MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Clarin group heirs give DNA blood samples to quell suspicions about their biological origin

Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera in a ten-year battle with human rights activists

The adopted children of one of one of the wealthiest women in Argentina came forward to give blood and saliva samples Friday, hoping to quell suspicions they were stolen as babies from murdered political prisoners during military rule.

A 10-year battle by human rights activists to analyze DNA samples from the Noble Herrera siblings, Marcela and Felipe, whose mother owns the Grupo Clarin media empire, has become increasingly politicized in recent years.

Clarin had an acrimonious falling out with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in 2008 when its news outlets criticized her handling of several month long farmers’ strike.

Cristina Fernandez has urged the courts to clarify the identity of the Noble Herrera siblings, backing efforts by the rights group the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to find children born to women held in secret prisons during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Announcing their surprise decision to voluntarily submit DNA earlier this month, the siblings said they wanted to put an end to the “harassment and persecution” suffered by themselves and their mother.

Felipe Noble Herrera and his sister Marcela, both in their mid-30s, accuse President Cristina Fernandez of using them as pawns in her row with their mother's company, something the government denies.

“No one wants to persecute them,” Cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez said. ”(Their identity) needs to be resolved and the easiest way to do it is with a blood sample, with DNA.”

The blood samples from the Noble Herrera siblings will be submitted to a genetic database and compared to DNA taken from the relatives of dictatorship victims.

The timing of the siblings' about-face, four months from the presidential election, has raised some eyebrows in the country. It could prove embarrassing for Mrs Kirchner if the Noble Herreras' DNA does not match samples in the database, because her government has pushed hard for them to be submitted.

The Grandmothers group has identified 102 illegally adopted children so far, although they think there could be several hundred more that are yet to discover their true identities.

Up to 30,000 people were kidnapped and killed during the so-called Dirty War in a state-sponsored crackdown on leftist dissent, according to human rights groups. Many of the babies, kidnapped with their parents or born to captive mothers, were illegally adopted by military families or friends of the military junta (1976/1983).-