Reply #6: Argentine President Reports Dirty War Atrocities Witness Is Missing

[seafan]

Source: AP

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina | A human rights activist who has testified about the treatment of political prisoners during Argentina’s military dictatorship has gone missing, President Cristina Fernandez said today.

“We are concerned,” Fernandez said on television, announcing an intense search for Juan Evaristo Puthod.
He was last seen Tuesday as he left a human rights office dedicated to the memory of thousands of dead and missing victims of the 1976-83 military junta.
The 49-year-old Puthod received anonymous death threats about a year and a half ago, his family said, and fellow activists worry that former police and military officials may want to silence him. He survived captivity in several clandestine detention centers during the military junta’s crackdown, and has become a key witness in several current cases.

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Scioli also said that a simple criminal motive hasn’t been ruled out. But Puthod isn’t the first witness to disappear since Argentina renewed its effort to prosecute Dirty War crimes. Construction worker Jorge Julio Lopez hasn’t been seen since September 2006, shortly after his testimony helped convict a former Buenos Aires provincial police chief of dirty war crimes.

Retired army officer Paul Alberto Navone died in an apparent suicide in February after he was called to testify about the fate of twins born to a political prisoner. And in December, former Coast Guard officer Hector Febres was found dead of cyanide poisoning in his military cell, just before a court was to rule on charges he kidnapped and tortured dissidents.

Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing from the seven-year crackdown.

Read more: http://www.theledger.com/article/20080430/BREAKING/862899473