Interrogating A Torturer

People & Power Revisits The Dramatic Meeting Between A Torture Victim and His Former Interrogator.

Last Modified: 23 Mar 2011 16:14
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"



In the past decade torture has never been very far from the headlines but the recent outbreak of protests across the Middle East has put the issue right back in the spotlight.

Activists from Egypt to Libya, and Bahrain to Yemen have all included torture among the list of crimes allegedly committed by security forces. Understandably they want the perpetrators brought to justice.

But as our story this week demonstrates, while legal sanctions can sometimes be applied, the physical and mental scars from torture take a very long time to heal.

In the mid 1970s a coup brought a military junta to power in Argentina. Its leader General Jorge Videla was a fanatical anti-Communist who fought a five-year dirty war against opponents. More than 30,000 people were imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the army and secret police.

Though Videla was eventually convicted of crimes against humanity – and he and other junta leaders are now back in court facing further charges, only one of the people who did the actual torturing has ever been confronted with the human cost of his crimes.

We first showed this film by Rodrigo Vazquez in 2009, but its themes are as relevant today as they were then. Some of the images are disturbing.