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Former member of the Federal Security Superintendency Mario Sandoval was extradited from France at the end of 2019.
After what Mario Alfredo Sandoval spent decades in refuge in France and after, after his extradition in 2019, insisted on interrupting the process against him, the oral and public trial for crimes against humanity against the repressor of the ESMA has a date: the Federal Oral Court 5 of the City of Buenos Aires will judge him as of May 4 next by the kidnapping and disappearance of student Hernan Abriata in 1976. “The hope we have since the day Hernán was taken is that justice be done, that there be a trial and a conviction, that there be some reparation,” embraces the news. Monica Dittmar, Abriata’s partner, who searched for him along with his in-laws and sisters-in-law from day one and claimed for Sandoval’s extradition since they learned that he lived in Europe, more than 20 years ago.
“We have had a very long and very difficult struggle because for a long time everything was very uncertain,” said Dittmar, who witnessed the exact moment in which Sandoval, on October 30, 1976, kidnapped her new husband. Like Mónica, Hernán Abriata studied Architecture at the National University of Buenos Aires. He was 24 years old and, in addition, he was a member of the Peronist Youth. The gang, under Sandoval’s command, broke into the Abriata family’s house that night – where part of the Dittmar family also lived – looking for him. But there it was not. The recent couple – they had married earlier that year – lived in an apartment a few blocks away. Tito Abriata, Hernán’s father, took “Churrasco” to that house. “We all remember him, my sister, my sisters-in-law, me. We all remember Sandoval’s face, the impunity with which he moved that night. He showed me his police card, told me not to move and to do nothing, that it was a routine operation. At last we will be able to tell all this in front of a court”Dittmar assured.
The family searched for Hernán from the day after his abduction. Months later they learned that he had been locked up in the clandestine center of ESMA: the survivors Carlos Loza, Rodolfo Picheni and Oscar Repossi they shared captivity with him. Carlos and Oscar will be witnesses in the trial, of which they also learned in the last hours. Rodolfo passed away a few years ago. They, as well as the contact and presence of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo of the Founding Line, accompanied the “long struggle” of the family. “We were building the hope of reaching this goal, of obtaining justice,” said Dittmar.
For now, Sandoval – former member of the Federal Security Superintendency – will be tried on May 4 from 9:30 in the courts of Comodoro Py for the kidnapping and disappearance of Hernán, although the family complaint will insist on expanding the accusation for other cases. It is that, as a member of the ESMA gang during the last dictatorship, It is directly linked to nearly 500 cases of human rights violations which were committed in the Officers’ Casino of that Navy property, according to the judicial file investigating those events. The federal judge Sergio Torres, who led the investigation until months before “Churrasco” was extradited, demanded that France be transferred to the country only for the Abriata case.
Sandoval remained safe in France since the early 1980s. He achieved citizenship in 1997, specialized in Economic Intelligence, helped found organizations, represented that country in conferences and colloquia, and was a university professor. A decade later, a student from La Sobrona denounced him, who had him as a teacher and whose parents were Argentine exiles. in that country. PageI12 she told it in 2008. Since then, Dittmar and her husband’s family have repeatedly demanded that Sandoval be transferred to Argentina, tried and convicted. Torres requested his international capture in 2012. The extradition could only take place on December 16, 2019. On that day, “Churrasco” stepped on national soil and was sent directly to Campo de Mayo.
During the time he was detained in Unit 34 of Campo de Mayo, where he has lived since he was extradited, Sandoval tried by all means in his power to avoid and delay the start of the trial against him. Between then and today he was tireless in his attempts to obtain benefits: from house arrest to freedom without qualms. Achieved none.