Navy officer denies throwing dissidents from airplanes
A former Argentine navy officer who once admitted to throwing drugged, naked dissidents to their death from airplanes during his country’s “dirty war” recanted as he took the stand yesterday at his trial in Madrid on charges of genocide, torture and terrorism.
Adolfo Scilingo, 58, first made the admission when he arrived in Spain voluntarily in 1997 to testify before National Court Judge Baltasar Garzon, who since the late 1990s has spearheaded an investigation into human rights violations by military regimes in Argentina and Chile.
Scilingo, who did not have a grant of immunity, confessed to throwing 30 drugged, naked dissidents from planes into the Atlantic during two trips known as “death flights.”
Garzon jailed him, but Scilingo later recanted.
On Monday he again denied taking part in such flights.
Scilingo said he had spoken to Garzon to trigger a probe of the atrocities in Argentina but insisted that what he said then was false.
