Argentina's top court cuts sentence of human rights abuser
Argentina's Supreme Court on Wednesday reduced the jail sentence of a man serving time for crimes against humanity committed during the country's 1976-83 dictatorship.
Luis Muiña, 61, was sentenced in 2011 to 13 years in prison for the kidnapping and torture of five people during a 1976 military operation in Alejandro Posadas Hospital, west of Buenos Aires.
Three of the top court's five justices decided that his days spent in prison before a firm conviction should count double toward his sentence, meaning Muiña could get out eight years earlier.
The court said the ruling was based on an interpretation of a repealed law that had never been previously applied to human rights convictions. The so-called 2x1 law was in effect from 1994 to 2001, when most dictatorship-era human rights criminals were still free. A law signed by former President Néstor Kirchner in 2003 had repealed amnesty granted to most perpetrators in 1986.
"This ruling determined that common crimes are the same as crimes against humanity," said Andres Gil Domínguez, a constitutional lawyer. "It's a new judicial and ideological way of looking at human rights crimes by the Supreme Court."
The view was shared by former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, during whose 2007-15 administration most of the 681 convictions so far for crimes against humanity were issued. Human rights groups, Kirchner's center-left FpV, and leftist parties condemned the ruling, which raises the possibility that other Dirty War perpetrators might likewise ask the courts for release.
The narrow ruling came down to two Kirchner appointees (including Chief Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti) dissenting, and both justices appointed by current President Mauricio Macri voting in the majority. The tie-breaking vote, that of Kirchner appointee Elena Highton de Nolasco, came as a surprise to Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo head Estela Barnes de Carlotto, who noted that Justice Nolasco had previously ruled against cases filed by Dirty War apologists.
Carlotto, one of Argentina's most prominent advocates for victims of the Dirty War and their relatives, intends to appeal to international tribunals.
At: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article148464264.html
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