Back in 1978, when Julian the Turk held sway at a clandestine torture center in Buenos Aires called Olympic Garage, he used to toss José Poblete down a flight of stairs just to watch his legless body tumble and bounce all the way down. Twenty-eight years later, he is standing trial in a Buenos Aires courthouse for the torture, murder and disappearance of Poblete and his wife Gertrudis, and the abduction of their then 8-month-old daughter, Claudia, who was stripped of her identity and turned over for adoption to a military family.
The trial of Julian the Turk - so named due to his physical appearance and his real name Julio Simón-is the first to reach the sentencing stage since June 2005 when the Argentine Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, struck down the amnesty laws that protected human rights violators during the socalled Dirty War of the 1970s that caused some 10,000 victims [IJT-28]. Currently, more than 85 cases are open and 215 people are in detention awaiting trial. Nearly all are retired members of the armed and security forces. Thirty years after the last military coup, the Government and public opinion strongly support this attempt to render justice and are following the Poblete case in the newspapers, where testimonies and expert analyses are printed almost daily. The human rights organization CELS has even set up a web blog specifically dedicated to the Poblete trial.

Nostalgic of the Nazis

Simón, age 66, is a retired federal police officer. According to survivor testimony, he wore a key-chain with the swastika symbol and made the detainees listen to Nazi anthems. He even allegedly forced Gertrudis, Poblete´s wife of German descent, to translate the Nazi lyrics under torture. He is accused of beating the detainees with chains, rubbing salt in their wounds and applying electric shocks with raw wires. In addition to the murder of Poblete, he is charged with 58 other crimes committed while supervising the clandestine torture centers Athletic Club, The Bank and Olympic Garage. Witnesses pointed out that he was especially sadistic with Poblete, whom he disliked because of his handicap. Poblete, who was born in Chile, was an activist for the rights of the disabled and was kidnapped after he organized a petition to force businesses to hire a fixed percentage of disabled workers. In the first two weeks of his trial that began June 28, Simón remained silent as he listened to his accusers, rarely speaking to his lawyer, and staring at the television monitor so as to avoid the witnesses´ glare.

The case that made the amnesty laws illegal

His case became emblematic in 1998 when he was charged with the kidnapping of Claudia Poblete, who was handed over to Colonel Ceferino Landa and his wife. This crime was not covered by the amnesty laws and in 2001 the Colonel was sentenced to 9 years in prison and his wife to four and a half. CELS seized the opportunity to submit a petition to the court pointing out the contradiction in prosecuting the abduction of the Poblete child without prosecuting the murder and disappearance of her parents and in November 2001, appellate court judge Gabriel Cavallo ruled that the amnesty laws were illegal and hence not applicable to the Poblete case. Four years later the Supreme Court upheld the appellate court ruling, thereby erasing the amnesty laws from the books for good.

Sentencing for Simón, who has already served five years in prison, is scheduled for the end of July or late August. "After all these years the time has finally come. Justice has arrived late for me, but this is good for the future generations," said Poblete´s brother Fernando Roa.