Son raped, killed —mother

Press, 30 May 1985, Page 6

Son raped, killed —mother

NZPA-Reuter Buenos Aires An Argentinian mother told the human rights trial of nine former military leaders yesterday that her 14-year-old son had been tortured, raped, and killed after they were arrested by security forces in 1976. Iris Pereyra de Avellaneda said that her husband, a Communist Party member, had managed to slip out of their house through the back when sub-machine-gun blasts ripped open their front door, three weeks after the military took power in March, 1976. Several men wearing wigs and stocking masks had rushed in and ransacked the house before taking her and her son Floreal away. “When they blindfolded us, he was not looking at me — and that was the last time I saw him,” she cried. She said that they were taken to a police precinct where she was given electric shocks and heard her son screaming. Mrs Avellaneda, who was testifying during the sixth week of the trial, said that she was then taken to the main Army base at Campo de Mayo, where she was tortured again. She was freed in 1978.

Floreal’s body was found one month after their abduction, washed ashore on the Uruguayan coast, across the River Plate. Forensic tests there had showed he had been tortured and raped.