Argentine court accuses Argentinian Navy for the sunken submarine “San Juan”

About the investigation of the Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan, which sank with 44 people on board in November 2017, interesting developments occured in Argentina recently. Argentina’s court ordered six navy commanders of Argentinian Navy to be prosecuted and refused an investigation against former country president Mauricio Macri.

Federal judge’s decision accused Navy commanders of failing to fulfill their duties as civil servants, omission and culpable damage aggravated by the death of the submarine’s crew, found only a year after his disappearance in the Atlantic Ocean.

Regarding Macri, the judge argued that although the president of Argentina is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, the position is not of a “military-technical nature” and that he was under no obligation to exercise operative functions related to the case, which were delegated to trained lower-level officials. Judge used the same arguments to exclude former Defense Minister Oscar Aguad from the case.

The ARA San Juan, manufactured in Germany and part of the Argentinian Navy since 1985, left the port of Ushuaia on November 13, 2017 after a series of military maneuvers to return to Mar del Plata, but could never return.

Source: defesaaereanaval.com.br