Spain arrests Argentine ex-president Isabel Peron
Source: Reuters
(Adds byline, updates with conditional release) By Elisabeth O'Leary MADRID, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Spain on Friday arrested former Argentine President Isabel Peron, who is wanted in her home country for questioning over the killings of leftist dissidents prior to the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Police arrested Peron, the widow of Argentina's former President Juan Domingo Peron, at her home in the Spanish town of Villanueva de la Canada and a judge later granted her conditional release while a decision is taken on whether or not to extradite her. Peron succeeded her husband as president after his death but she struggled to hold onto power as political violence between leftist guerrillas and anti-communist death squads accelerated. In March 1976, she was ousted in a coup. A day before her arrest in Spain, an Argentine judge issued an international warrant for the former leader, whose full name is Maria Estela Martinez de Peron. Federal Judge Raul Acosta wants to question her over the 1976 disappearance of a man who rights groups say was last seen being taken into custody by state security officials. He also accuses Peron, who was Juan Peron's third wife, of signing three decrees that facilitated acts of state terrorism during her 1974-1976 rule. Soon after her arrest, a Spanish court granted provisional release to the 75-year-old on the condition that she appear before authorities every two weeks. It accepted that her delicate state of health meant there was no risk she would flee, a court source said. The source said she may be able to fight extradition because of her dual Argentine-Spanish citizenship. STATE TERRORISM Peron's arrest comes as Argentina digs deeper into its past political violence. President Nestor Kirchner, who has pushed for deeper investigations into past human rights abuses in the South American country, said after the warrant was issued that "no one is above the law." She is under investigation for the government's alleged role in the disappearance of leftist Hector Fagetti in Mendoza province and the detention of another man. "This had to happen. We waited 31 years and now it's starting to happen," Fagetti's wife, Elsa Sosa, told Argentine television. Rights abuses under Isabel Peron are not as well known as the killings and kidnappings that took place during Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War" that followed her presidency, when between 11,000 and 30,000 people were killed in a crackdown on leftist dissent. Another judge has ordered the arrests of several members of the Argentine Anti-communist Alliance, or Triple A, a clandestine group that operated during Isabel Peron's rule and which is accused of up to 2,000 murders and abductions as the government tried to wipe out Communist guerrilla groups. (Additional reporting by Lucas Bergman and Fiona Ortiz in Buenos Aires)
| AlertNet news is provided by |  |
