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Synopsis

Argentina's political missing, presumed dead, has now reached 30,001. The last one to join the list is Julio López, the first person to disappear since the restoration of democracy. His disappearance recalls the ruthless dictatorship, in which people were arrested and never heard from again.

Julio was a key witness in last year's trial of Miguel Etchecolatz, one of the military regime's cruelest torturers. Julio had been dragged off in 1976, but he survived to tell the tale. This time, it looks like he is gone for good.

Police officers who collaborated in the military repression may be behind Julio's latest disappearance. It may be a message to others thinking of testifying: they are not prepared to simply accept an end to their immunity.

At long last, the annulment of the Amnesty Laws that pardoned thousands for crimes committed under the dictatorship are beginning to bear fruit. But while Miguel Etchecolatz, a Buenos Aires police chief, was sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, one of the key prosecution witnesses in his case - Julio López – is missing, presumed dead.

A year after Julio vanished, human rights organizations have gone on to the streets, demanding news of the victims' fate. But López's disappearance has not prevented witnesses giving testimony. Recently, the priest Christian von Wermich was sentenced for his role in the torture and killing of prisoners. It is the first conviction of a priest. Even so, cleaning out residual elements from the country's dictatorship will be a Herculean task for whoever wins the general election on October 28, 2007.

The "30 Minuts" team interviews Nobel Peace Prize-winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the President of Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, and various witnesses, victims, judges and lawyers in this report. The Amnesty Laws tried to confer life-long immunity on the dictatorship's henchmen. But now the Wheels of Justice are grinding once again.