A woman visits the a makeshift tribute made with flags and notes to the 44 crew members of the missing submarine ARA San Juan at the Argentina Navy base at Mar del Plata in November 2017. File Photo by Mauricio Arduin/EPA
July 9 (UPI) — An Argentine court convicted former Navy Capt. Claudio Villamide and sentenced him to three years of suspended prison time for his role in the 2017 sinking of the submarine ARA San Juan, the country’s deadliest peacetime naval disaster.
The sinking killed all 44 crew members. The submarine was located in late 2018 at a depth of roughly 3,000 feet in the South Atlantic. It has not been recovered.
According to Argentine media reports, the court in Río Gallegos found Villamide guilty Wednesday of aggravated negligence and failing to fulfill the duties of a public official. In addition to the suspended sentence, he was barred from holding public office for six years.
Prosecutors argued that Villamide, who commanded the Argentine Navy’s Submarine Force at the time of the disaster, authorized the patrol mission despite knowing the vessel had serious maintenance deficiencies. The submarine had pending post-repair tests and was subject to a technical diving restriction that was ignored, prosecutors said.
Villamide maintained his innocence throughout the trial, arguing the submarine met operational requirements, and that investigators had not conclusively determined the physical cause of the disaster.
Because the sentence was suspended, Villamide will not serve time in prison.
In a unanimous decision, the court acquitted three other former naval officers charged in the case: former Rear Adm. Luis Enrique López Mazzeo, former Capt. Héctor Aníbal Alonso and former Capt. Hugo Miguel Correa.
Relatives of the victims expressed outrage over the ruling and what they described as the leniency of the only conviction.
According to Argentine newspaper Página/12, many family members believe the verdict fell short of delivering justice because it did not hold the Navy’s top commanders or senior government officials from the time accountable.
Lawyers representing the victims’ families said they will appeal the ruling before Argentina’s Federal Court of Cassation beginning Aug. 21, seeking to overturn the acquittals and increase Villamide’s sentence. At the same time, they described the decision as an unprecedented institutional milestone, according to La Nación.
For the first time, an Argentine court ruled that the loss of a military vessel during peacetime was not solely the result of weather conditions, but also of serious human failures and omissions.
Villamide’s defense also rejected the verdict.
His attorneys called the conviction “unusual and unjust,” arguing the trial established there was no direct causal link between the orders issued by naval command and the submarine’s final collapse in the South Atlantic, according to La Opinión Austral.
The defense said it also plans to appeal in an effort to obtain a full acquittal.
The ARA San Juan reported flooding and an electrical fire caused by seawater entering its battery compartment on Nov. 15, 2017. After contact with the submarine was lost, its wreckage, crushed by an implosion, was found about a year later nearly 3,000 feet below the surface of the South Atlantic.