Endgame for former Argentine police officer Mario Sandoval, accused by the justice of his country of having participated in more than 500 acts of murder, torture and kidnapping during the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. Nicknamed "Churrasco", that l 'we can translate by "grilling", in reference to the torture of victims with electricity on a metal bed base, the man was extradited Sunday December 15 to Argentina, placed under escort on an Air France flight from Paris . It is the end of a soap opera in France, after almost eight years of legal battle.

The 66-year-old former official, dyed complexion, short hair, was arrested Wednesday at his home in Nogent-sur-Marne, a Paris suburb, after the rejection of one of his last appeals. On that day, the Council of State, the highest administrative court, indeed definitively validated an extradition decree issued by the French government on August 21, 2018.

"A very strange guy"

The Argentinian went into exile in France in 1985. The former police officer obtained French nationality in 1997, which did not prevent his extradition since he was not French at the time of the events. It was not until 2012 that Argentine justice first claimed the former police officer in France. Suspected of having participated in hundreds of crimes during the military dictatorship, the justice system only requests his extradition for one file: that of Hernan Abriata, for which it has a dozen depositions. This architecture student was detained at the School of Marine Mechanics (ESMA), a center of torture of the dictatorship through which passed some 5,000 people who then disappeared, often thrown from planes in the Rio de la Plata .

"He was a very strange guy, he was intelligence. He was one of the best intellectually trained in ESMA. (But) if he could kill you, he killed you", testified a survivor from this torture center, Alfredo Buzzalino.

The former civil servant, who denies the facts and believes that they are prescribed, then seizes the Council of State to prevent the execution of the governmental decree. The Code of Criminal Procedure prohibits extradition when the crime is prescribed under French law. But the Council confirms what had said before him the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Council: in matters of confinement, the prescription begins to run only with the discovery of the body or the confessions of the defendant, which does not is not the case in this case, the young Hernan having never been found. And his last appeal, this time before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was also rejected on Friday.

A new life in France

The complete identity of Mario Sandoval has long been ignored in France. Discreet, he had rebuilt a new life in France, without hiding his name and surname. In 1997, he obtained French nationality.

Consultant specialized in defense and security issues, he taught from 1999 to 2005 at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Latin America (IHEAL), in Paris, and at the University of Marne-la-Vallée in the suburbs Parisian.

No one is aware of his past. Not even the French Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, who was the director of the establishment of the IHEAL at the time. And for good reason, the accusations of torture in Argentina against him were not revealed until 2008.

However, he ends up being recognized in a photo. Teachers from both institutions then write an open letter to request his extradition. In 2012, the Franco-Argentinian accused of defamation or complicity in defamation several French media, including France info and Marianne, following the publication in 2008 of information on his supposed role under the Argentinian dictatorship. Pleading homonymy, he seized the Tribunal de grande instance d'Auxerre. "I am the victim of a smear campaign," he pleads, before being dismissed. He will now have to explain it to the Argentinian justice.

Newsletter Don't miss anything from international news

Don't miss anything from international news

subscribe

google-play-badge_FR