Argentine Terror Told in Extradition Case Papers

SAN FRANCISCO —  A thick sheaf of court documents filed here this week reveals details of Argentina’s war of murder and torture against political dissidents in the late 1970s when about 9,000 people disappeared.

Grim testimony from witnesses detailing abductions by hooded military men in the dead of night, followed by imprisonment, torture and death are included in 1,500 pages of documents filed in support of the extradition of former Gen. Carlos Suarez Mason.

The current Argentine government has requested the extradition of Suarez Mason, commander of his country’s 1st Army at the time, so he can be tried in Buenos Aires on 43 charges of murder and 24 charges of kidnaping.

Part of Junta

In national judiciary documents submitted by Argentina, Suarez Mason, 63, is identified as part of a right-wing military junta that seized control of the South American nation in 1976 and began a program of terror aimed at wiping out opposition forces.

The highly organized system “could not have been possible without the express decision by the commanding officers,” the papers assert.

U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen must determine whether sufficient probable cause exists to believe that the crimes charged by Argentina were committed by Suarez Mason between 1976 to 1979.

According to one document, a large group of men began firing into the apartment of Mario Lerner in March, 1977, shortly after he returned home from a movie with his wife. Lerner later was dragged wounded from the house and thrown into a truck alive, only to die of his wounds, the document charges.

Effort Frustrated

The efforts of Lerner’s father to retrieve the body were frustrated when he was told that he had to obtain the permission of Suarez Mason.

The commander closed the case without taking statements from the officers responsible, “therefore guaranteeing impunity to the men responsible for the crime,” the document says.