Argentina: 'Dirty War' Corporal Testifies '4,000 Thrown into Sea Alive'
Members of the organization Madres de Plaza Mayo hold photos of the victims disappeared during Argentina's bloody dictatorship. | Photo: EFE
Published 31 May 2019 (1 hours 56 minutes ago)
An Ex-corporal confirmed that the Campo de Mayo military base was used as a clandestine detention center for “counter-offensive” during the civil war.
Shocking testimony from a witness and former militant of Argentina’s Dirty War was revealed during a court session earlier this week.
Per a video conference call from Neuquen, Argentina Tuesday, Nelson Ramon Gonzalez retold the stories of dozens of kidnappings, incidents of torture, and forced disappearances between 1979 and 1980 conducted during the nation’s bloody dictatorship.
The Calvary corporal confirmed that the Campo de Mayo military base was used as a clandestine detention center for people involved in the "counter-offensive" resisting the dictatorship, and which during the conflict, he recounted, were boarded onto planes by the thousands only to plunge into the sea.
"About four thousand people passed through (Campo de Mayo) and then were thrown into the sea alive,” said Gonzalez. “It was known throughout Campo de Mayo. There were the Fiat planes and the flights left there. It was common knowledge," he said.
More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Argentina-Dirty-War-Corporal-Testifies-4000-Thrown-into-Sea-Alive-20190531-0013.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Death flights" pilot arrested in Spain goes on trial in Argentina
Julio Alberto Poch allegedly confessed to role in disappearances while drunk
21 FEB 2013 - 14:05 CET
Julio Alberto Poch, a former pilot for the Dutch airline Transavia, holds up a sign protesting his innocence.
A man who is alleged to have been one of the infamous pilots who flew the so-called "death flights" for the Navy Mechanical School (ESMA) during Argentina's Dirty War (1976-1983) declared his innocence on Monday before a Buenos Aires federal court. Julio Alberto Poch, a former pilot for the Dutch airline Transavia, was arrested in Valencia, Spain in 2009 while he was traveling with his family. The 60-year-old Argentinean was extradited to his native country the following year to face 30 kidnapping and murder charges.
In 2003, Poch, under the influence of alcohol, reportedly confessed to two co-workers that he participated in the disappearances of hundreds of arrested dissidents held at the notorious ESMA. The naked prisoners were drugged and tied up and dropped from a plane into the River Plate. Many bodies washed up on the Uruguayan shore.
Poch maintains that his words were misinterpreted.
In 1995, Captain Adolfo Scilingo was one of the first pilots to confess to taking part in the secret flights. He made his confession to journalist Horacio Verbitsky before traveling voluntarily to Spain to cooperate with the investigation of former High Court Judge Baltasar Garzón. Scilingo is serving a long jail sentence following his convictions.
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According to Weert, at one point Poch said there were moments "when he said he was on board the plane and would throw the people off."
More:
https://elpais.com/elpais/2013/02/21/inenglish/1361450401_840071.html
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More famous, perhaps because he wrote a book about it, was Captain Adolfo Scilingo:
Argentinian jailed for throwing prisoners from plane
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Tue 19 Apr 2005 19.02 EDT
An Argentinian former naval officer who threw prisoners, drugged and naked, to their death from planes was convicted of crimes against humanity and jailed for a total of 640 years by a Spanish court yesterday for his part in the "dirty war" against dissidents conducted by the Argentinian military regime in the 1970s.
Captain Adolfo Scilingo killed 30 leftwing prisoners, who were thrown out at 4,000 metres (13,000ft) above the Atlantic, on two flights.
Scilingo, 58, will serve a maximum of 30 years.
Judge José Ricardo de Prada said, delivering the judgment, said: "As a macabre joke they would make them [the prisoners] dance to Brazilian music."
The judgment, reached by three judges in the national court in Madrid, described how naval officers tortured victims with electric shocks which burned their flesh. The torture sessions were called "barbecues".
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/20/argentina.gilestremlett
Scilingo, fainting in court. Another one bit the dirt.
