DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Soul of Adoption
  HTML https://soulofadoption.createaforum.com
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       *****************************************************
   DIR Return to: Adoption in the Media
       *****************************************************
       #Post#: 6--------------------------------------------------
       Dirty War adoption couple jailed
       By: Montraviatommygun Date: February 27, 2011, 9:27 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Dirty War adoption couple jailed
       An Argentine couple have been jailed for illegally adopting a
       baby girl born 30 years ago to parents who were kidnapped by the
       military government.
       The case was brought by the adopted woman, Maria Eugenia
       Sampallo, whose real parents were among the 30,000 said to have
       been killed in the "Dirty War".
       Osvaldo Rivas and Maria Cristina Gomez were convicted of
       falsifying documents and hiding their daughter's identity.
       The pair were sentenced to eight and seven years in prison
       respectively.
       A former army captain, Enrique Berthier, was found guilty of
       taking Ms Sampallo and giving her to the couple. He was
       sentenced to 10 years in jail.
       'Not my parents'
       The case at the federal criminal court in Buenos Aires
       represented the first time a child born of prisoners who
       disappeared during the Dirty War pressed charges against the
       adoptive parents.
       After the judgement, human rights groups outside the court
       expressed mixed emotions, saying they were pleased the three had
       been found guilty but that they were disappointed by the reduced
       sentences.
       Ms Sampallo had called for her adoptive parents to be sentenced
       to 25 years in prison - the maximum allowed under Argentine law.
       "They are not my parents - they are my kidnappers," she said.
       Ms Sampallo learned in 2001, as a result of DNA tests, that she
       was the daughter of missing political prisoners Mirta Mabel
       Barragan and Leonardo Ruben Sampallo.
       The left-wing activists were kidnapped by the military
       authorities in December 1977, when Mrs Barragan was six-months
       pregnant.
       Ms Sampallo was born in a clandestine detention centre in the
       capital and taken from her mother shortly afterwards. She
       probably never saw her father.
       The BBC's Daniel Schweimler, who was at the court, says that
       nothing more has ever been heard about her parents - they
       "disappeared" along with an estimated 30,000 other victims of
       the military regime between 1976 and 1983.
       After being taken by the authorities, Ms Sampallo lived with her
       adoptive parents, suspecting nothing, until 2001, when a group
       formed by grandmothers of the stolen babies, tracked her down
       and revealed her true identity.
       It is believed some 500 children were given to families
       sympathetic to the military government. Eighty-eight have since
       been tracked down and those behind this case are hoping the
       publicity will provoke more questions, our correspondent says.
       Rivas and Gomez have not commented publicly on the case.
  HTML http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7331857.stm
       *****************************************************