Judge Ariel Lijo prosecuted 34 criminals from Argentina’s last dictatorship, for hundreds of accounts of false imprisonment, murder and torture in the clandestine detention center that operated in the former Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA, by its Spanish initials).

In the July 3 ruling, Lijo included in the list of crimes the kidnapping of several children who were taken to the ex-ESMA clandestine detention center with their parents, or those who were taken momentarily during or after their parent’s kidnapping.

Alfredo Astiz, Jorge “Tigre” Acosta and Adolfo Donda are among the feared torturers and murderers that operated in the ESMA. They are now facing new charges, as well as an asset freeze. 

Lijo ordered a freeze of over AR$300 million (roughly US$236,000) for Astiz and Acosta, and over AR$400 million (US$313,000) for Donda based on his charges.

Also included in the ruling are former navy members Antonio Pernías and Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason. The two, along with Astiz and Donda, are serving time in the penal unit that operates inside the military compound Campo de Mayo for crimes against humanity. The individuals were part of a group of repressors that were visited by deputies from President Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza in mid-2024 in the Ezeiza prison, where they were locked up at the time.

The 34 men included in the ruling have all been convicted of crimes against humanity in the past, with some of them currently out of prison after being acquitted, given parole or house arrest.

Acosta, for instance, was prosecuted on the charges of being a necessary participant in 20 counts of torture, 99 counts of false imprisonment aggravated for being carried out with abuse of his position as navy chief of intelligence, and two counts of death as a result of false imprisonment.

Like Astiz and Donda, he is serving life imprisonment for crimes against humanity but continues to be charged and convicted for crimes committed during the dictatorship. In November 2023, the judiciary ratified Donda’s conviction on sexual crimes against humanity, a charge that had not been considered until recently in trials. 

Astiz, who became known by dictatorship victims as “The Angel of Death” or “The Blonde Angel,” was a navy spy who famously infiltrated the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, leading to the murder of three of them, as well as members of a church they frequented. Astiz is now facing charges of being a necessary participant in 19 counts of torture, 103 counts of aggravated false imprisonment, and two deaths resulting from said false imprisonment.

Donda — a navy captain mainly known for participating in the appropriation of his niece Victoria Donda, born in captivity to desaparecido parents — has now been prosecuted for 21 counts of being necessary participant in torture, 113 false imprisonment counts, 13 counts of death as a result of torture and two of death resulting from false imprisonment.