Buenos Aires Herald 
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich backed a group of La Libertad Avanza deputies who visited incarcerated dictatorship-era repressors last week, saying it was their “personal decision” and that “all inmates can be visited by anyone, as long as it is within the limits of the law.” Her comments came in response to a judicial request for the minister to provide details about the visit.
“We are going through a construction of freedom in Argentina, and if someone considers they have to visit an inmate because they consider that inmate to be part of a tragic moment of Argentine history, they can do it,” Bullrich said in an interview with Radio Rivadavia on Sunday.
“It was a personal decision, not from their party. Each of them should take responsibility for what they did, that is what freedom is about.”
Although it happened on July 11, news about the meeting with former members of the armed forces serving life sentences in federal prison for crimes against humanity broke on Wednesday. Beltrán Benedit, the deputy who spearheaded the visit, defended the decision by claiming the repressors were “veterans of the battle against Marxist subversion under the orders of a constitutional government.”
On Friday, federal judge Daniel Obligado issued a request for Bullrich to give details on the circumstances surrounding the prison visit. Obligado was appointed to investigate by the Federal Cassation Court. He has previously been in charge of several trials against dictatorship-era repressors, including one of the inmates the deputies visited — the “Angel of Death” Alfredo Astiz.
The judiciary’s request reached Bullrich’s desk because the Federal Penitentiary Service falls under her purview, a change introduced by President Javier Milei.
“I am in charge of the penitentiary system, I don’t want to be in the position of approving which inmate you can or can’t visit,” Bullrich in response, adding that she was “surprised” similar investigation orders weren’t issued for human rights organizations visiting prisons.
“Deputies request to visit jail all the time. He might as well ask me about any person who visits the prison.”
The visit sparked outcry from human rights organizations and political parties, and even from within La Libertad Avanza: many of its members privately condemned it, as some told the Herald. The government has responded by highlighting the deputies’ actions as personal: Lower House President Martín Menem and Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni expressed similar views to Bullrich. “We do not interfere with the personal agenda of deputies whether we agree with it or not, whether we find it objectionable or not,” Adorni said on Friday.
Having earned condemnation across the political spectrum, deputies from Peronist coalition Unión por la Patria filed a bill on Thursday to investigate and potentially expel the LLA lawmakers from Congress.
“This type of behavior must not go unnoticed and we must act upon any type of attempt to promote the impunity of people convicted of crimes against humanity during the last civic-military dictatorship,” they said in a communiqué.
