Operation Massacre (16 page)

Lieutenant Dillon then adds:

Hours later, at the main office of Headquarters, the declarant heard someone say that the order had been carried out, but that it had been done inadequately because a group of prisoners had been taken out to an open field where some had managed to escape, and the police had felt obligated to shoot at them as they ran away, having failed to make them stand in line in front of the firing squad, as is protocol; according to the same source, that's how it had all turned into a “bloodbath” and, upon gaining knowledge of said event, the Chief of Police expressed indignation regarding the incompetence displayed and, a few days later, the then-chief of the department, Rodríguez Moreno, was suspended.

Pursuant to this statement, the judge considered it an opportune moment to communicate to Fernández Suárez “the reason why the present case is being tried in this court, asking at the same time for you to please make known by way of a written report as much information as you deem appropriate.”

Fernández Suárez, who had proffered thirty thousand words in his defense before the Advisory Board, now cannot muster one sentence in response.

The judge: “As no response has been received from the Chief of Police, let the official letter sent on p.
26
be reissued.”

Silence.

On page
51
, the aforementioned new commissioner of Moreno, Francisco Ferrairone, appears before the court on January
11
,
1957
. He confirms that Livraga's arrest does not appear in his precinct's books, but that “given the requests that were sent and resent from the Court, as well as similar requests for a response that came in from Police Headquarters, he asked among the department's staff to find out whether the books were a faithful reflection of the truth, and was able to ascertain that this was not the case. He was told that one Juan Carlos Livraga had indeed been detained in that station, or at least had stayed there, and neither his intake nor his release had been recorded in the books . . .”

The police front begins to crumble. “The witness received this unofficial information,” Commissioner Ferrairone cautiously clarifies, “after submitting his answers in response to the request for information issued by the Court; had it been any other way he would have reported the information not in the way that he did, but otherwise.”

—Who was in Moreno in the month of June? —asks Judge Hueyo.

—Commissioner Gregorio de Paula —Ferrairone says.

On page
53
, Principal Officer Boris Vucetich of the Moreno precinct gives a statement. The judge asks him if he saw Livraga there:

—Yes —the officer says.— He had two gunshot wounds, one with an entry wound beneath his jaw and an exit wound in his cheek, and the other in his arm.

The story that Livraga told Vucetich is the same one he will tell months later: “[T]hat he was at his friend's house listening to the Lausse match when they were caught off-guard by the police, dressed in civilian clothes, and taken to the San Martín District Police Department, that after being interrogated, he and other arrested individuals were loaded onto a vehicle and relocated to a place he cannot identify, that they made them get off there, ordered them to walk, he felt a few shots, threw himself to the ground, and then lost consciousness . . .”

Regarding other details, Vucetich seems to differ from Livraga. He says that the police medic Doctor Carlos Chiesa tended to him daily. It is a rare doctor, you have to admit, who lets a man with a serious gunshot wound recover in a prison cell.

Next in line to give his statement is Deputy Inspector Antonio Barbieri of the Moreno precinct. His testimony is a repeat of the last. The basic idea is that Livraga was very well attended in Moreno, that he was given a special diet and so many blankets to cover himself with that he couldn't move. The surviving executed man kept insisting that they had him in the cell half-naked and that his bandage was falling off in pieces . . .

Commissioner Gregorio de Paula, on page
55
and following, admits that Livraga was held prisoner in Moreno, that he arrived wounded, and that his intake was not recorded in the books.

—Is that normal? —asks the judge.

The commissioner acknowledges that it is not normal, but that in “this exceptional case,” he understood that his intake had already been recorded at the San Martín District Police Department.

Was Livraga well cared for? Splendidly, says the commissioner. They even gave him “food that didn't need to be chewed.”

Did Livraga experience any cold? No, says the commissioner, “in his memory he sees him wrapped in something warm, but he cannot say exactly what kind of garment it was.”

—Did you take his statement?

—No.

—Did you tell him the charges?

—No.

—Did anyone come to visit him?

—No.

