Argentine boy snatched

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33263, 28 June 1973, Page 15

Argentine boy snatched

(N.Z, Press Assn.—Copyright)

BUENOS AIRES,

June 27.

A 10-y ear-old boy snatched from his grandmother’s hands as she walked him to a school bus stop has become the eleventh reported kidnap victim in Argentina in two days.

Fifteen persons, among them an American and three other foreigners, are still in abductors’ hands throughout the country. There have been more than 70 kidnappings in Argentina this year and more than seven million United States dollars (SNZSm) has been paid in ransom — much of it to urban guerrillas. In yesterday’s kidnapping, elderly Berta Radininsky told police she was walking her grandson, Oscar, to a bus stop just south of the capital when a car pulled up and a man jumped out, pulled the boy into the car and sped away with him. Police said that there had so far been no demand for ransom and the boy’s grandfather, owner of a car parts

shop, would not talk to reporters.

Neither the old military regime nor the month-old Government of President Campora has managed to halt the abduction of wealthy businessmen and their relatives. Payment of ransoms is not illegal in Argentina and families and firms involved in kidnappings either ask police not to interfere or deny that the crime took place.

Foreigners still held captive by kidnappers were an American, Mr John Thompson, president of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. in Buenos Aires, kidnapped on June 18; a British financier, Mr Charles Lockwood, kidnapped on June 6; Mr Johann Kurdt Gebhart, a German

executive of the Silvana Hosiery Co., kidnapped on June 19; and Mr Maro Baratella, the Italian vice-presi-dent of the Bank of Italy, captured on Monday. Three urban guerrilla organisations yesterday said that they would continue the violent campaigns against “imperialism” they began under the previous seven years of military rule. President Campora has asked the country’s various guerrilla organisations for a truce and his mentor, a former President, General Juan Peron, has appealed for "constructive peace” in Argentina. But one guerrilla group issued a statement yesterday saying: “Only someone who had sold out to imperialism would ask for a truce.”

President Campora met all morning yesterday with leaders of various security branches of his regime, including the Federal Police Chief and the Defence Minister, to discuss what Government sources said were "precise instructions” on how to deal with the situation.