A federal judge has been assigned to investigate claims by La Libertad Avanza (LLA) deputies that they were tricked into seeing dictatorship-era repressors in federal prison. Five deputies participated in the July 11 visit, the news of which broke a week later and sparked a widespread outcry.

Argentina’s latest military dictatorship tortured, murdered, and hid the bodies of 30,000 people between 1976 and 1983. The deputies met with Alfredo Astiz (known as the “Angel of Death”), Adolfo Donda (complicit in the murder of his brother and appropriation of his newborn niece), and other inmates convicted of crimes against humanity within that apparatus of state terror. A photograph of the get-together went viral on Tuesday showing LLA Deputies Beltrán Benedit — who claimed responsibility for organizing the meeting — Lourdes Arrieta, Guillermo Montenegro, María Fernanda Araujo, and Alida Ferreyra Ugalde.

Last week, human rights lawyer Pablo Llonto — who is a plaintiff in several dictatorship cases — filed a complaint at the Federal Oral Court 5° in Buenos Aires, where some of the inmates continue to be investigated in the ex-ESMA case. Federal Judge Ernesto Kreplak was assigned to the case on Monday after it was transferred to a federal court in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province,........

© Buenos Aires Herald