Argentinian judge indicts Franco-era Spanish minister on homicide charges
Rodolfo Martín Villa, interior minister between 1976 and 1979, ‘played a key role in the repressive structures of the dictatorship’
Reuters
Sat 16 Oct 2021 15.14 EDT
An Argentinian judge investigating cases that happened during the Franco dictatorship in Spain has indicted a former Spanish minister on four counts of homicide. Judge Maria Servini de Cuba, sitting in Buenos Aires, issued the ruling against Rodolfo Martín Villa, 87, interior minister between 1976 and 1979.
The judge wrote that she considered Martín Villa “the prima facie perpetrator criminally responsible for the crime of aggravated homicide, repeated on at least four occasions, of which Pedro María Martínez Ocio, Romualdo Barroso Chaparro, Francisco Aznar Clemente and Germán Rodríguez Saíz were victims”.
. . .
Spain passed an amnesty law in 1977 that pardoned crimes committed by the Franco dictatorship.
Hundreds of Spaniards have tried to get around this by turning to an Argentinian court, under the principle of universal justice, to address crimes committed against them and their families during General Francisco Franco’s 36-year rightwing dictatorship. Franco ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/16/argentine-judge-indicts-franco-era-spanish-minister-on-homicide-charges