Nineteen military officers from the Escuela Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) stand accused of human rights abuses committed during the 1976-83 Argentinean dictatorship. Two weeks into the trial, lawyer Mirtha Mántaras is not optimistic. “We are facing a cruel pact of silence and destruction of all the evidence. That complicates everything.”

Between 9,000 and 30,000 people were murdered or disappeared during the dictatorship of president Jorge Vidéla.

ESMA served as the largest clandestine prison during the dictatorship. Most people who were taken to the detention centre were severely tortured and later disappeared. Some 5,000 Argentines are thought to have been brought to the school, around 1,500 of whom were anaesthetized and thrown out of planes during so-called ‘death flights’. Less than 200 Argentines are thought to have survived the ESMA.

Judge Sergio Torres is leading the ESMA prosecutions. He has 900 documented cases of victims.

“One has to take into account that they are probing people who have destroyed all documents and have made a pact of silence to not say a single word about what happened at the ESMA,” Mántaras told Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

“That means all they’ve got is the victims’ evidence.” Which, she adds, poses another problem. “The torture of those who have survived can be proved, but what will happen with the cases of those who have disappeared? We ourselves interpret these cases as homicide. But our only evidence are the bodies found in the sea, the graves marked with NN and the mass graves discovered thanks to our team of forensic anthropologists.”

“According to various legal professionals, one can only ‘assume’ that those who have disappeared have been murdered,” Mántaras says. “That’s exactly the point on which opinions differ, and therefore some judges are unwilling to apply this assumption. Among them is a judge who is interfering in the ESMA case.”

“As a result, the hundreds of people who have disappeared are considered individuals who have been deprived of their liberty, a crime that in Argentina is punished with a maximum prison sentence of six years.”