France must extradite the evening of Sunday, December 15, the former Argentinian police officer Mario Sandoval accused by Argentina of crimes against Humanity during the dictatorship of the military junta between 1976 and 1983, indicated the ministry for Justice.
Mario Sandoval, 66, was arrested by the gendarmerie on Wednesday at his home in Nogent-sur-Marne, on the outskirts of Paris, after the Council of State rejected an appeal against his extradition.
After the fall of the junta, the former policeman went into exile in France in 1985. He obtained French nationality in 1997, which did not prevent his extradition because he was not French at the material time. who are accused of it.
Presumed involvement in the disappearance of a student in 1976
Argentine justice, which claims Mario Sandoval to France since 2012, suspects him of having participated in more than 500 acts of murder, torture and kidnapping during the military dictatorship which lasted from 1976 to 1983.
Buenos Aires intends to try him for his alleged involvement in the disappearance under the dictatorship in 1976 of a student, Hernan Abriata. Several testimonies attributed him the nickname "Churrasco" ("Steak", which refers to the torture of the victims with electricity on a metal base).
Rejection of the European Court of Human Rights
Mario Sandoval, who denies the facts and believes that they are prescribed, had seized the Council of State to prevent the execution of the government decree.
Extradition will not deprive Mario Sandoval of his rights to a fair trial, to respect for the presumption of innocence and to legal certainty, replied the Council of State, stressing that the ex-police officer could "submit to the criminal judge Argentine the elements which he will consider useful "to prove his innocence.
His final appeal, this time before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was in turn rejected on Friday.
"I hope that consular protection (...) will ensure that his conditions of pretrial detention are dignified and limited in time, including in consideration of his state of health, and that the effective prosecution is confined to the single case for which [French justice] authorized his extradition ", declared the lawyer of Mario Sandoval, Maître Jérôme Rousseau.
With AFP
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