Martina Jaureguy 
President Javier Milei’s Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona resigned as defense attorney of former Buenos Aires province police officer Enrique Augusto Barré, who is being tried for kidnapping, torture, and murder during the last military dictatorship.
Since working as an attorney is incompatible with his new role. Cúneo Libarona had to recuse himself from the cases he was working on. In Barré’s case, he sent a resignation letter on Monday explaining that he had had “no participation in the trial except for one session.”
However, Barré is still being represented by two lawyers from Cúneo Libarona’s law firm — Augusto Garrido and Agustina Bolis. The firm, called Cúneo Libarona, has a disclaimer on its website saying he is no longer part of the firm because he was appointed justice minister.
Barré, 84, is being tried along with other 16 people in the case known as Brigadas, which began in October 2020. This trial is investigating crimes committed in three Buenos Aires metropolitan area clandestine detention centers, known as Pozo de Banfield, Pozo de Quilmes and El Infierno de Lanús, with a total of 442 victims.
Barré is a former chief of the Property Damage Division of the Buenos Aires province Police. This is the first time he is being tried and he is currently in pre-trial home imprisonment.
One of the repressors who was being investigated in the trial was Miguel Etchecolatz, one of the most feared and cruel torturers of the dictatorship, but he died in 2022. Barré was under his orders while working at Pozo de Banfield.
Since the beginning, the trial has been conducted virtually via Zoom calls.
Human rights attorney Guadalupe Godoy, a plaintiff in this case and other crimes against humanity trials, told the Herald that Cúneo Libarona was the one who signed most of Barré’s defense documents before the trial started.
“[Cúneo Libarona] says he only participated in one session, but I’m not so sure about that,” Godoy said. “Many times the Zoom user just said ‘Cúneo Libarona firm’ and the camera was turned off, so it wasn’t clear who was actually online.” She added that one time the court asked him to turn the camera on “and he didn’t want to because he was wearing a T-shirt and hadn’t shaved.”
Godoy also pointed out that Cúneo Libarona resigned from Barré’s defense right before the final statements stage started on Tuesday.
Regarding the newly appointed minister’s note quitting the Brigadas trial, Godoy said that “it’s clear he wanted to emphasize that he had had no influence in the case.”
“It could be because he knows that crimes against humanity trials have more visibility than others,” Godoy said. “Or because he wants to clarify that he is not affecting his former client’s defense because he hadn’t participated much to begin with.”
Godoy added that, as a lawyer who focuses on crimes against humanity trials, she is worried about the “dictatorship advocacy discourse” she sees in Milei’s government. “I am scared they will apply policies that will affect the judiciary sector.”
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