Former military officer José Ignacio Saravia Day was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the false imprisonment of three soldiers during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), one of whom remains missing. 

The conviction comes as part of a trial judging crimes against humanity committed in a police station in La Plata that operated as a detention and torture center in those years.

In addition, former Buenos Aires Province Police officer Pedro Muñoz was handed a 15-year sentence for his role as a secondary participant in crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, child abductions, and forced disappearances also committed at the same police station.

The convictions were celebrated by activists and relatives of the victims who were present at the La Plata criminal court.

The proceedings originally included an additional three former policemen among the defendants: Jorge Antonio Bergés — known as the “dictatorship’s obstetrician” for delivering babies in clandestine detention centers — who died in February, as well as Cecilio Reinaldo Gómez and Néstor Ramón Buzzato, who died before the oral proceedings began.

The kidnapping of the soldiers

In the 1970s, Saravia Day used to be a commander of the Mounted Granaderos, the elite military force in charge of the presidential security in Argentina. At the time of the dictatorship, this included those in charge of the military junta.

On Friday, Saravia Day was convicted as a co-perpetrator of the forced disappearance of José David Aleksoski (21) and the kidnapping and torture of Juan Ignacio Araujo and Roberto Campos, all of them young soldiers in training.

Aleksoski, Araujo, and Campos were complying with the mandatory military service as part of the Granaderos force, serving as guards at the presidential residence in Olivos.

According to witness testimonies, on October 22, 1976, Saravia Day was on duty at the residence and asked Aleksoski to run an errand for him. However, the three men were kidnapped and taken to several clandestine centers of detention, including La Plata’s Police Station 5°.

While Campos and Araujo survived, Aleksoski was never seen again.

The court established that the kidnapping and torture of the three victims took place in a context of political persecution, stating that Saravia Day abused his authority.

Saravia Day fled in 2017 after a judge ordered his arrest for his role in the disappearance of Aleksoski. He was found and arrested that same year. 

The crimes of Pedro Muñoz

Former police officer Pedro Muñoz was convicted for crimes committed against over 100 victims. 

While the prosecutors had requested a life conviction for him, the judges ultimately found him to be a secondary participant in all of them, which led to his sentence being significantly shortened to 15 years.

The crimes include the false imprisonment aggravated by the use of violence, threats, and torture against 39 victims who were being politically persecuted. Additional charges included the forced disappearance and torture of 51 victims, of which 14 have been confirmed to be dead. 

The whereabouts of the remaining 37 are still unknown.

Among his victims of false imprisonment were Jorge Omar Bonafini, one of the two disappeared sons of late Mothers of Plaza de Mayo leader Hebe de Bonafini, and Jorge Julio López, a man who survived but disappeared again in 2006 on the day he was supposed to testify against his perpetrators in a trial. He has never been seen again.

Muñoz was also convicted for taking part in the abduction or hiding of three children. Two of them were kidnapped alongside their parents. A third one, Leonardo Fossati, was born inside the police station while his mother, Inés Beatriz Ortega, was illegally detained there. 

Inés remains disappeared and is one of the victims of forced disappearance for which Muñoz was also convicted. He was also convicted for the forced disappearance of another baby born in the police station, Ana Baratti de la Cuadra. Both Ana and Leonardo were raised under false identities but discovered their true origins thanks to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

Muñoz was also found guilty as a secondary participant of the murder of 12 victims who were also tortured during false imprisonment, as well as the rape of two women and the sexual assault of 6 others.

One of them was 14-year-old Mónica Santucho, a girl who was kidnapped during an operation in which her parents were murdered in late 1976. During her forced imprisonment at La Plata’s Police Station 5°, Mónica was brutally tortured and raped. She was last seen in late 1977. 

Her remains were identified in 2009 by the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology. She was found in a mass grave at the Avellaneda public cemetery.

In addition, Muñoz was convicted for taking part in the forced disappearance of five pregnant women, one of whom was under 18 years old.

The court stated that “women were subjected to various forms of gender-based violence, particularly obstetric violence, as well as violence against children and adolescents.” This is the first ruling in the country to declare that the crimes in question constituted violence against children and teens.