German court issues arrest warrant against Jorge Videla for the murder of a German citizen
A German court issued an arrest warrant against the former president during Argentina’s military dictatorship Jorge Rafael Videla, for the murder of a German citizen.
Thomas Koch, a Nuremberg prosecutions spokesman, said the judicial warrant and new appeal to other nations to arrest Videla would make it risky for him to travel outside Argentina, since he could be arrested and deported to Germany.
Videla’s trial began two and half years ago and was resumed in late December, after the German citizen was identified.
He was Rolf Stawowiok, who had been buried in an unidentified grave in Buenos Aires with the remains of four other young people on March 14, 1978 in the cemetery of Lomas de Zamora, registering as a cause of death an “acute traumatic shock, by gunshot wound” .
The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team conducted the exhumation of the grave on August 24, 2004 and consequently was able to identify three of the bodies including that of Stawowiok.
Stawowiok was kidnapped when he was 20, on February 21, 1978 by a task force of the de-facto government.
Related News
