Cristian Von Wernich
Encyclopedia
Christian Federico von Wernich (born 27 May 1938 in Concordia
, Entre Ríos Province
) is an Argentine
Roman Catholic
priest
of German
origin and a former chaplain
of the Buenos Aires Province Police while it was under the command of General Ramón Camps
, during the dictator
ial period known as the National Reorganization Process
(1976–1983). Wernich worked in Miguel Etchecolatz
's Direction of Investigations of the provincial police with the rank
of Inspector. He became internationally known in 2006 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment
after being convicted of murder
and kidnapping
in aid of the military junta.
Wernich was accused of participation in the Dirty War
, and collaborating in the torture
of political prisoners. He declared that he was innocent during the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, two years after the return of democracy. Action against those involved in the military dictatorship was discontinued by the 1986 Ley de Punto Final
intended to "draw a line" under all that had happened until then, but the law was repealed in 2003 (and definitively declared unconstitution
al in 2005), and cases of crimes against humanity were reopened. La Plata
Federal Judge Arnaldo Corazza gathered testimony from witnesses that placed von Wernich at three illegal detention centers (Puesto Vasco, Coti Martínez and Pozo de Quilmes), and ordered his arrest on 25 September 2003, after the priest was discovered in the Chile
an seaside town of El Quisco
under the assumed identity of "Christian González".
On 7 March 2006, the Federal Court of La Plata confirmed the prosecution and imprisonment on charges of co-authorship of homicide, illegal restraints and acts of torture (including the kidnapping of Jacobo Timerman
, the editor of La Opinión
). Surviving victims declared that von Wernich questioned them under torture, subjected them to mock execution
s, and, under the guise of counseling, urged them to confess. Some of his accusers also alleged von Wernich violated the sacraments
by breaking the seal of the confessional, a charge he has denied.
Wernich's trial began on 5 July 2007 in La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires. He was accused of seven homicides and 41 instances of kidnapping and torture. The tribunal was composed of judges Carlos Rozanski, Norberto Lorenzo and Horacio Isaurralde, the same panel that had sentenced Miguel Etchecolatz
in 2006. Before the trial, von Wernich denied all charges, saying that while he did visit detention centers, he did not witness any human rights abuses there; however, on the first day of the trial, he exercised his right not to answer any questions
.
On 9 October 2007 the court found him guilty of complicity in seven homicides, 42 kidnappings, and 32 instances of torture, and sentenced him to life imprisonment
.
von Wernich is permitted to officiate as priest at Mass
in prison. On his conviction his superior, Bishop Martín Elizalde, apologised for von Wernich being "so far from the requirements of the mission commended to him", and said "at the appropriate time von Wernich's situation will have to be resolved in accordance with canonical law", but never again referred to the issue in public.
Concordia, Entre Ríos
San Antonio de Padua de la Concordia is a city in the north-east of the province of Entre Ríos in the Argentine Mesopotamia. It has about 142,000 inhabitants as of the , and is the head town of the department of the same name.Concordia lies on the right-hand shore of the Uruguay River, opposite...
, Entre Ríos Province
Entre Ríos Province
Entre Ríos is a northeastern province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires , Corrientes and Santa Fe , and Uruguay in the east....
) is an Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
of German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
origin and a former chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
of the Buenos Aires Province Police while it was under the command of General Ramón Camps
Ramón Camps
Ramón Juan Camps was an Argentine general and the head of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the military dictatorship known as the National Reorganization Process...
, during the dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
ial period known as the National Reorganization Process
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process was the name used by its leaders for the military government that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. In Argentina it is often known simply as la última junta militar or la última dictadura , because several of them existed throughout its history.The Argentine...
(1976–1983). Wernich worked in Miguel Etchecolatz
Miguel Etchecolatz
Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz is a former senior Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship. Etchecolatz was an active participant in the "anti-subversion operation" known as the National Reorganization Process...
's Direction of Investigations of the provincial police with the rank
Police rank
- Australia :Generally, all police forces of Australia follow this rank structure with some individual state police forces have ranks differing slightly.Insignia of rank displayed on epaulette in italics and brackets...
of Inspector. He became internationally known in 2006 when he was sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
after being convicted of murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
in aid of the military junta.
