The excarapintada Aldo Rico affirmed this Friday that “The entire Army participated in the fight once morest subversion”. He did so when testifying before the Federal Oral Court (TOF) 2 of Buenos Aires in the case for the crimes committed in the 6th Infantry Regiment of Mercedes. The kidnapping and torture of 37 people are being investigated, of which eight were murdered or remain missing.
Rico was summoned as a concept witness at the request of the defense in relation to the events that occurred in RIM 6 during the civic-military dictatorship, and was consulted regarding the actions carried out during that period by the former second lieutenant of the “A” Infantry Company, Emilio Pedro Morello, and by the former second lieutenant of the “B” Infantry Company, Luis Alberto Brun.
“I guess the generals of the law fit”, Rico replied when asked regarding the accused Morello, to later confirm that the former second lieutenant worked “in the 6th Infantry Regiment of Mercedes.” He added that “we all had an active role in the insurgency of the 1970s. Now, what did they do I don’t know, I was there only once in ’81 or ’82, visiting it”.
“I can’t say if all the units went into combat, but almost all of them”pointed out the repressive action of the Armed Forces in the framework of State terrorism. When asked if the expression ‘entering into combat’ meant that those units had “participated in clashes”, he replied “of course”..
The hearing of the oral trial was directed by the president of TOF 2, Javier Ríos, accompanied by the other two judges, Jorge Gorini and Rodrigo Giménez Uriburu. The testimony of the witnesses was made through the Zoom application.
In the case that reviews the events that occurred in the Mercedes military unit, the former head of the Regiment, Colonel Alberto Ramon Schollaert; the ex-lieutenant Gustavo Gonzalez Sass; former lieutenant Martin Eduardo Sanchez Zinny; the end Osmar Andrade; and former lieutenant Horace Linari.
The accusation
The list of defendants also includes former sub-lieutenants Morello and Brun: all of them, with the exception of Andrade, were placed in preventive detention. The oral trial investigates 37 cases of kidnapping and torture with eight people murdered or disappearedamong which is Rocío Martínez Borbolla, member of the PRT-ERP and mother of journalists Bárbara and Camilo García.
On June 13, 1976, the García brothers, as children, they witnessed the disappearance of their mother in the house where they lived in the Envín neighborhood of the town of Haedo: they were nine and four years old.
In his statement, Rico defined Morello (who between 1993 and 1997 was a national deputy for Modin) as “a good soldier and a proper deputy”. He used the same qualification for the rest of the soldiers accused in the trial and in the case of Brun he said that he fought under his command in the Malvinas.
Pablo Llonto, attorney for the lawsuit, asked Rico if he was aware that any of the RIM 6 officers had complied with an illegal order, to which the former deputy and carapintada leader replied: “We have had a Due Obedience law that was an aberration”. And he added: “The officers you have appointed have convictions, I don’t think they have carried out improper orders”.
The testimony of General Auel
After Rico declared Brigadier General Heriberto Auel, also summoned as a concept witness by the defense of the accused ex-military. Auel maintained that during the period under investigation he worked as “head of the 8th Infantry Regiment in Comodoro Rivadavia” and that between 1979 and 1980 the defendant Morello was among his subordinates. When asked if Morello might have participated in a political extermination plan, he replied: “I never knew or discussed that subject with him.”
Auel argued that “Argentina entered combat twice (in the 20th century): once, in a long, counterrevolutionary, unconventional war, and the other, in a short, conventional war in the South Atlantic” to later add that “war is a sociopolitical event, not a military one.”
Llonto asked Auel if Morello had received “some type of specific instruction related to what used to be called ‘fight once morest subversion’.” The soldier replied that “The entire Army was instructed for this type of operation”and that in the country “there were officers of the French Army who were giving lectures at the Higher School of War.” The hearing concluded with a fourth intermission until April 29.
