An Argentine ex-marine who for almost five decades evaded justice in his country faces a trial in Miami starting Monday for his alleged role in a massacre in which political prisoners were shot at a military base in Patagonia in the 1970s.
Roberto Guillermo Bravo, who has lived freely in the United States for years, will see for the first time the relatives of four of the victims of the so-called “Trelew Massacre” of August 1972 in the federal courts of Miami.
According to the lawsuit filed in October 2020 in South Florida, Bravo and other military personnel “shot and killed 16 unarmed political prisoners and seriously wounded three others” who later disappeared. They also participated in torture and extrajudicial executions that violated US and international law.
Bravo is the only one of the defendants who has not yet faced justice because the laws of his country prevent him from being tried in absentia. In the United States, the Torture Victims Protection Act allows for legal action if the defendants are in this country. Bravo left Argentina in 1973. He first served as a military attache and after retiring he stayed to live here. He became a naturalized American in 1987.
The civil lawsuit was filed by Raquel Camps, Eduardo Cappello, Alicia Krueguer and Marcela Santucho, relatives of four of the victims. The plaintiffs seek financial compensation for the damages that Bravo’s alleged role in the massacre would have caused and a jury will be in charge of determining the ex-marine’s responsibility.
Bravo sat next to his attorneys in a dark blue suit with white hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked calm as Judge Lauren Fleisher Louis explained to jurors what charges she faces.
Along with their lawyers were also two of the plaintiffs, Cappello and Camps.
On the day the seven members of the jury were chosen and the initial arguments began to be presented. Over the course of a week, the plaintiffs will present nearly a dozen witnesses who will offer statements about what happened at the Almirante Zar Naval Base. Bravo must publicly declare the truth under oath.
The defense of the ex-military alleges that the lawsuit is legally incorrect and without moral foundation. Bravo’s lawyers maintain that it was not a massacre but a shootout between the military and a group of guerrillas who were trying to escape and that the Argentine authorities had declared him innocent and an amnesty law acquitted him of the crimes of which he is accused.
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