Navy officer denies throwing dissidents from airplanes

A former Argentine navy officer who once admitted to throwing drugged, naked dissidents to their death from airplanes during his country’s “dirty war” recanted as he took the stand yesterday at his trial in Madrid on charges of genocide, torture and terrorism.

Adolfo Scilingo, 58, first made the admission when he arrived in Spain voluntarily in 1997 to testify before National Court Judge Baltasar Garzon, who since the late 1990s has spearheaded an investigation into human rights violations by military regimes in Argentina and Chile.