A major trial for crimes, including the so-called "death flights," during Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship started Wednesday in Buenos Aires. Several pilots involved in the death flights - in which illegal detainees were thrown alive from planes to their death in the sea - are among the 68 people standing trial for crimes committed in the Navy Officers School of Mechanics, or ESMA, which is believed to have held about 5,000 illegal detainees during the junta.
The regime is believed to have killed about 30,000 people, although they technically are still regarded as "desaparecidos" (missing), because most of the bodies have never been found.
In this case, the courts are dealing with 789 crimes against humanity and are set to hear 900 witnesses. Most of the defendants were Navy officers and petty officers during the dictatorship, although there are also civilians, including former finance secretary Juan Alemann. Some of these people are already serving sentences for other crimes committed in the ESMA.
The opening of the trial was broadcast live at an auditorium in the Room for Memory Institute, which has been created at the facilities of the former ESMA in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Nunez.
The existence of the death flights has been reported by survivors of the ESMA illegal detention camp and also by former Capt. Adolfo Scilingo, who is serving a jail sentence in Spain after confessing to courts there that he had thrown into the sea 30 detainees who were anesthetized at the time.
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team identified in 2005 several bodies found in the country's Atlantic coast in 1977. It also certified that they showed fractures that probably were caused by a fall from great altitude and the subsequent impact on the water.
Thursday 29 November 2012
Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/11/28/2783134/trial-over-juntas-death-flights.html#storylink=cpy
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