Retired Argentine Navy Officer Admits Watery Executions

More than 2,000 political prisoners were thrown alive from navy aircraft into the Atlantic Ocean during the 1976-83 “Dirty War,” a retired naval officer has charged.

The victims, most of them leftists considered subversive by the former military dictatorship, were drugged and tossed naked into the sea off Argentina’s coast, retired Lt. Cmdr Adolfo Francisco Scilingo said in an interview published Friday in the newspaper Pagina 12.

His allegations reopen what human rights groups call the darkest chapter in modern Argentine history.

At least 9,000 people disappeared during the Dirty War when a repressive rightist regime waged a bloody campaign against leftists and political dissidents.

Although many Argentines have long believed accounts of prisoners being killed in such a manner, Scilingo’s comments marked the first time a military officer publicly acknowledged such acts.

“The pact of silence has been broken,” said Emilio Fermin Mignone, a leading activist whose daughter disappeared in 1976.

Army Gen. Mario Candido Diaz, head of the nation’s joint chiefs of staff, said the accusations “did not merit a reply.” He charged Scilongo had “lost all his qualities as an officer and a gentleman.”