Interrogating a torturer
We follow a dramatic meeting between a torture victim and his former interrogator.
Over 30 years ago, in March 1976, a military junta headed by General Rafael Videla overthrew Argentina’s democratically elected government and launched a campaign of terror against all who opposed the coup.
In the following seven years, Argentina’s “dirty war” saw 15,000 people executed and 30,000 ‘disappeared’.
Two-hundred and fifty concentration camps – where so-called ‘terrorists’ were routinely and systematically tortured while being interrogated – were set up throughout the country.
While thousands of suspected insurgents were illegally detained, tortured and killed during the war, only one of the perpetrators has ever been confronted with the human cost of his crimes.
Thirty-three years after the fall of the military regime, the first torturer to be convicted for crimes against humanity in Argentina was Julio Simon, known as “Turco Julian”.
His was the first voice that the blindfolded detainees heard when they entered one of the three different concentration camps in which he operated.
Simon played the role of the good cop, offering tea and cigarettes to the detainees between torture sessions.
When some of the former torturers went on trial in 2003, many survivors of the concentration camps went to Buenos Aires to give their testimonies, but very few were willing to confront their torturers face-to-face.
Gerardo Brusezzi is a Uruguayan journalist who was tortured by Julio Simon.
In 2003, Gerardo returned to Argentina to confront Simon in a filmed meeting.
He is now meeting his former torturer again – this time with the aim of discovering the real names of two other former torturers, known to him as “Kung Fu” and “Colores”.
Filmmaker Rodrigo Vazquez recorded their dramatic confrontation and the events that followed.
With extraordinary footage this film reveals a part of Argentina’s history and looks at a former torture victim becoming the interrogator.
This episode of People & Power airs from Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at the following times GMT: Wednesday: 0600, 1230; Thursday: 0130, 1400, 1930; Friday: 0630, 1630; Saturday: 0330, 2030; Sunday: 0030, 0530; Monday: 0830.