officers have been called before the courts.
Last year, former police investigator Miguel Etchecolatz was convicted of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment. That trial was marred by the disappearance of the chief prosecution witness, torture survivor Jorge Julio Lopez, who remains missing.
junta
A high-ranking commander during the junta, Riveros was known for his harsh direction of one of the army's torture centers, Campo de Mayo.
He was accused in connection with 14 killings and 20 cases of torture at army institutes under his command, before being pardoned by then-President Carlos Menem.
Riveros has been under house arrest since 2000 as part of a trial of military officials who allegedly arranged the illegal adoption of more than 200 children born in detention centers. Charges of child kidnapping never went to court and were not covered by the presidential pardon.
Menem issued a statement on Friday defending his pardons and accusing Kirchner of a "vendetta" against former members of the military while not lifting pardons granted to leftist "terrorist organizations" they sought to crush.
election
Menem is making a long-shot bid to regain the Argentine presidency in October's election. The race's front-runner is Kirchner's wife, Senator Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Argentine constitutional scholar Gregorio Badeni noted that during the 1990s, the Supreme Court -- dominated by Menem appointees -- had ruled that the Riveros pardon was valid.
"I don't really understand the court's argument for going against its earlier ruling," he said.
The Supreme Court said in a statement that the alleged crimes violated not only Argentina's constitution but also international law and treaties still in effect.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS