Rodolfo Almirón

Rodolfo Eduardo Almirón Sena (17 February 1936 – 5 June 2009) was an Argentine police officer and a leader of an extreme right-wing and orthodox peronist death squad known as the Triple A, operating in Argentina from 1973 to 1976 against the left wing of Peronists and other political dissidents. The group is held responsible for 1,500 murders of government opponents during the terms of Juan and Isabel Perón.

Almirón was alleged to be the chief operating officer of the squad and was charged with personally executing several murders. In 1975, shortly before the military takeover the following year, Almirón fled to Spain with José López Rega, founder of Triple A, who had been appointed ambassador plenipotentiary by Isabel Perón. Almirón was briefly located in 1983 in Spain, revealed to be working as chief of security for the former Interior Minister Manuel Fraga. Public outrage caused his dismissal, but he stayed in Spain.

In 2006, an Argentine judge ruled that the crimes committed by Almirón were crimes against humanity and thus excluded from statutes of limitations. A reporter for El Mundo located Almirón in Valencia in December 2006 and interviewed him. He was arrested in a subsidized flat in Torrent (Valencia) for murder by the National Police that month, under an extradition request from Argentina. By the time of his trial, Almirón had suffered a stroke and was unable to participate. The trial was suspended. He was held in detention and died in 2009. In 1970, Almirón was dismissed from the Argentine Federal Police because of continuing criminal associations.

Reinstatement In 1973, José López Rega returned with Juan Perón to Argentina, who that year was elected as president. After being appointed as Minister of Social Welfare, López Rega reinstated Almirón in the federal police, along with his father-in-law, Commissioner José Ramón Morales. Minister of the Interior in 1975–1976 and later leader of the People's Alliance and founder of the People's Party of Spain.

Almirón was present at the 1976 massacre in Montejurra, Spain of two left-wing Carlists, in which the Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie also participated. According to Spanish lawyer José Angel Pérez Nievas, it is "probable that Almirón participated — along with Stefano Delle Chiaie and Augusto Canchi — in the 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station" in Italy. On behalf of the Partido Carlista de Euskalherria-EKA and the Montejurra victims, Pérez asked a Spanish judge to have Almirón tried for the Montejurra murders.

Personal life Almirón was married twice. His first wife was the daughter of police commissioner José Ramón Morales, also part of the National Police and Triple A. After her death, Almirón married again in Spain.