Rights groups laud U.S. for arrests of 3 Latin Americans

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Latin American human rights groups have reacted with satisfaction and muted surprise to the arrest in the United States of three Argentine and Peruvian former military officers accused of human rights abuses who had fled their home countries to avoid prosecution there.

Of the three, detained over the weekend in Virginia, Maryland and Florida and charged with violating immigration laws, the most notorious is Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro of Argentina.

During the so-called Dirty War of the late 1970s, he was the chief interrogator at La Perla, a clandestine prison in Cordoba, Argentina's second-largest city, where more than 2,000 prisoners were tortured or killed.

"This is big news, and deserves to be celebrated both in Argentina and the United States," said Gaston Chillier, director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a leading human rights group in Buenos Aires, Argentina.