Vicente Massotformer director of the Bahía Blanca newspaper La Nueva Provincia, was dismissed in a case that investigated his alleged relationship with crimes of the last dictatorship.
federal judge Walter Lopez da Silva issued a ruling this Wednesday in which it said that there is no evidence to sustain that Massot has integrated an illegal association with members of the dictatorship or to consider him responsible for two crimes that he was accused of.
Massot was summoned to testify in 2014 as a defendant in the file investigating the kidnappings and murders of graphic workers Enrique Heinrich and Miguel Ángel Loyola. He was also pointed out as the author of psychological action campaigns in favor of the crimes of the dictatorship.
The one who summoned him to testify, nine years ago, was the substitute judge Álvaro Coleffi. Later, the lack of merit was dictated, ratified by the Chamber, and the case even reached the Supreme Court.
In the ruling that ordered the dismissal, the judge stated: “There is no precise and serious evidence that allows us to sustain that the businessman, a civilian stranger to the state armed forces and only 23 years old at the time of the events, had the possibility of influence or determine in any way those who committed the acts of torture or disappearances with their own hands, and even less so that their design was to participate in illicit acts that, due to their seriousness, affect humanity as a whole.”
The judge warned that “an ideological conviction (…) does not make whoever holds it a participant or instigator of crimes per se.” And he said: “The unrestricted support of the newspaper to the actions carried out against subversion, refers to legal actions and does not notice in the editorials transcribed by the federal prosecutor’s office, any phrase that encourages the execution of prisoners, torture or the disappearance of people Under these parameters, there is no doubt that the editorial line of the newspaper denoted affinity with the established regime and no matter how objectionable it might be, the truth is that it is not appropriate to judge political thought”.
Given the progress of the case against him, Massot always denounced being the victim of a maneuver to silence the editorial policy of the newspaper he directed, contrary to the Kirchner government.
According to López da Silva, “the prosecuting body has not been able to prove, not even with the provisional characteristic of this instance, the existence of elements that determine that the defendant’s conduct exceeded the typical actions of his profession or occupation, nor that he had knowledge of those acts typical of the clandestine plan of repression”.
The judge also stressed that the case takes a “very long processing time” and that Massot has the right to “put an end to the uncertain situation that criminal prosecution entails.”
THE NATION
