Paraguay: trial of a former police officer for acts of torture under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner
Former police officer Eusebio Torres, nicknamed "the Whip" - because it was his favorite tool when he "interrogated" or corrected detainees - is now 87 years old. He is on trial for torture in Asuncion, a rare window opened by Paraguayan justice on the long dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.
Eusebio Torres, aged 87, during the hearing which takes place virtually, February 16, 2024. AFP - NORBERTO DUARTE
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On the screen of the computers installed in the courtroom, Eusebio Torres is an old gentleman with a tired, but rather closed face, who attends without saying a word to the hearing which is taking place virtually. A calm that contrasts with his attitude 47 years ago, as reported by witnesses: “
He ordered me to undress and, with his braided leather whip, he began to hit me with force, with rage, like I kicked his mother. One of the impacts burst my eye
.” Carlos Arestivo, who has since worn a glass eye, is one of around twenty witnesses heard over the past week in Asuncion at the Torres trial, for two cases of torture dating back to 1976, which the accused denies.
The witnesses are themselves old and frail, but for whom this trial is "
an event of great importance, because very few police officers and hierarchs of the Stroessner dictatorship have been convicted
", one of them explains to AFP. them, Antonio Valenzuela Pecci. “
It is a desire for justice that drives us, not revenge
,” he explains.
Extremely rare post-dictatorship prosecutions
The dictatorship of General Stroessner - from 1954 to 1989 - left in thirty-five years a record of 59 extra-judicial executions, 336 disappearances, nearly 20,000 illegal detentions, and some 19,000 cases of torture. That is, on the scale of Paraguay, “
one in 133 inhabitants
”, underlined the Truth and Justice Commission in its 2008 report.
However, post-dictatorship prosecutions have been extremely rare, involving only around ten police officers for torture. As for Alfredo Stroessner, convicted in absentia, he died without being worried in 2006 at the age of 93, since his golden exile in Brazil. The conservative Colorado Party, to which the dictator belonged, continues to dominate Paraguayan political life. The current president Santiago Peña comes from there, like his predecessor Mario Abdo Benitez, son of the former influential private secretary of Stroessner.
Eusebio Torres, who in 2007 was already convicted - but placed in house arrest because of his age - was even honored in 2014, with other police officers, for a half-century of career. A ceremony which caused a scandal, under the presidency of Horacio Cartes - from 2013 to 2018 -, who still chairs the Colorado Party to this day.
During the trial, the defense raised in vain the limitation period, and a reclassification of the facts as assault and battery. The prosecution requested on Friday fifteen years in prison, which Torres, again because of his age, should not experience. The trial is scheduled to end on February 20.
Read also Paraguay: macabre discovery in a residence of the former dictator Stroessner
(
With
AFP)
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