The World - News from April 25, 1985

Argentine federal prosecutor Julio Strassera charged that under three former military presidents, the River Plate was used as a dumping ground for the bodies of murdered prisoners in an attempt to hide killings during the military’s “dirty war” against guerrillas in the mid-1970s. In the third day of the human rights trial of former Presidents Jorge R. Videla, Roberto E. Viola and Leopoldo F. Galtieri, Strassera alleged that prisoners were shot and their bodies stuffed into 50-gallon drums that were dumped into the river. At least eight of the barrels, containing a base of cement to make them sink, were dumped in the river, he said.