Daughter of Argentine Genocide Convict Rejects His House Arrest

Mariana Dopazo, the daughter of Argentine dictatorship-era officer Miguel Etchecolatz, published a letter asking that her father be returned to prison "until the end of his days" because that would be "just."

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Dopazo, who adopted her mother's last name to cut ties with her biological father, argued that Etchecolatz "never regretted a centimeter of his actions" and remained "loyal [...] to those who planned the massacre."

During his tenure under the brutal dictatorship, Etchecolatz headed 21 clandestine detention centers for the military junta in the 1970s and 1980s in which at least 30,000 people were disappeared by state forces.

He was sentenced to four life sentences for crimes against humanity, however, in December 2017 he was granted house arrest, allowing him to finish serving his sentence from the comfort of his own house in the city of Mar del Plata. The judicial decision was widely rejected and a mass mobilization was held in Mar del Plata to demand his return to prison.   

In her letter, Dopazo narrated how difficult it was for her to receive the news on his father's house arrest and solidarized with his victims saying "only two types of people truly know a person like him: his victims and his children."

She also lamented what she calls a set back in human rights matters: "at 47, I never thought we would suffer such a setback in human rights.”