1. Alfredo Ignacio Astiz was born on 8 November 1951 and is a convicted war criminal and former Argentine military commander, intelligence officer, and naval commando who served in the Argentine Navy during the military dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla during the Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional.
Alfredo Astiz was known as El Angel Rubio de la Muerte, and had a reputation as a torturer.
Alfredo Astiz was discharged from the military in 1998 after defending his actions in a press interview.
At the beginning of the 1982 Falklands War, Alfredo Astiz surrendered with his team to British forces.
That year Alfredo Astiz was detained on charges of kidnapping and torture.
Together with numerous other defendants associated with ESMA, Alfredo Astiz was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Argentina for crimes against humanity on 26 October 2011.
Alfredo Astiz was believed to have kidnapped and tortured hundreds of people during 1976 and 1977.
In 1976 and 1977, Alfredo Astiz' team kidnapped and "disappeared" three Italian nationals: Angela Maria Aieta in 1976, and Giovanni Pegoraro and his pregnant daughter Susana Pegoraro in 1977.
On 27 January 1977 Dagmar Hagelin, a 17-year-old girl holding Swedish citizenship through her father Ragnar Hagelin, was shot and wounded by Alfredo Astiz while attempting to escape capture.
Alfredo Astiz's wife and Dagmar's mother was an Argentine citizen named Buccicardi.
Witnesses testified to having seen Hagelin later at the ESMA secret detention and torture center, and alleged that Alfredo Astiz was in charge of her interrogation.
Alfredo Astiz's resistance was believed to be related to the severity of the injuries she suffered in the shooting.
Alfredo Astiz was convicted of murdering Dagmar Hagelin, and committing other crimes, to a second lifetime sentence in 2017 after a five year trial, together with his former boss Jorge Acosta.
In December 1977 Alfredo Astiz organized the kidnapping of about a dozen people associated with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, including the founders Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti and two others.
Alfredo Astiz was witnessed torturing the nuns at ESMA by beating them, immersing them in water and applying electrified cattle prods to their breasts, genitals and mouths.
Alfredo Astiz commanded a special team of fifteen Tactical Divers Group frogmen, dubbed los lagartos, which carried out the first act of aggression in what developed into the Falklands War.
The communication ordered Alfredo Astiz to take down the flag of Argentina and leave.
Alfredo Astiz insisted on signing a surrender document for himself and his small band although they were covered by the surrender of his commanding officer.
Alfredo Astiz rigged the island football pitch with explosives, and planned to detonate them killing the British officers receiving his surrender.
At the last minute the wires leading to the explosives were spotted and the surrender venue was changed to aboard HMS Plymouth, where Alfredo Astiz freely admitted plotting to kill the British delegation, having booby trapped nearby buildings.
The French Government made a request that Alfredo Astiz be held while they sought legal pursuance for the "disappearances" of the nuns.
Alfredo Astiz was questioned twice in June 1982 by a Detective Chief Superintendent of the Sussex Constabulary.
Alfredo Astiz was repatriated back to Argentina on 10 June 1982, just before the start of the battle for Port Stanley and the Argentine surrender on the Falkland Islands on 14 June 1982.
However, the extradition treaties between Argentina and the UK, and Sweden and France, referred only to crimes committed within the territory of the requesting state and crimes against international law, while Alfredo Astiz was accused of crimes committed in Argentina against their nationals which were not, at the time, crimes under international law.
Since torture is expressly forbidden in the Argentine constitution, Alfredo Astiz could have been prosecuted for acting outside his powers as an agent of the Argentine government in torturing Domon and Duquet.
On 16 March 1990 Alfredo Astiz was convicted and sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a French Assize Court for his role in the torture and disappearance of the two French nuns, Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet.
For years, Alfredo Astiz was protected by the Pardon Laws in 1986 and 1987 which had shielded military and security officers from prosecution.
Alfredo Astiz has several times been physically attacked by civilians; a well-known assault took place in Bariloche in the mid-1990s.
Alfredo Astiz reportedly said "I'm not sorry for anything", and defended the actions of the military dictatorship.
Alfredo Astiz was discharged from the military for his comments.
Italy was seeking extradition of Alfredo Astiz for the kidnapping and torture of three Italian nationals in 1976 and 1977, and for the abduction of a baby daughter born to one of them: Angela Maria Aieta in 1976, and the kidnapping of Giovanni Pegoraro and his pregnant daughter Susana Pegoraro in 1977.
In 2005, Alfredo Astiz was detained on charges of kidnapping and torture, centered on the 12 victims of December 1977.
Since the Kirchner government started prosecuting cases again, Alfredo Astiz is one of 259 people who by late 2011 had been convicted of human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship.
Alfredo Astiz said that the Ministry was trying to kill him and severely harm his health by denying him access to Pedro Mallo Naval Hospital, the only medical facility able to supply the care he needed.