Mario Sandoval, who lived thirty years in France from 1985, had been extradited in 2019 to be tried in Buenos Aires for the kidnapping of a young student in 1976.
by Angeline Montoya
He believed himself protected first by the laws of impunity voted in Argentina after the dictatorship (1976-1983), then by his French nationality, acquired in 1997. Mario Sandoval, 69, was finally sentenced on Wednesday on Wednesday December 21, in Buenos Aires, at fifteen years in prison, for the kidnapping and torture, in 1976, of a 24 -year -old student, Hernan Abriata.
“The court declares that the facts in question constitute crimes against humanity, said judge Fernando Canero, and does not follow up on the accused’s request to consider the facts as prescribed.” In The courtroom of the Comodoro Py court, cries of joy and applause accompanied the reading of the verdict. “It was forty-six years of struggle, including eight to obtain his extradition from France, we have never gone up!”, Wailed Monica Dittmar, the widow of Hernan Abriata.
The various civil parties had requested between twenty -one years in prison and life imprisonment. The Secretariat for Human Rights, as well as the prosecution had required a sentence of twenty years. “I am in solidarity with the pain of the Abriata family, but I am not the Inspector Sandoval who arrested Hernan Abriata”, had reiterated, before the verdict, Mario Sandoval, in videoconference from the Campo prison of Mayo, where he attended the trial. Pleading homonymy and error on the person has always been his line of defense.
“I am full of anger”
In the courtroom, members of human rights organizations and former political prisoners surrounded the Abriata and Monica Dittmar family, who attended all the hearings since the start of the trial on September 14 . Before reading the verdict, they brandished signs with photos of the young man.
“I’m full of anger, it’s been so many years that we are waiting for this moment, and see this cowardly hiding again and always, it makes me get angry”, explained M me said World by phone, before reading the verdict. She referred to the fact that Mario Sandoval refused to attend most of the audiences physically, and wore a mask even when he was at a distance and alone in a room.
Hernan Abriata had been abducted on the night of October 30, 1976 by a plaincloth commando and led to the Marine Mechanics School, the Esma sinister, from which approximately 5,000 opponents disappeared during the dictatorship. Considering the last time in January 1977 in the attic of ESMA, where the prisoners were locked up, Hernan never reappeared. It is assumed that, like most prisoners, he was embarked on an airplane and thrown into the ocean.
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