Spain's High Court has ordered the extradition of a Dutch-Argentine pilot to Argentina to face charges of throwing political prisoners out of aircraft into the sea under the military dictatorship 30 years ago.
Julio Alberto Poch, 57, was arrested in Spain last year after an Argentine judge travelled to Europe and spoke to colleagues of Poch who said he had boasted about hurling drugged prisoners into the River Plate or the Atlantic Ocean.
A retired Argentine navy lieutenant, Poch also holds Dutch nationality which protected him from extradition until he landed in Spain on a stopover en route to the Netherlands on Sept. 22.
He works for Holland's Transavia, an airline owned by Air France-KLM. "Poch threw several live people out of aeroplanes or helicopters which he flew as a naval air officer on pilot duty in the Argentine Navy between 1976 and 1980," a High Court statement said.
Poch denied the charges against him in court last week but accepted extradition. "I have been treated like a criminal and locked up with common criminals. The only chance I have to defend myself will be in Argentina," he said in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia.
An Argentine government report says more than 11,000 people died or disappeared during the so-called Dirty War, a crackdown on alleged leftists and other opponents of the military regime that ruled from 1976 to 1983.
Reuters