Yrusta v. Argentina
Key Judgment
Legal Relevance
Keywords: Deprivation of Liberty | Judicial Protection | Refusal to Disclose Fate | Relatives as Victims | Admissibility
Themes: Characteristics of the Crime
The Committee found that deprivation of liberty of a person without providing information about his fate constitutes a form of concealment of the fate and whereabouts of the concerned person. The placement of a person outside the protection of the law is the consequence of the concealment of the detained person’s whereabouts. Such acts amount to enforced disappearance.
Judgment Date
March 11, 2016
Country
Argentina
Judicial Body
Committee on Enforced Disappearances
Articles violated
Article 1 [ICPPED], Article 2 [ICPPED], Article 12(1) [ICPPED], Article 17(1) [ICPPED], Article 18 [ICPPED], Article 20(1) [ICPPED], Article 24(1) [ICPPED], Article 24(2) [ICPPED], Article 24(3) [ICPPED]
Articles not violated / not dealt with
Article 3 [ICPPED], Article 15 [ICPPED], Article 23 [ICPPED]
Facts of the Case
Mr. Roberto Agustín Yrusta was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in December 2005. While in prison, he was subjected to alleged torture and inhuman treatment by members of the Córdoba Prison Service. Mr. Yrusta was disappeared in 2013 when he was being transferred from Córdoba to Santa Fe prison. His family claim that for more than seven days Mr. Yrusta was kept incommunicado from his family despite their repeated requests for information from the prison authorities. In the prison registers he was identified under three different names. The registers contained no information regarding the authority who ordered his transfer, the reasons for it, the time of his transfer or the place. Four months before Mr. Yrusta was due for release, Santa Fe prison service staff notified his family that he had committed suicide. The family questioned the circumstances of his death due to the fact that there were signs that he had been struck violently on the head.