Almost three months after his arrest, Transavia pilot Julio Poch is still sitting in a Spanish prison, awaiting his next destination. A Dutch judge ruled last week that the Netherlands does not have to ask Spain to extradite him, meaning Poch will probably stand trial in Argentina.

The Buenos Aires-born pilot is charged with human rights abuses committed during Argentina’s military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983.

Judge Sergio Torres is presiding over the ESMA mega-trial that started in Buenos Aires on December 11th. 19 former military officials are standing trial on charges of torture, forced disappearance, murder and theft.Torres has said he would like to include Poch in the trial.

During the dictatorship, the former navy school, Escuela Mecanica de la Armada, or ESMA, functioned as a clandestine detention centre where thousands of people where held, tortured, raped and killed. It allegedly ran ‘death flights’ where prisoners were drugged and thrown out of planes over the sea. Poch is accused of having carried out these flights as a young marine pilot.

Poch had asked to be tried by a Dutch court. He moved to the Netherlands in 1988 and has held Argentine-Dutch nationality since 1995. Poch’s lawyer, Gerard Spong, argued that the Argentine justice system is slow and that in Argentina his client could spend years in pre-trial arrest.

Last week’s verdict did say that Dutch authorities could ask for a guarantee of return from Argentina so that, if convicted, Poch could serve his sentence in the Netherlands. The judge referred to the fact that Dutch authorities told Argentina that Poch would be making his last flight to Spain, where he was arrested. The Netherlands had refused to extradite him directly because he is a Dutch citizen.

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