2nd Police Suicide Told in Argentine Kidnap-Murder Probe

A second policeman has committed suicide after being implicated in an investigation of the kidnap-murders of three wealthy businessmen, Argentine officials said Saturday.

Mario Rafael Bivolarsky, an active police officer, shot himself in the head late Friday when authorities approached his home in the seaside resort of Las Toninas, 230 miles south of Buenos Aires. Another policeman facing charges in the case, Alberto Caeta, committed suicide last month in his jail cell.

Bivolarsky, who had eluded arrest for a month, was wanted in connection with the ransom kidnapings and murders of Argentine businessmen Osvaldo Sivak, Benjamin Neuman and Eduardo Oxenford, whose bodies were found early last month. Sivak, a prominent real estate executive, was kidnaped in 1985 and his family paid a $1.1-million ransom to the kidnapers before his body was found.

Sivak’s case was a major political scandal for President Raul Alfonsin’s government last year when investigators revealed that principal suspects included persons involved in the repressive activities of the country’s earlier military regime.