MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ex-Argentine Officer Held in Disappearance

A retired general considered one of the Argentine dictatorship's most hard-line military leaders was detained Wednesday in a lawmaker's disappearance in 1976.

Antonio Domingo Bussi, the former military commander of Tucuman province, was ordered detained by a federal judge who is probing the disappearance of Sen. Guillermo Vargas Aignasse.

Tucuman was the scene of fierce battles during the Dirty War, when a guerrilla movement sprang up in the surrounding mountains. Government forces led by Bussi helped oppose the "guerillas."

On Wednesday, Bussi, 77, was taken to an army facility in San Miguel de Tucuman, the provincial capital 80 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.

Bussi has repeatedly denied prosecutors' claims of atrocities in Tucuman province while he led troops there. The detention throws up new legal obstacles for Bussi just as he is poised to assume his post as mayor of San Miguel de Tucuman.

In July, Bussi defeated Geronimo Vargas Aignasse, son of the missing senator, by only 17 votes.

Earlier this year, Bussi was detained for 45 days along with dozens of other former military officers. At the time, Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzon was seeking their extradition over cases related to Spanish citizens who died in Argentina's Dirty War.

The Spanish government subsequently declared it would not pursue extradition, and Bussi was freed.

Some 9,000 people are officially reported as missing or dead from the 1976-83 dictatorship, in what prosecutors describe as a systematic state crackdown on political dissent through kidnapping, torture and executions.

Human rights groups put the toll at as many as 30,000 victims.