Julio César Strassera

Julio César Strassera (September 18, 1933 – February 27, 2015) was an Argentine lawyer and jurist. He served as Chief Prosecutor during the Trial of the Juntas in 1985.

Life and times

Early life

Strassera was born in Buenos Aires in 1933. He attended the prestigious Colegio San José college preparatory school, left two years shy of graduation, and returned to complete his secondary studies. He would later enroll at the University of Buenos Aires and earn a '' juris doctor'' in 1963. He was named Secretary of a Buenos Aires Federal Court shortly after the March 1976 coup, and was later appointed as a Federal Prosecutor.

Role during the Dirty War

His tenure as Federal Prosecutor coincided with the height of the Dirty War, and a large number of ''Habeas Corpus'' inquiries were solicited at his office during this period, many from friends and family of political prisoners. Strassera, however, refused to file most of these. Some of the most notable cases thereof included that of former Santa Cruz Governor Jorge Cepernic, who had been arrested following the coup, and whose property had been seized without due process and of Lidia Papaleo, whose majority ownership of newsprint manufacturer Papel Prensa was allegedly seized from her under duress following the death of her husband, financier David Graiver. Strassera was charged with investigating possible links between the late banker and the Montoneros guerrilla organization, and asked for a sentence of five years' imprisonment for the widow. His motion and appeal to this effect were both denied, however.

Another controversial motion filed by Strassera as prosecutor pertained to the July 4, 1976, San Patricio Church massacre - charges he succeeded in having the presiding judge drop. Strassera was named criminal court Judge in 1981, an appointment he considered a demotion since he would be relegated to "sentencing chicken thieves."

Trial of the Juntas

He was reappointed prosecutor, however, following the election of President Raúl Alfonsín in 1983, and following the president's October 4, 1984, decision to have leading members of the military dictatorship tried by a civilian appeals court, Strassera was offered the post of Chief Counsel for the Prosecution by the Minister of Justice, Carlos Alconada Aramburú.

Strassera appointed Assistant Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who at the time served as counsel in the Solicitor General's department. Both men had served in Justice Ministry posts during the dictatorship, and both would now prosecute crimes against humanity by its leaders; they were also the only two of the many prosecutors contacted who accepted the challenging posts.

The difficulty of gathering evidence and testimony from reluctant witnesses for this, the first proceedings of their kind since the Nürnberg Trials (and the first conducted in a civilian court), was compounded by pressure from many of the implicated in the abuses and their allies. Strassera's office was contacted on numerous occasions from the former Interior Minister during the dictatorship, General Albano Harguindeguy

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases