A.4. The “Automotores Orletti” secret detention and torture center 66. The policy of repression during the dictatorship included the secret implementation and operation of detention centers to which illegally detained persons were transferred. Once in these centers, people were subjected to inhumane conditions, which in some cases included acts of torture or execution. Meanwhile, the authorities refused to provide any information in response to requests and actions from relatives on victims’ detention and transfer, or where they were being held. 70 One of these centers was known as “Automotores Orletti,” whose existence was recognized by this Court in the case of Gelman v. Uruguay. 71 67. Automotores Orletti was a secret detention and torture center which operated from May through November 1976, and where several coordination operations and other actions were carried out within the framework of Operation Condor. The center operated under the State Intelligence Secretariat, and people reportedly observed there were associated with the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, known as Triple A, as well as Uruguayan military personnel and security forces “at a time when a large number of Uruguayan victims were being held there.” 72 68. In addition to recognizing the existence of Automotores Orletti, the Argentine courts have also described its operation and the conditions to which the persons transferred there were subjected, as follows: [T]he building where […] Automotores Orletti operated was located at Venancio Flores Street [No.] 3,519/21, between Emilio Lamarca and San Nicolás Streets in the Flores neighborhood of [the city of Buenos Aires]. […] [T]he victims […] were mostly kidnapped from their own homes or on public roads. […] Once victims arrived there […] they were subject to physical torture and interrogations. The physical torture basically consisted of stripping people naked, tying their arms behind them, and hanging them from a kind of hook or pulley and then […] applying electric current to them. At the same time, their bodies were wet and water and/or salt was also placed underneath them […] to increase the flow of electrical current when the feet touched the ground. This was frequently accompanied by blows to different parts of the body. After the torture and joint interrogation, the victims were placed in different rooms or areas […], always blindfolded or hooded and in many cases with their hands tied. [T]he victims had to continually listen to the torture of the other captives. […] They were even forced to witness the physical torment of their loved ones. 73 A.5. Report of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) and other actions aimed at establishing and providing reparations for what happened during the military government 69. With the restoration of democracy and constitutional institutions at the end of 1983, President Raúl Alfonsín ordered the formation of the National Commission on the 15518). See Case of Gelman v. Uruguay, supra, pars. 61 to 63, and expert opinion of Pablo Parenti, rendered in a public hearing before this Court. 70 Cf. Nunca Más. Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 1984, Chapter I.D, “Centros Clandestinos de Detención (C.C.D.).” See Judgment issued by the National Federal Criminal and Correctional Appeals Chamber of the Federal Capital on December 9, 1985, case No. 13/84. 71 Cf. Case of Gelman v. Uruguay, supra, pars. 53 and 54. 72 Cf. Nunca Más. Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 1984, Chapter I.D, “Centros Clandestinos de Detención (C.C.D.),” “Automotores Orletti” (LRD), and Judgment issued by the Federal Criminal and Correctional National Appeals Chamber of the Federal Capital, case No. 13/84. The “Triple A” was “the expression of terror [...] in the context of kidnappings, assassinations, [and] attacks,” whose membership “included police officers, soldiers, and officials and staff from the intelligence services.” Cf. Resolution issued by the National Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 3 on May 19, 2011, case No. 2637/04 (evidence file, volume I, annex 1 to the Report on the Merits, folios 37, 38, 40, and 156). 73 Cf. Judgment issued by Federal Oral Criminal Court No. 1 on May 31, 2011, case No. 1627 (evidence file, volume I, annex 2 to the Report, folios 1060, 1318, and 1390). See judgment issued by Federal Oral Criminal Court No. 1 on March 3, 2021, case No. 3002 (evidence file, volume X, annexes on supervening facts, folios 16303 and 16319). 21