A former Argentine Army officer accused of the murder of eight people during the country's military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, on Monday sought a military trial in Italy.
Lieutenant colonel Carlos Luis Malatto, 74, fled Argentina in 2011, seeking refuge in Sicily.
He faces charges of crimes against humanity in Argentina dating back to the nation's brutal dictatorship but the trial has yet to commence due to the country's legal restrictions against trying individuals in absentia.
Despite an extradition request from Argentina in 2014 being denied by Rome, Italy initiated its own investigation in 2015.
Appearing at a preliminary hearing in Rome, Malatto sought a military trial – a request opposed by prosecutors and the civil parties who say the alleged crimes are political and not military in nature.
The judges said they would announce a decision on November 4.
"Malatto says he participated in a war against terrorists and wants to be judged by a military tribunal. But during these years, there were 30 disappearances and no soldier killed," Jorge Ithurburu, a lawyer for an association of the victims' families told AFP.
Malatto is accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering eight people in Argentina between March 1976 and November 1978, according to Italian prosecutors.
His alleged victims include a Franco-Argentine model Marie-Anne Erize – an acquaintance of French singer Georges Moustaki and Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia – who was kidnapped on October 24, 1974 aged 24 in San Juan and was never found.
Erize had returned to Argentina and joined the Montoneros guerrilla movement fighting the dictatorship.
The other alleged victims include a university rector, two university students and a communist party official.
Malatto holds dual nationality – Argentineand Italian.
Italy in 2014 refused a demand from Argentina for his extradition on the ground that torture did not exist as a crime in its lawbooks. This was changed in 2017.
The civil parties in the case include the Argentine communist party, Itay's Democratic Party, and the government in Rome.
Some 30,000 people died or went missing during the military dictatorship, one of the bloodiest regimes in South America.
– TIMES/AFP
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