Argentine legal authorities suspended a decision to release Alfredo Astiz, known as the “Blond Angel of Death” for a series of murders during the 1976 to 1983 military dictatorship, a day after a court ordered him freed, the official news agency Telam reported on Friday.
The announcement came barely two hours after the government said it would appeal the controversial decision to release Astiz — accused of involvement in the disappearance of two French nuns, a Swedish adolescent and scores of political dissidents during the dictatorship’s fight against leftist insurgents.
Astiz and other former military officers are scheduled for a hearing, but a court on Thursday ordered him released, along with another accused jailer and torturer, Jorge Acosta alias “The Tiger,” on the grounds they had been detained for two years without being formally charged.
Thursday’s court decision sparked outrage inside and outside Argentina.
An extraordinary appeal would be filed before the country’s Supreme Court “against the decision,” Human Rights Secretary Eduardo Duhalde told a news conference on Friday.
“If we can’t guarantee that they are tried [in Argentina] and that they don’t flee, the international community will act, without doubt,” Duhalde said.
Astiz, a former navy captain, worked at Buenos Aires’ Navy Mechanics School, an infamous center for torture and abuse, where some 5,000 people were taken and only a few hundred survived.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
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Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
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