Argentine torturer Ricardo Cavallo will no longer be able to claim the French National Order of Merit. The government has finally decided to withdraw its medal from this former soldier who was sentenced to life imprisonment twice for crimes against humanity committed in his country during the dictatorship (1976-1983).
Ricardo Cavallo, 68 years old today, has indeed been convicted twice, in Argentina. The first, in 2011, for kidnappings, torture sessions, beatings and assassinations in the sinister Marine Superior School (ESMA), transformed under the military junta into an illegal detention camp from which disappeared 5,000 opponents. The second, in 2017, for his participation in "thefts of death", during which the prisoners, after being tortured, were drugged and then thrown alive into the sea from planes. Ricardo Cavallo was notably recognized responsible for the disappearance, in 1977, of two French nuns, Alice Domon and Léonie Duquet.
But a few months before the end of the dictatorship, in recognition of his services rendered, the one whom at ESMA we nicknamed "Sérpico" or "Marcelo" was sent to France, where his role during the lead years in Argentina was unknown, as a Naval Attaché at the Argentine Embassy in Paris. It was there, on June 27, 1985, two years after the return of democracy, that the French State awarded him the National Order of Merit.
Sideration
At the time, impunity was total for torturers of the dictatorship after the passing of amnesty laws in 1985 and 1986. Thousands of soldiers, police and civilians responsible for crimes thus escaped justice.
In 1989, Ricardo Cavallo, still free to move, settled in Mexico under the name of Miguel Angel Cavallo. His true identity was not revealed until eleven years later by the Mexican newspaper Reforma. He was then extradited to Spain, where Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon had filed a complaint, in the name of universal justice, against many Argentines for "genocide and state terrorism" for their crimes committed during the dictatorship. Arrested at Cancun Airport on August 24, 2000 while preparing to flee to Argentina, where he knew he was protected, he was sent to Madrid six months later. But while awaiting trial, Argentina in 2003 overturned impunity laws, allowing its trial in Buenos Aires, where he was finally extradited in 2008.
The National Order of Merit, awarded by France in 1985, irritated human rights organizations, which signed a letter in January asking the French authorities to withdraw it. "We who have suffered in our flesh its perversion, its violence and its cynicism, we could only be amazed when we learned that this distinction had been given to such a criminal", wrote Victor Basterra, Miriam Lewin and Lila Pastoriza, survivors of ESMA.
Argentine President Visits France
The decoration went unnoticed until 2010, when the then French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, confirmed to a non-governmental organization that France had awarded it.
In 2014, after the rejection of Ricardo Cavallo's appeal of his first conviction, the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor had sent him a letter to inform him of the opening of disciplinary action against him at subject of "Facts constituting the particularly dishonorable behavior to which he had engaged" during the dictatorship, "Likely to be regarded as contrary to honor with the possible consequences provided for by the code". The former soldier never replied to this letter, and the matter remained there.
The decree removing Ricardo Cavallo's decoration, signed by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, dates from April 30, but was not made known to the public until Thursday, May 7, through a message of thanks from the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Sola.
It was during the State visit to France of the Argentine President, Alberto Fernandez, on February 5, that the Argentinian Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Marcela Losardo, had arrested his French counterpart, Nicole Belloubet, at this subject, during an interview in the premises of the Ministry of Justice in Paris. Meeting in session eight days after this interview, on February 13, the Bar Council considered that Ricardo Cavallo had “seriously failed to honor” and that it was therefore appropriate to “withdraw the distinction that was granted to him " The decree "will not be published in the Official Journal", specifies the text dated April 30.
In the midst of a coronavirus health crisis, Ricardo Cavallo, who is serving his two life sentences in Ezeiza prison, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, asked to be placed under house arrest. In mid-April, however, the court ruled that, although it could be considered to be part of a "Population at risk" faced with the advance of the epidemic, it had not been demonstrated how the health emergency "Increased the personal risks of the condemned Cavallo, reason for which his request was rejected".
