Sophie Thonon-Wesfreid was the Argentine state’s lawyer in the extradition proceedings against former Argentine policeman Mario Sandoval. Sentenced in December 2022 to fifteen years in prison for crimes against humanity by a court in Buenos Aires, he had lived thirty-four years in France after the dictatorship and was naturalized French. She is also the lawyer for several French victims of the Argentinian (1976-1983) and Chilean (1973-1990) dictatorships. Following the conviction, in 1990, in Paris, of the Argentine frigate captain Alfredo Astiz for the disappearance of two French nuns, she notably requested, on several occasions but without success, the extradition of the latter.
When did you first hear of Mario Sandoval?
It was in 2008, just after the publication in the Argentinian newspaper Page/12 ofan article revealing his past as a police officer in Argentina. The founders of a French online media, El Correo, translated and published the article by Page/12, and Mario Sandoval was now suing them and 42 other media outlets for defamation. In 2012, justice finally pronounced a dismissal.
During these four years, you will investigate him. What do you discover?
He was accused in Page/12, of being the author, during the Argentine dictatorship, of the kidnapping and disappearance, in 1976, of a young student, Hernan Abriata. I found that he had been denounced by the mother of the victim, Beatriz Abriata, whose testimony appeared in the file of Conadep, the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons [qui avait été chargée, au retour de la démocratie, en 1983, d’enquêter sur les atrocités commises durant la dictature]. Mario Sandoval has always maintained that he was not the Sandoval who kidnapped Hernan and even that he had not been a policeman. However, in my research, I had access to his personal police file, which contains absolutely all his history.
Argentina requested his extradition from France in August 2012. He was only extradited in December 2019. Why so long?
In May 2012, Mario Sandoval was indicted by the Argentine courts for torture, aggravated illegal deprivation of liberty, as well as for crimes against humanity to the detriment of 596 victims, including Hernan Abriata. His extradition journey is, I think, one of the longest, and I dare say, a textbook case. It lasted eight years, during which he appealed against each unfavorable decision: two appeals, two cassation appeals, a referral to the Council of State, two priority questions of constitutionality and, ultimately, an appeal to the European court of human rights.
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