On February 1, 1957, the La Plata judge resolves to retain jurisdiction, claiming the following: that ratione personae, it is premature to make a motion for recusal because, as it stands, the case does not directly charge any one person and the event to date does not involve “military personnel on active duty”; and that ratione materiae, there are similarly insufficient reasons to relinquish the case. He adds that, when the same matter was brought forth by the Chief of Police, he expressed his resolve to retain jurisdiction,
even though said person bringing forth the issue was not involved in the case and, to that end, on January 23, he ordered the release of an official letter to the judge currently presiding over the criminal court of the capital to demand, from wherever necessary, an original copy of decree 10.362 and 10.363, as well as the date and exact time they were enacted. Said official letter was resent on the 28th, and was met no reply.
Judge Hueyo has understood from the beginning that the crux of his investigation is this: the hour at which the law was announced. He did not have enough time to obtain the evidence that I would obtain months later, once the State Radio registry book of announcers had been photocopied and published. But the following analysis seems irrefutable to me:
The goal of the requested information —he says— was to determine whether the detention of the declarant, which occurred between 2315 and 2330 on June 9, took place after or before the instatement of martial law.
In the former case, the investigation and penalty pertain to whether an infraction occurred, either regarding the application of said martial law or regarding pertinent regulations of the military code of justice. In this case, the matter does not fall under the jurisdiction of civil authorities and, with the necessary information, the undersigned would have stated as much.
But in the latter case, that is, that the detention of these individuals took place prior to the instatement of martial law: even if the execution was ordered after the law had come into effect, the law would not have applied to said individuals as no criminal law can have retroactive effect and, in that case, those in question, whatever their connection to the subversive movement may have been, were not given the opportunity to desist and lay down their weapons because they had already been seized.
Given this hypothesis, the detention in question, the subsequent execution of several of these individuals, the attempt to execute others and the repeated detention of the declarant that ultimately placed him under the jurisdiction of the National Executive Power, are events that are not within the scope of military law or its interpretation, but rather, should they be duly proven, are classified as crimes under the penal code, which the undersigned is qualified to apply. For the above reasons, it is resolved to inform the solicitor that the undersigned retains jurisdiction.
Footnotes:
32 On this point, Rodríguez Moreno’s version differs from the one that I provide in the text, which is based on the testimony of six of the seven survivors.
33 R. Moreno is mistaken. The bullet did in fact destroy Livraga’s jaw, but more than that, Julio Troxler saw him walking wounded, eight blocks away from the garbage dump, at the José León Suárez rail crossing. He saw a police officer pick him up there. Di Chiano and Benavídez saw him get off at the site of the execution. Troxler even remembers exactly where he was sitting in the assault car and also saw him get off. It’s not plausible that Livraga, having saved himself, would have run off somewhere to shoot himself, as R. Moreno seems to suggest, and as F. Suárez has alleged.
34 The receipt they gave to Livraga.