January
17
. A sullen and dejected man comes to give his statement. He is forty-eight years old, a chief inspector by the name of Rodolfo Rodríguez Moreno. His testimony practically brings the case to a close. Here it is:

Asked by Your Honor whether he was head of the San Martín District Police Department last June, he responds: that indeed, he was appointed to that position in February of
1956
and held it until approximately June
15
of that same year. Asked by Your Honor whether, under his command as Head of the District Police Department, an operation took place in which police officers arrested Juan Carlos Livraga, Miguel Ángel Giunta, and other individuals, the declarant responds: that he himself did not carry out that operation but remembers a radio communication that came in from Police Headquarters calling for a group of twenty men to be gathered at the Florida precinct and put under the command of the Buenos Aires Province Police Chief himself. The commissioner of the Florida police station, last name Pena, had received word that this group would be under the command of the aforementioned Police Chief and other military officers, among them a captain with the last name San Emeterio and a major. Asked by Your Honor whether the individuals arrested during this operation were held in the San Martín District Police Department, the declarant responds: that indeed at
2400
hours or perhaps a bit later, on June
9
, approximately twelve people were transferred on a bus to the San Martín District Police Department, and that then two or three more arrived who had been arrested on the street where the operation took place. Asked by Your Honor whether he remembers the names of those individuals, he responds that he cannot say exactly because he did not make a mental note of them, and to another question he responds: that indeed among them were Livraga, Giunta, and a person with a foreign last name who later on was staying at an embassy—the declarant thinks the last name sounded something like Carnevali. Asked by Your Honor whether the intake of these prisoners was recorded in the department's books, the declarant responds that the police officers on duty may have done it, that the prisoners actually found themselves in a special situation because, according to the Florida precinct, they were all being held incommunicado, by order of the Chief of Police. Asked whether they were questioned by the declarant, he states that he did not do so, that he does not believe a formal statement was taken from them, but that he ordered the second-in-command of the department, Commissioner-Inspector Benedicto Cuello, to question them about the events because, according to information that the declarant had been provided, said individuals had allegedly been arrested for taking part in a meeting connected to the subversive acts that transpired that night. Asked by Your Honor if the declarant received an order to execute all of the prisoners, the declarant states: that of his own accord, he ordered the release of the three people who were brought in later, having been arrested in the street, as there were no grounds for their arrest. He recalled that one was a local driver whom the Boulogne precinct knows well, another was a fifty-six-year-old Italian night watchman who worked in a factory near the site of the operation, and the third he cannot recall. As for the rest, he did indeed receive the strict order by radio, dispatched by the Chief of Police himself, to proceed immediately with the execution of all the individuals who had been arrested; this order as stated was sent directly by radio transmission from the Chief of Police himself to the declarant himself. Asked by Your Honor if he also received instructions as to where the execution was to take place, he responds: that he did not receive exact orders to that effect, only to look for an appropriate open field to do it. Asked by Your Honor what time he received the order, he states that it was approximately
4
:
30
in the morning. Asked by Your Honor if the declarant was personally leading the operation with which he had been charged, he states: that indeed the police officers in charge of the execution were under his direct and immediate command. Asked by Your Honor how it was carried out, he states: that the prisoners were loaded onto an assault car, each one matched with a guard, and that following behind them in a van were the declarant, the second-in-command, and an officer whose last name he thinks is Cáceres. That they moved to a wasteland that was twenty blocks from Route
8
, on the road that links said route to the town of Boulogne, and stopped the vehicles there. The declarant got off to look for an appropriate place, which he had trouble doing due to the lack of light, and noticing a cluster of eucalyptus trees there, he decided that the place would be efficacious for the desired action, and at that point told four or five officers to form a firing squad. With the police force thus diminished and the individuals in question suspecting the reason they had been taken to the site, all of them started to run except for the five who stayed in the vehicle. Asked by Your Honor whether Livraga and Giunta were among these five, the declarant states that it is not possible because, had they been, they would have been thoroughly executed and the declarant is certain that only five corpses were left on site. He goes on to say that after the escape he has already mentioned, he made the five individuals in question get out and submitted them in pairs to execution
32
