Italian police made one arrest on Monday as prosecutors issued warrants for 140 former South American leaders and officials accused of being behind a regionwide crackdown on dissent in the 1970s and 1980s, news reports said.
Police in the southern city of Salerno arrested Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, a former naval intelligence officer in Uruguay, as part of an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Italian and non-Italian opponents of South America's military dictatorships, the news agencies ANSA and Apcom reported.
Prosecutors in Rome issued warrants for the arrests of 140 officials who worked for the military dictatorships or the secret services of Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, Apcom reported.
The suspects are under investigation for murder and kidnapping and include Argentina's former junta leader Jorge Videla and Uruguay's former dictator Juan Bordaberry, ANSA said.
Phone calls to the offices of Rome prosecutors were not answered on Monday evening, and police in Salerno could not confirm the reports.
Under Operation Condor, the military governments of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Uruguay exchanged information that led to the kidnappings and killings of thousands of dissidents, prosecutors said.
It is not the first time Italy has gone after those believed to be responsible for the so-called Dirty War. In March, an Italian court gave life sentences to five former members of Argentina's military tried in absentia for murdering three Italians in the 1970s.
Several of those being sought are already facing prosecution at home for human rights abuses, including Videla and Bordaberry, who seized control of Uruguay with military backing during a 1973 coup.
Bordaberry was detained late last year and faces 14 homicide charges related to Dirty War killings of the 1970s. He is under house arrest owing to health problems.
Uruguayan prosecutor Mirtha Guianza told local radio, El Espectador, she would discuss the Italian request later this week with the judge, who is handling several cases against former officers suspected of human rights abuses.
Guianza noted that Troccoli apparently has Italian citizenship and could thus be tried in Italy under existing treaties, although she did not rule out a possible extradition request.
Videla is also under house arrest in Buenos Aires, while he is prosecuted on a range of human rights charges and has numerous pending extradition requests from European nations.
Argentine authorities have generally opposed granting such requests, saying prosecution at home takes precedence in cases of suspected crimes committed on Argentine soil.
Others named by news agencies as wanted in Italy are Argentine Navy chief Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, who was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to life, and Navy officer Juan Carlos Larcebeau.
They also said former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was under investigation until his death last year.
Other European governments have attempted to try Dirty War suspects for alleged crimes committed in South America -- including Pinochet, who was arrested in London in 1998 on a warrant issued by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon. Pinochet was later ruled too frail to stand trial and allowed to return home.
Garzon also indicted Argentine junta-era officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, who was extradited from Mexico City to Madrid in 2003 and faces genocide, terrorism and other charges.
In 1990, a French court sentenced former Argentine naval Captain Alfredo Astiz in absentia to life in prison for the abduction of two French nuns who were taken to a clandestine torture center in Buenos Aires and later disappeared.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS