50 years after the Trelew Massacrea popular jury in Florida convicted the former marine Robert William Bravo (80) to pay compensation of US$27 million to the next of kin of 4 of the 19 victims. Although he will not go to jail because it was a civil suit, the verdict determined his responsibility in the executions of Montoneros, FAR and ERP militants in the Rawson Prison in August 1972.
“This is very important because it was a United States court. There is still a sector of Argentine society that questions the trials for crimes against humanity, they say that they come out automatically or that they are armed. But here it was shown by an independent source that there is a reason for these prosecutions for very serious crimes, ”he told NOTICIAS Sol Hourcadecoordinator of the Memory, Truth and Justice team of the CELSwhich accompanied the litigation together with the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), an American human rights organization.
For HourcadeIn addition, the fact that the verdict came from a popular jury has significant value: “They were people who probably did not know anything about Argentina and, without knowing our history, understood what the Trelew Massacre meant,” he added.
Half a century of impunity
The lawsuit came after decades of seeking Justice. Months after the shootings, Bravo He settled in the United States, where he arrived as an attaché to the Argentine Embassy in Washington DC. His whereabouts were unknown for years, but a 2008 journalistic investigation revealed that he lived in Florida, that he had founded a company, RGB Group Inc., and that he had become a millionaire.
That same year, the federal judge Hugo Tailor, who was investigating the case, requested his international capture. However, because he was an Argentine citizen, Bravo was never extradited. In 2012, the trial for the Massacre was carried out in Argentina without his presence.
However, relatives of four of the victims were able to take him to court thanks to a US Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) that enables financial compensation. The process had started in 2020.
Bravo He had to testify in front of them and defended himself with the same version that the Navy had mounted at that time: he said that they were not executions, but that the deaths occurred when the militants tried to escape from the prison and that he fired in self-defense. “He declared with the security of someone who talks to fellow citizens about him. But the truth is that this story is well documented and the historical truth prevailed,” he said. Hourcade.
