Murder squad warning

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33654, 2 October 1974, Page 17

Murder squad warning

BU ENOS \IRES. October 1. A former Roman Catholic bishop, i general, and a trade union leader have been told by a Right-wing murder squad to leave Argentina within three days or be killed. The Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (A.A.A.) gave the warning last night in telephone calls to the press. It ha* claimed responsibility for killing 15 people in just over two weeks and sent other prominent public figures fleeing the country.

Their targets this time, according to the calls, are Genera] Juan Carlos Sosa Molina, a Left-wing metalworkers trade unionist. Mr Armando Cabo, and a former Bishop of Avellanda, the Rt Rev. Jeronimo Podesta, who left the priesthood to marry. I Like other Parliamentarians, , lawyers, entertainers, university professors and politicians on the A.A.A. death list. ■ Bishop Podesta had a reputation as a Leftist. The bloody confrontation between Left and Right wingers has so far resulted in 95 deaths in the three months since President Juan Peron’s death. But the killing early yester-

dav of the exiled Chilean Armv General Carlos Prats, aged 59. and his wife, when apart, remains a mystery. Nobody has claimed responsibilit v. General Prats was a former Chilean Army Com-mander-in-Chief, Interior and Defence Minister and interim Vice-President under the late Marxist President, Dr Salvador Allende. Chilean Government sources said that he had not taken pan “officially" in politics since arriving tn Argentina four days after last year's Santiago coup tn which Dr Allende died. The Marxist peoples revolutionary army (E.R.P.) was holding a senior executive of Argentina’s biggest industrial conglomerate captive for a SUSSm ransom, after kidnapping him yesterday. I President Maria Estela Peron last night signed an anti-subversion law providing up to eight years gaol for unconstitutional attempts to change the country’s political (structure. It also restricts press coverage of illegal groups. ’ The law, which officials have said will also be used i against Right-wing extremists. takes effect today.