, leaving their bodies on site. Subsequently, the declarant requested instructions regarding what destination to assign these bodies, was told to deliver them to the nearest Polyclinic, and since the closest one was in San Martín, the five bodies of the individuals in question were sent to that location. The declarant had been given the final deadline of six o'clock that morning to execute the order, and approximately at that hour the declarant communicated to headquarters by radio that the order for execution had been carried out, without specifying whether all of them had been executed, or only five, as was the case. The declarant adds that the task with which he had been charged was horribly unpleasant, and went far beyond the stipulated duties of the police, but since the declarant understands that in an emergency the police stops taking its orders from headquarters and takes its orders directly from the Army, he was entirely certain that, were he to disobey such an order, the declarant himself would be the one executed. Asked by Your Honor at what time he reported to headquarters the incomplete way in which the order had been carried out, the declarant says that at approximately six o'clock in the morning, when he communicated that the order had been carried out, he does not know who received his communication because he was informed that the chief had already left. Subsequently he was instructed to send the list of executed men and in response he sent the names of the five individuals who had been killed; as a result, he was called to headquarters to explain and the declarant faithfully recounted how the events had occurred and assumed personal responsibility for the escape of the other seven prisoners, as he did not think it fitting to delegate that responsibility to the officers who were serving as guards for the prisoners. He was therefore treated severely by the Chief of Police, who took this opportunity to call for his immediate replacement, which resulted in his being suspended from work for more than twenty days. The version that appears in Livraga's formal accusation and Giunta's statement is promptly explained in general terms to the declarant, who states that what he has declared in this hearing is the absolute truth, that it is not possible for Livraga to have been wounded in this instance because the gun used on him was a Mauser and its bullet would have completely destroyed Livraga's jaw;
33
moreover, he repeats again, there were five individuals who stayed and did not escape, and the declarant can categorically affirm that there were five bodies sent to the San Martín polyclinic. Asked by Your Honor whether the executed men received a coup de grâce, the declarant states that out of a sense of humanity and according to protocol, he gave the order for it to be done; it was carried out using a .
45
caliber pistol, which is currently the only weapon that the police have in their possession. Asked by Your Honor at what time the removal of the bodies took place, the declarant responds that, on his way back from the execution—he believes this was at approximately six o'clock in the morning—he contacted headquarters by radio and relayed that the order had been carried out. He requested instructions regarding the destination of the bodies and an individual from the headquarters office informed him that the chief's order was to take them to the nearest polyclinic so the declarant gave the order right away to return to the site with the assault car, load up the bodies, and deliver them to the San Martín polyclinic, which was the closest. Asked by Your Honor whether after the previously mentioned episode, he had given the order for Juan Carlos Livraga to be arrested again, he responds: that indeed this is what happened, that he was told that the man in question was at the San Martín polyclinic and, when he went to this establishment in search of him, was informed that the man was allowed to travel in his condition. The declarant ordered for him to be held at the Moreno precinct because the District Police Department does not hold prisoners in custody and there was no room available at the other San Martín precincts. Asked by Your Honor how he explains the absence of any record of the two arrests in the San Martín District Police Department books, the declarant states: that he has no explanation to give because normally every prisoner's intake is properly recorded in the books. Asked by Your Honor if he received an express order in this case not to follow regulations in this respect, the declarant states: that at no point was he given the order or instructions not to record the intake of the individuals in question as prisoners. Asked by Your Honor whether he was at all involved in the second arrest that Giunta claims he was subjected to and in transferring him to the San Martín District Police Department the following Monday, the declarant states: that he does not remember Giunta being arrested for a second time at the District Police Department, but this does not mean he would rule out the possibility. The declarant is then shown a photocopy
34
that appears on page
1
and asked to state whether it is authentic. He replies that, since the Department does not usually keep prisoners in custody, it lacks the forms that are generally given to detained individuals as a receipt for their personal items, and it is possible that he is being shown a photocopy of the form that is used for these purposes. As for the undersigning signatures, he does not recognize them, but believes that the one at the bottom belongs to an officer with the last name Albarello. With no further questions to ask, the hearing is considered concluded. Having read the present document and verified its contents, the declarant signed in consent after Your Honor and before me, in witness thereof.