MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil hands to Argentina Colonel accused of human rights abuses

Brazil has extradited to Argentina a retired Uruguayan army colonel to face charges of human rights abuses dating back to military rule in the Southern cone countries during the 1970s.

The state-run news agency Agencia Brasil said Colonel Manuel Juan Cordero Piacentini was handed over to Argentine authorities Saturday.

Cordero is accused of taking part in the notorious Operation Condor. This was the plan supported by several South American military rulers to liquidate opponents.

The Uruguayan officer, who was arrested in Brazil two years ago, faces charges of kidnapping and murder in Argentina.

Cordero, who served as an intelligence officer in the Uruguayan army, was allegedly involved in the disappearance of an Argentine citizen.

His extradition was ordered on Tuesday but had been postponed as his lawyers argued his health was so poor he should remain in hospital.

However, following medical examinations, Cordero was driven by ambulance to the Brazilian border where he was handed over to the Argentine police.

He had unsuccessfully attempted to avoid extradition by insisting he was protected under a Brazilian law that grants amnesty to Brazilian soldiers who were acting under that country's military government.

Such an amnesty does not exist in Argentina and only partially in Uruguay.

Cordero was arrested in February in Brazil next to the border with Uruguay, where he had been living since 2004.

In a Montevideo weekly publication Cordero admitted that torture was sometimes necessary and had been practiced by Uruguayan forces under the military regime.

A few weeks later he left for Brazil since Uruguayan authorities wanted to question him on the interview’s statements.

Meanwhile a German court in Nuremberg has issued an arrest warrant for Argentina's former de-facto president Jorge Videla for helping to cover up the death of a German citizen in 1978, at the height of the “Dirty War”.

The Bayern prosecutor reopened the case in December and requested an order of arrest for Videla after the remains of Rolf Stawowiok were identified through genetic testing in early 2009.

The local Nuremberg court had closed the case in 2008 citing a lack of physical evidence as well as an Argentine court ruling declining to extradite Videla for the deaths of another two German citizens.

Stawowiok's remains were exhumed in 2004 and were found to have evidence of torture and bullets. Argentine authorities have said that Videla will remain in prison until he has served his prior sentence.

Videla has been in prison since 2008 while an investigation is underway for his role in the abduction of children born to political prisoners and forced disappearance victims during Argentina's Dirty War.

He is also under investigation for the deaths of 31 political prisoners. A court revoked the house arrest conditions he had been granted in 1998 when the investigation began. Previously, he had served five years from a life sentence for human rights violations committed during his term in power, until in 1990 he was pardoned by then-president Carlos Menem.

In 2006, a federal judge ruled that the presidential pardon was unconstitutional. Italy has also requested Videla's extradition to prosecute him for the deaths and forced disappearances of Italian citizens during the Dirty War.

In that period Videla was head of the military junta (1976-1981), and an estimated 30,000 civilians were killed or disappeared according to human rights groups’ numbers. For Argentine authorities the number is close to 10.000.