Argentine death squad leader arrested in Spain

A former police officer accused of being in a death squad responsible for more than 600 deaths in Argentina in the 1970s was arrested in Spain on Dec. 28. Rodolfo Eduardo Almirón Sena, a 70-year-old former police commissioner, was arrested on a warrant to face charges of murder and belonging to a criminal organization in Argentina. He is alleged to have been a leader of the Argentinian Anticommunist Alliance, known as the Triple A, which Argentine prosecutors hold responsible for more than 600 deaths, according to the newspaper El País. The group, organized under the government of General Juan Perón, is believed to have committed 1,500 crimes during the mid-to-late 70s. An Argentinian judge issued an international warrant for Almirón the third week of December after he was identified in a Spanish newspaper report. Police arrested him at a healthcare center near his home in the southeastern town of Torrent, where he lived for decades and even once worked for a Spanish politician. He has been wanted in Argentina since 1984. In the arrest warrant, Judge Norberto Oyarbide described his activities under the Triple A as "crimes against humanity," and therefore not subject to prosecution time limits. He is expected to be brought within days to the Spanish high court for extradition proceedings. Argentina has also asked Spain to extradite a former Argentine naval officer, Ricardo Cavallo. Cavallo is accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering hundreds of people during the country's Dirty War of state-sponsored violence against dissidents from 1976 to 1983. Cavallo, in Spanish prison since 2003, was to stand trial in Madrid under Spain's "universal jurisdiction" laws, which allow it to prosecute human rights violations committed in a third country. But the Spanish Supreme Court recently ruled that he should be tried in Argentina, now that it has overturned amnesty laws that shielded military officers. Almirón has reportedly lived quietly in southern Spain at least since 1983, when he became chief bodyguard to Manuel Fraga, a prominent conservative politician and minister under the Franco dictatorship, according to the newspaper El Mundo. His presence in Spain was kept secret to protect the image of a fledgling conservative party, the Popular Alliance, forerunner of the center-right Partido Popular, the paper said. His location came to the attention of Argentinian authorities after El Mundo published an interview with him on Dec. 17. Almirón came to Spain in 1975 with the help of a Triple A organizer, José López Rega, nicknamed the Warlock, who served as minister of social welfare for the Perón government, El Mundo said. General Perón's widow and former president, Isabel Perón, also reportedly lives in Spain. Reports on Dec. 29 said the Argentine judge might order her to appear as a witness in trials of former Triple A members.