The execution judge of the Federal Oral Court No. 1 of Rosario, Germán Sutter Schneider, rejected the request for conditional release made by Juan Daniel Amelong, accused and convicted in multiple cases of crimes against humanity. The magistrate agreed with what was stated by prosecutor Adolfo Villatte, who had opposed the request after highlighting that he is being prosecuted with preventive detention in two cases that are being brought to trial.
It should be remembered that Amelong was convicted by the Federal Oral Court of Paraná in the Military Hospital case, in 2011, for the kidnapping of the Valenzuela Negro twins, born in the capital of Entre Ríos in 1978, when their mother Raquel, now missing, was deprived of their freedom. In addition, Colonel Pascual Guerrieri, and civilian Intelligence personnel Walter Pagano, the soldier Jorge Fariña and the former head of intensive care at the Paraná Military Hospital Juan Antonio Zaccaría were sentenced. On the other hand, Marino Héctor González was acquitted.
Postures
Before the Rosario TOF, the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office had highlighted that Amelong is already sentenced to a firm life prison sentence, sentences of 13 and 10 years in prison also firm, and two other life prison sentences not yet ratified.
Amelong’s defense had based its request on the fact that he has been detained continuously since May 17, 2004, currently in Unit 34, which operates in the Campo de Mayo military garrison, close to serving twenty years in prison. It also focused on compliance with penitentiary regulations, in addition to including reports from the criminological technical body and the Correctional Council of the Federal Penitentiary Service. According to these documents, Amelong would be “in temporary conditions” to access parole starting on May 17.
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After analyzing the arguments of the defense, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the complaint, Judge Sutter Schneider considered that “the circumstance of Amelong being detained in preventive detention for two pending cases, decides ab initio [desde el inicio] the issue without the need to enter into other types of assessments on issues in which the parties have expressly or implicitly confronted.”
Within those considerations, highlighted the impact of the special nature of crimes against humanity of the crimes for which Amelong was convicted, his conduct in the development of the trials and in the execution of the sentence, not having had any type of manifestation of repentance or change of attitude of For its part, the sufficiency or otherwise of the prison reports submitted and the admissibility of the examination requested by the prosecution at the time of its presentation at the hearing.
Sutter Schneider also highlighted “the statements of each and every one of those victims who expressed themselves before the undersigned, unanimously opposing the granting of conditional release to Amelong, and of which it is again interesting to highlight especially the pain and uncertainty still in force about the final fate of his relatives for whose disappearance and/or death Amelong is serving a sentence”.
The case of the Melizos
Tulio Valenzuela and Raquél Negro, who was pregnant, were kidnapped – along with the woman’s one and a half year old son – on January 2, 1978 in Mar del Plata, within the framework of an illegal procedure designed by the II Corps of the Army. , based in Rosario. She was transferred with the child to the city of Santa Fe and, at the time of giving birth, she was taken to the Military Hospital of Paraná. Meanwhile, Valenzuela was forced to travel to Mexico along with a group of Army repressors to contact the leadership of the Montoneros organization, whom the then head of the II Corps, Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, planned to assassinate.
The case became known as “Operation Mexico”, a procedure that was frustrated by the action of Valenzuela himself, who on that occasion was able to warn the members of his organization what was about to happen and declared it at a press conference while was in that country. Journalist Miguel Bonasso, who as Press Secretary of Montoneros met with Valenzuela in Mexico, told this story at the Subzone 15 II trial, held in Mar del Plata, where the segment of the couple’s kidnapping was tried. The journalist, a witness to the events, narrated the details of the case in his book memory of death.
