The cutting of the Hands of Perón refers to a 1987 incident where the tomb of Juan Perón

Juan Perón

Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...

, former President of Argentina

President of Argentina

The President of the Argentine Nation , usually known as the President of Argentina, is the head of state of Argentina. Under the national Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.Through Argentine history, the...

, was broken into and his hands dismembered and removed by persons unknown.

The incident

After Juan Perón's death in July 1974, his body was embalmed and placed in a coffin in the Perón family tomb in Chacarita Cemetery in the city of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

.

In July 1987, 13 years after his death, the Peronist Justicialist Party

Justicialist Party

The Justicialist Party , or PJ, is a Peronist political party in Argentina, and the largest component of the Peronist movement.The party was led by Néstor Kirchner, President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, until his death on October 27, 2010. The current Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de...

 received an anonymous letter that claimed that Perón's hands had been removed from his tomb along with his army cap and sword; the letter demanded that the party pay an US$8 million ransom for their return. When authorities checked Perón's tomb, they discovered that it had indeed been broken into and the hands and other items removed. Forensic experts who examined the body said the mutilation had occurred only a short time before the discovery. One source states that the tomb was broken into on June 23, 1987, and that a poem written to him by his last wife, Isabel

Isabel Martínez de Perón

María Estela Martínez Cartas de Perón , better known as Isabel Martínez de Perón or Isabel Perón, is a former President of Argentina. She was also the third wife of another former President, Juan Perón...

, had also been removed from the tomb. At the time, some news reports stated that the hands had been removed with "a surgical instrument", but later reports state that the dismemberment had been done with an electric saw.

The head of the Justicialist Party, Vicente Saadi

Vicente Saadi

Vicente Leonidas Saadi was an Argentine Justicialist Party politician. He was a senator and governor for Catamarca Province, and became the patriarch of a family that has dominated Catamarca politics since the 1940s....

, refused to allow the ransom to be paid. A criminal investigation was begun under the leadership of judge Jaime Far Suau: although six men were arrested and five arraigned, none were charged in relation to the incident. No suspect has ever been charged, and the hands have never been recovered.

Many of those involved in the investigation of the disappearance of Perón's hands (including Judge Far Suau) have since died, some under circumstances considered questionable. There is evidence that the theft had some sort of official support, as the robbers used a key to enter the tomb.

Argentinian anthropologist Rosana Guber has written that Perón's hands were seen by Argentinians as a symbol of his power, and that their theft was not just a simple criminal matter but also had deep cultural meaning; she viewed the debate about the hands as symbolic of the attempt to promote democracy in the country. Lyman Johnson viewed the dismemberment as "a catalyst to destroy the symbolic cult of Perón". With Perón's hands gone, Lyman wrote, his body became less important and his importance as a religious figure also decreased in comparison to that of his second wife, Eva Perón

Eva Perón

María Eva Duarte de Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.She was born in the village of Los Toldos in...

.

In their book Unveiling the Enigma, writers Damian Nabot

Damian Nabot

Damian Nabot is an investigative reporter and non-fiction author. He is currently managing editor of Political News at Crítica de la Argentina newspaper.-Early life:...

 and David Cox write that the P2

Propaganda Due

Propaganda Due , or P2, was a Masonic lodge operating under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of Italy from 1945 to 1976 , and a pseudo-Masonic or "black" or "covert" lodge operating illegally from 1976 to...

, also known as the Propaganda Due, were involved in the theft, and that there was a ritual involved in the cutting of Peron's hands.