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A panel of judges—Juan Francisco Ortiz, Rossana Maldonado, and Manuel Aguirre—sentenced former police commissioner Eusebio Torres Romero to 30 years in prison yesterday. He was accused of torturing two opponents of the Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). This case marks a milestone in the history of a country where these crimes, in their vast majority, remain unpunished.

Since the fall of the dictatorship, only nine people responsible for crimes against humanity have been tried. 

Carlos Ernesto Casco, Luis Alberto Casco, and Teresa Aguilera de Casco suffered physical and psychological torture during their unlawful detention at the National Police Investigations Department during the Stroessner dictatorship between 1975 and 1976. They were drowned, beaten, whipped, and subjected to electric shocks. In 2011, the three filed a complaint without any hope of justice being served. 

During the public trial, which began on February 9, the prosecution successfully demonstrated with evidence and over 20 victim testimonies that Eusebio Torres was a torturer working for the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship. The court even conducted on-site inspections at the former Department of Investigations, where opponents of the regime were tortured.

“We were subjected to pool sessions for three consecutive days.”

“On two occasions, this man personally hit me behind the ear and in the eye with a club. While I was sitting down, he personally stood up and hit me. Then he sat down again and continued the interrogation, asking me to tell them things that they themselves had fabricated in their interrogation plan,” Carlos Casco recounted, testifying about the repression by Eusebio Torres. 

Carlos Casco was studying medicine in Corrientes, Argentina. In Paraguay, he was a member of the First of March Organization (OPM), a political-military organization that sought to overthrow Stroessner. In April 1976, the National Police arrested him at the port of Asunción and took him to the Criminal Investigation Office, located at the intersection of Presidente Franco and Nuestra Señora de la Asunción streets. 

Eusebio Torres was in charge of the interrogations. Carlos Casco, in addition to being physically tortured, was also subjected to psychological torture. On several occasions, he mentioned that Torres threatened to kill his wife, Teresa Dejesús Aguilera.

“For three consecutive days, we were subjected to pool sessions. They made me lie face down on a long bench and took off all my clothes. They beat me with sabers and clubs on my back and the soles of my feet. Always under the instruction and direction of Eusebio Torres,” he recalled during the trial of the repressor. 

His wife, Teresa Aguilera de Casco, now deceased, was arrested in Encarnación. She was also taken to the Investigations Department, where she suffered all kinds of abuse and torture. She was six months pregnant. According to Guillermina Kanonnikoff, also a victim of Eusebio Torres and a long-time activist for memory and human rights, who testified at the trial, Teresa's greatest fear was that they would take her child when she gave birth. 

The defendant is absent 

Eusebio Torres never had to look his victims in the eye. He didn't appear in person for a single day of the trial, participating only virtually. His son, Óscar Torres, acted as his defense attorney. The former police commissioner under the Stroessner regime tried to defend himself before the court by saying that the victims "mistook him for someone else." with the local press , Carlos Casco maintained that it was impossible to mistake him for someone else. "We have a vivid image of his face, his physique, and his actions. That's indelible," he said.

“I know Teresa; we’ve spoken, we’ve cried together, and she recounted the torture that Eusebio Torres inflicted on both her and her husband,” Kanonnikoff said when it was her turn to give her testimony. At that time, she was also a member of the OPM, and, like Teresa, she was also pregnant. 

“None of us who were in the investigations department escaped torture. We arrived at 11:30 at night. I will never forget this. They played two songs at full volume: 'Cucurrucucú Paloma' by Julio Iglesias, and 'Chiquitita' by ABBA. That was when the terrible torture began. When Pastor Coronel arrived, the Investigations Department trembled. And one by one, we heard the names of our colleagues and saw them return broken,” he recounted. 

The judges determined that the repressor should be placed under house arrest due to his age: he is 88 years old.