A 30-YEAR-OLD woman is suing her adoptive parents for kidnapping, in a case opening in an Argentine court today, becoming the first child of disappeared political prisoners to press such charges.
Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragan accused her adoptive parents, Osvaldo Rivas and Maria Cristina Gomez Pinto, of falsifying adoption documents to hide her identity.
Thousands of leftists and dissidents vanished after being abducted by security forces during Argentina's 1976-1983 military rule, and human rights groups say more than 200 of their children were given to military or politically connected families.
Ms Sampallo, who in 2001 learned that she is the daughter of two missing political prisoners, Mirta Mable Barragan and Leonardo Ruben Sampallo, is one of 88 young people who determined their identity with DNA tests co-ordinated by the human rights group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Ms Sampallo's mother was six months pregnant when she and her father were abducted on December 6, 1977. Her lawyer, Tomas Ojea Quentin, said she was born in February 1978, while her mother was being held at a clandestine torture centre.
Mr Ojea Quentin said a former army captain, Enrich Berthier, was facing related baby-theft charges. He is being held at a military unit.
The case marks the first time a woman has taken her adoptive parents to court in Argentina.
There have been at least three earlier trials involving suspected illegal adoptions dating to the dictatorship that resulted in convictions — but the plaintiffs were not the adopted children.
Meanwhile, a former military officer wanted in connection with the 1972 execution of 16 leftist guerillas surrendered at Buenos Aires's Ezeiza Airport yesterday, hours after returning from the US.
Carlos Marandino is the fourth former naval officer arrested this month on torture and murder charges linked to the Trelew Massacre of 16 leftist rebels, who fled an Argentine prison, presaging the excesses of Argentina's "dirty war".
Some 25 leftist guerillas escaped a southern Argentine penitentiary in a spectacular 1972 jailbreak. Six fled by plane to Chile, where they were granted political asylum by socialist President Salvador Allende and allowed to go to Cuba. The other 19 were taken to a nearby naval base, where 16 were shot dead in their cells, prosecutors say
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