MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Jailbird judge found having a snack at a restaurant

He had been sentenced to 12 in prison, albeit under house arrest.

A former Federal Judge who had been found guilty of crimes against humanity while in office during Argentina's military dictatorship, was spotted Tuesday at a restaurant while he was supposed to be under house arrest.

Roberto Catalán was expelled from the restaurant after his presence was noticed. He had been guilty of illegitimate deprivation of liberty, torture, homicide and illicit association. He had been sentenced to 12 in prison, albeit under house arrest.

But he was caught by a woman who recorded his presence at the restaurant on video and shouted at him: “He is a criminal against humanity who was convicted and has to be in house arrest!”

“You are a genocidal criminal and you ought to be in jail,” she went on. “Shame on La Rioja. Now he plays the poor old man, but he has been the most disgusting criminal our province had,”she insisted.

In February 2021, the Federal Oral Criminal Court of La Rioja sentenced him to 12 years in prison while the prosecution had requested a life sentence in the understanding that he had been ”the material author of the illegal deprivation of liberty, torture and necessary participation in the homicide of a victim.“ But the Court found by two votes to one that he had only acted as a cover-up for the crimes.

In the appelate ruling Catalán was held accountable for ”the innumerable irregular and illegal procedures that he validated, the collaboration he provided in the substantiation of the procedures, the neglect he gave to the very serious complaints about the imposition of torture that the victims themselves gave him the permission granted to officials of the security forces who acted as 'judiciary assistants', the situation that most of the witnesses who testified locate him at the time and place of the events , who knew of the torments they received.”

Catalán was also deemed as the warrantor of impunity to many dirty war agents in La Rioja.