Adolfo Donda Tigel said that if he is given the same order, he will do the same. The sailor was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity committed at the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA). The catalog of crimes for which he was found responsible included everything from kidnapping, torture, murder to disappearance. He is now on trial for the abduction of his niece, Victoria Donda Pérez, born in the concentration camp where he served. Because he has not shown signs of wanting to reintegrate socially or repent of his crimes, the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation confirmed that Donda Tigel cannot benefit from conditional release.
Donda Tigel has been asking for freedom for a long time. He says that he has been imprisoned for more than 20 years and that he has collected favorable reports from the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF) that will allow him to be released from prison. He is currently detained at Unit 31 in Ezeiza. The SPF reported that he had no disciplinary sanctions and that they gave him a good behavior score of 10 in prison. Donda also said that his wife is willing to help him “get back” into society.
However, that was not enough for Daniel Obligado, who served as his criminal execution judge within the Federal Oral Court (TOF) 5 and denied his request to be released from prison before serving his sentence. Obligado considered the report made by the professionals of the Interdisciplinary Criminal Execution Team, which depends on the Cassation and was formed in 2016 – during the presidency of chambermaid Alejandro Slokar.
To the Interdisciplinary Team, Donda said: “For me the order is enough. If they hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have done it. “If they had ordered me to torture, I think I would have done it.” For experts, it is more than fluent and, therefore, they state that from a discursive point of view the bully continues to justify crimes against humanity and that, faced with a similar situation, he will in the same decisions. For them, Donda reduces the capacity for empathy.
Chamber II of Criminal Cassation, with the votes of Slokar and Ángela Ledesma, affirmed Obligado’s decision. The third member of the court, Guillermo Yacobucci, voted against — leaning in favor of the ESMA repressor.
Slokar, who chaired the agreement, said that when faced with similar proposals, “the conduct of the convicted should be taken into account in terms of clarifying the truth; the recognition of the seriousness of the crimes committed and their rehabilitation; and the effects of his early release on the social level and on the victims and their families. The chambermaid insisted that the victimization of those who suffered from the actions of criminals against the people like Donda should be avoided.
“Crimes of this nature will not be investigated, will not be subject to pardon or amnesty, nor will the response to the punishment imposed be changed or reduced, because it will once again lead to an era of impunity,” said Slokar. “The improper provision of these benefits can lead to a form of impunity, especially when it comes to committing serious human rights violations,” he concluded.
“The statements made by the prisoner during the preparation of the report of the interdisciplinary team – which led to the conclusions outlined above – exceeded the personal jurisdiction of the person to the extent that the power of his words and the externalization carried out in the indicated context “they inflict painful and unnecessary humiliation on the victims and their families and, at the same time, imply a rejection of the constitutional and customary rules and principles that govern the rule in law, excesses act to the detriment of the resocializing purpose of punishment. ” added Ledesma, for his part.
