To the delight of human rights activists, Ricardo Miguel Cavallo was extradited, by plane, from Mexico to Spain at the end of June. He will face charges of genocide and terrorism for what he did in Argentina during the dirty war from 1976 to 1983. Cavallo is accused of being the notorious torturer Serpico, at the Naval Mechanics School.
Directly Cavallo arrived in Spain he was indicted by a Spanish investigating magistrate, Baltasar Garzón.
Process. The extradition to Spain was the culmination of a three- year process. The process was set off by Mexico's most important newspaper, Reforma, which claimed that the man who was running Mexico's deeply controversial new national vehicle registration agency, Ricardo Cavallo, was in fact a notorious Argentine dirty war torturer, Miguel Cavallo. Cavallo panicked and tried to flee to Argentina but was arrested at Cancún airport on 24 August 2000.
A Spanish investigating magistrate, Baltasar Garzón, requested his extradition after his arrest in 2000. The Mexican supreme court approved Cavallo's extradition on 10 June.
Mexican commentators pointed out that at every turn Cavallo and his lawyers had tried to exploit the legal system. But the system and the strict adherence to procedures had ensured that Cavallo could not get off on a technicality.
Allegations. Garzón accused Cavallo of having taken part in the so-called death flights, in which opponents of the military régime in Argentina were hurled from planes into the sea. At the court session in Spain, Garzón refused Cavallo bail.
Cavallo argued that, as a second lieutenant, he was prevented by the Argentine military code from giving evidence in a foreign court. Whether the case will actually come to trial must be moot: the Spanish justice ministry, which supported the extradition application, is now, paradoxically, arguing that the country's courts are not competent to deal with crimes that happened in Argentina.
In Argentina, junior officers, such as Cavallo, have been granted immunity for what they did during the military government. Cavallo cannot expect a day in court until late 2004, Spanish jurists say.
Supreme court. The supreme court's decision to allow the extradition of Cavallo is similar to that by the British House of Lords to allow the extradition of General Augusto Pinochet, also to Spain, to face human rights abuse and murder charges. The British government, however, accepted arguments that Pinochet was too ill to stand trial and sent him home to Chile in March 2000. Like Pinochet, Cavallo is being sought by the same Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón.
The decision by the Mexican supreme court was hailed as historic by human rights activists in the region. Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, said that the decision to extradite the junior naval officer to Spain set a precedent because Mexico was the first country in the region to extradite a suspect to a third country.
Mexican jurists said that this element in the decision was the one that had provoked most argument in the court. Garzón had to fight off a challenge to his case in Spain from people arguing that he was stirring up what had been settled in Argentina. The Full Stop Law and Law of Due Obedience, passed in 1986 and 1987, respectively, absolved junior officers of responsibility for crimes committed during the dictatorship: these laws were approved by a democratically-elected congress in Argentina.
At least one of Cavallo's accusers claim that some of the people he picked up and did away with under the military government were simply robbed: Mariana Masera claims that her father and grandfather were picked up by Cavallo's men simply because they were rich.
Garzón has accepted evidence that the Cerrutti family was robbed of US$10m when the surviving heir was forced, at pistol point, to sign over property
Precision. The supreme court ruling is precise. Although Cavallo is accused of being a torturer, known as `Serpico' or `Marcelo', at the Naval Mechanics' School in Buenos Aires, he is not being extradited to face torture charges: he is being extradited to face terrorism and genocide charges.
The Naval Mechanics School was the site for some of the grossest human rights violations between 1976 and 1983. The main debate in the supreme court was whether Cavallo could be extradited to face genocide charges: the court eventually ruled by 7 to 4 that he could.
It had previously ruled, by 10 to 1, that he could be extradited on terrorism charges.
On the other hand, the decision upholds a lower court ruling that held that Cavallo could not be extradited to face human rights charges because they had expired under the statute of limitations.
Essentially, the supreme court's decision was to rule against Cavallo's defence. His lawyers had argued that the extradition treaty between Mexico and Spain was unconstitutional and specifically did not cover the crimes of which Cavallo was accused. The supreme court decision meant that Cavallo exhausted all legal recourse: the Mexican government issued a new agreement, to extradite him to Spain, against which Cavallo cannot appeal. The agreement defines the terms on which he is being extradited and the charges he faces.
The decision by the Mexican supreme court will put pressure on the courts in other jurisdictions to follow suit, notably those in Chile and Argentina.
Confidence. The decision underlines the Mexican supreme court's growing institutional independence: arguably the court has been the major beneficiary of the change in government in 2000 and the scaling down of the presidential system, which had centralised power in Mexico since 1930.
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