According to the Secretariat of Human Rights, the process will focus on crimes committed against metal workers and citizens in the town of Villa Constitución in March 1975. The former directors of the Industria Argentina de Aceros company, Roberto Pellegrini and Oscar Torralvo, are among the accused, as they were pointed out by survivors as the link between the entity and the repressive forces.

Former members of the Army, the Federal and Provincial Police and the Naval Prefecture are also accused of illegal deprivation of liberty, torture, illicit association and homicides committed after March 20th, 1975, the institution added.

The prosecutor of the Rosario Human Rights Unit, Adolfo Villate, explained in statements to the Télam news agency that this is the first case in the region in which the links and responsibility of a company, in the repressive acts carried out in previous years, are being investigated.

Based on the investigation, the attacks against the labor movement were a kind of preamble to what would spread to all of Argentina a year later after the coup d’état against president María Estela Martínez.

During the last 40 years, 1,200 genocide perpetrators were convicted in Argentina for their responsibility in state terrorism.

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