Part III
The judiciary during the Repression

Nunca Más (Never Again) - Report of Conadep  - 1984
 

Disappearance and death of dr. Norberto Oscar Centeno - File N° 7289

My father was an expert in Labour Law. He was the author of two books and numerous articles in specialized journals on the subject. He worked as a lawyer for the Lorry Drivers' Union, the Restaurant Workers' Union, the Metalworkers' Union and Textile Workers' Union, and also as advisor to the CGT's Mar del Plata and Buenos Aires branches. On 7 July 1977, when he was leaving the law practice where he worked, he was intercepted by a group of armed men. We learned this later from a witness. On 11 July 1977, my father's body was found with a death certificate giving the date of death as 9 July and the cause of death as 'traumatic shock and haemorrhaging'. My father disappeared at exactly the same time as other professional people, only one of whom reappeared. He is Dr Carlos Bossi, who was found in the boot of the car my father was driving on the day of his abduction. From the testimony of Marta García (file No. 7290) I learned that while she was held at the detention centre known as 'La Cueva' in the air force base at Mar del Plata, she had seen my father. He had been tortured and she had direct contact with him when she moistened his lips after he complained of terrible pains. After that my father died during a second torture session and his body appeared, as I said, on 11 July 1977.

Lecturers in law were also among those to sufffer reprisals. The measures taken against them affected the democratic and republican nature of the teaching of law because of the fear others felt when the fate of their colleagues became known.

It would be inexcusable not to mention the case of Dr Lucio Jorge Rebori (file No. 12), lawyer and philosophy graduate, associate lecturer in Introduction to Law and lecturer in the Philosophy of Law department. On 1 January 1977 he was kidnapped just a few hours after the abduction of his wife, Celia Sara Machado de Rebori, lecturer in philosophy and writer, from their flat. His legal practice was raided that same night. His brother, agronomist Humberto Antonio Rebori, immediately presented a writ of habeas corpus, for which he was kidnapped on 2 February 1977. None of these three people has since reappeared. It must be pointed out that the kidnappers - who were carrying sub-machine guns and sawn-off shotguns - were really looking for Dr Rebori's daughter by his first marriage. She was in Paris where she had been for six months, studying music. When they did not find her, they attacked her family for probable complicity' with what they attributed to the girl.