Germany drops junta prosecutions

The former president was arrested in Argentina in 1998

German prosecutors have dropped proceedings against ex-Argentine junta officials suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and killing of Germans.

The cases against 69 people who served in the Argentine regime in the 1970s were closed due to lack of evidence.

However, prosecutors in Nuremberg said they would request the extradition of former President Jorge Videla and another four officials.

They are wanted over the murders of two Germans students during interrogation.

The extradition request lists Pedro Alberto Duran Saenz, who was in charge of a clandestine torture centre, a former navy commander, Emilio Massera, and generals Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason and Juan Bautista Sasiain.

"The extradition process will continue to be pursued energetically," said a court statement quoted by the AP news agency.

Thousands disappeared

Human rights groups say that Elisabeth Kaesemann was arrested by Argentine security services in March 1977, tortured and died in a jail two months later.

The body of Klaus Zieschank, who disappeared in March 1976, was found in the riverbed of the Rio de la Plata in 1983.

The military junta was responsible for thousands of deaths

Some of the families of Germans who went missing under the junta said they would appeal against the decision to drop proceedings against the other officials.

"We are deeply shocked," Kuno Hauck, a member of the Coalition Against Impunity, told AP.

Up to 30,000 people were killed or disappeared in the Argentine military's campaign in the 1970s against what it called left-wing insurgents, in what is known as the Dirty War.

Mr Videla, 78, led the military junta from 1976 to 1981.

He is under house arrest in Argentina along with Mr Massera and Mr Suarez Mason, in connection with separate inquiries involving accusations of illegal adoptions of children born to women detained during the dictatorship.

Argentina has traditionally rejected similar extradition requests, insisting that its citizens be tried in their own country.