Wernich was accused of participation in the Dirty War
Dirty War
The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
, and collaborating in the torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
of political prisoners. He declared that he was innocent during the Trial of the Juntas in 1985, two years after the return of democracy. Action against those involved in the military dictatorship was discontinued by the 1986 Ley de Punto Final
Ley de Punto Final
Ley de Punto Final was a law passed by the National Congress of Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional . Formally, this law is referred to by number Ley de Punto Final (Spanish, roughly translated Full Stop Law) was a law passed by the...
intended to "draw a line" under all that had happened until then, but the law was repealed in 2003 (and definitively declared unconstitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
al in 2005), and cases of crimes against humanity were reopened. La Plata
La Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
Federal Judge Arnaldo Corazza gathered testimony from witnesses that placed von Wernich at three illegal detention centers (Puesto Vasco, Coti Martínez and Pozo de Quilmes), and ordered his arrest on 25 September 2003, after the priest was discovered in the Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an seaside town of El Quisco
El Quisco
El Quisco is a Chilean city and commune in San Antonio Province, Valparaíso Region. Located in the country's central coast, it serves as a popular summer resort for the population of Santiago...
under the assumed identity of "Christian González".
On 7 March 2006, the Federal Court of La Plata confirmed the prosecution and imprisonment on charges of co-authorship of homicide, illegal restraints and acts of torture (including the kidnapping of Jacobo Timerman
Jacobo Timerman
Jacobo Timerman was an Argentine publisher, journalist, and author who was persecuted and honored for confronting the atrocities of the Argentine military regime's Dirty War...
, the editor of La Opinión
La Opinión (Argentina)
La Opinión was an Argentine newspaper, founded by the journalist Jacobo Timerman in 1971. Its ideology was broadly centrist, inspired partly by the Paris daily Le Monde.-Development:...
). Surviving victims declared that von Wernich questioned them under torture, subjected them to mock execution
Mock execution
A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that his execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. It may be staged for an audience or a subject who is made to believe that he is being led to his own execution...
s, and, under the guise of counseling, urged them to confess. Some of his accusers also alleged von Wernich violated the sacraments
Sacraments of the Catholic Church
The Sacraments of the Catholic Church are, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, "efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper...
by breaking the seal of the confessional, a charge he has denied.
Wernich's trial began on 5 July 2007 in La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires. He was accused of seven homicides and 41 instances of kidnapping and torture. The tribunal was composed of judges Carlos Rozanski, Norberto Lorenzo and Horacio Isaurralde, the same panel that had sentenced Miguel Etchecolatz
Miguel Etchecolatz
Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz is a former senior Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship. Etchecolatz was an active participant in the "anti-subversion operation" known as the National Reorganization Process...
in 2006. Before the trial, von Wernich denied all charges, saying that while he did visit detention centers, he did not witness any human rights abuses there; however, on the first day of the trial, he exercised his right not to answer any questions
Right to silence
The right to remain silent is a legal right of any person. This right is recognized, explicitly or by convention, in many of the world's legal systems....
.
On 9 October 2007 the court found him guilty of complicity in seven homicides, 42 kidnappings, and 32 instances of torture, and sentenced him to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
.
von Wernich is permitted to officiate as priest at Mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
in prison. On his conviction his superior, Bishop Martín Elizalde, apologised for von Wernich being "so far from the requirements of the mission commended to him", and said "at the appropriate time von Wernich's situation will have to be resolved in accordance with canonical law", but never again referred to the issue in public.
See also
- "Dirty WarDirty WarThe Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...
" - Forced disappearanceForced disappearanceIn international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
- Religion in ArgentinaReligion in ArgentinaA majority of the population of Argentina is nominally Roman Catholic, however, a very significant fact is that 61.1% of Argentines said to be related to God "on their own way", 72.9% said to "never" or "rarely" attend ceremonies of worship....
- Miguel EtchecolatzMiguel EtchecolatzMiguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz is a former senior Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship. Etchecolatz was an active participant in the "anti-subversion operation" known as the National Reorganization Process...