Jorge Alberto Palacios
Jorge Alberto Palacios (April 7, 1949-March 20, 2020), also known as "Fino" Palacios was a controversial Argentine policeman.[1]
Career
Head of the Argentine Federal Police Anti-Terrorism Unit, in 2009 he was appointed by Mayor Mauricio Macri to lead the Metropolitan Police, the new police force of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. This designation was questioned by the public, because of charges levied on him.[2][3] The appointment ended with his arrest on the charges below, in December 2009.
Accusations and Controversies
He was under indictment in the AMIA court case, "considered a necessary participant in the crime of concealment, author criminally responsible for the crime of abuse of authority and author of the crime of violation of evidence."[1][3][4][5]
Previously he was prosecuted for the causes of repression and killing of protesters in 2001, which was finally acquitted by the Federal Chambers.[6] He was also publicly linked to the murder of Axel Blumberg, the son of Juan Carlos Blumberg, although Palacios defended himself by saying that "is an invention, as reflected in the statements of the father" of the victim.[6]
For his part, Palacios denies all allegations and claims that there is a "smear campaign" against him.[6]
He was also controversial for his book Terrorismo en la aldea global (Terrorism in the global village), especially the bias of its analysis. In particular, he asserted that "Argentina was the theater of Marxist revolutionaries who sow violence and terror in the citizenry", but does not mention state-sponsored terrorism in Argentina at all.[7]
Spy scandal
In October 2009, Sergio Burstein, one of the leaders of the Jewish community who had led the opposition against the appointment of Fino Palacios as Chief of Police (because of his connections with the terrorist attack on the AMIA), he denounced in court was being spied on by the Police of the City of Buenos Aires.[8] Shortly thereafter, the Justice observed that in fact, Burnstein was being spied upon by a band that would be part Fino and his successor Osvaldo Palacios Chamorro, a federal police lawyer who worked for the Ministry of Education of Buenos Aires (Ciro James), two judges in Misiones Province, and others.[8]
The investigation revealed that the spying included opposition leaders and even leaders of Macri's own party as well as businessmen, trade unionists and their families between the Head of Government, as the spies had illegally tapped the phone of his brother-in-law, a parapsychologist who had been threatened by the father of Macri, industrialist Franco Macri. In December 2009, Fino Palacios, Osvaldo Ciro Chamorro and James, were arrested for this case, while he had to give the Education Minister Mariano Narodowski, by assuming the place the writer Abel Posse.[9]
References
- El juez Lijo procesó a Menem y Galeano por el encubrimiento del atentado a la AMIA, Centro de información judicial.
- Nueva Policía: polémica designación de Macri, perfil.com.
- Memoria activa exige la revisión inmediata del nombramiento de Fino Palacios como titular de la nueva policía de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires Archived 2013-02-01 at Archive.today, Agencia judía de noticias.
- “Tuvo función de mando y control”
- Causa AMIA: Los familiares de las víctimas ya desconfiaban de Palacios desde el juicio por el atentado Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine
- Jorge "Fino" Palacio se defendió: "No soy político, soy policía", perfil.com.
- Werner Pertot. "Un pensamiento no tan Fino". Página/12.
- Quién es Ciro James, el policía que espiaba... ¿para Macri? (Who is Ciro James, the policeman who spy... for Macri?), Terra.
- Confirman procesamiento de Palacios y James por asociación ilícita , Centro de información judicial.
See also
- Metropolitan Police (Buenos Aires)
- Buenos Aires wiretapping case