Ana Messuti, one of the lawyers of the so-called ‘Argentine complaint’, the only case in the world that investigates the crimes of Franco’s regime in Buenos Aires, died this Saturday in Madrid as a result of an illness. h
A tireless defender of human rights, Messuti was a member of the legal team that would launch the lawsuit in 2010 in view of the fact that the doors were closed in Spain. Promoted by various groups and relatives of victims of the civil war and the dictatorship, the complaint ended up in the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 1 of Buenos Aires, where Judge María Servini de Cubría opened the still-living process 4591/2010 for crimes of “genocide” and crimes against humanity committed in Spain from 1936 to 1977.
Among the complainants was Ascensión Mendieta, the daughter of Timoteo, a trade unionist shot in 1939, whom Messuti would help recover her father’s remains. Ascensión became the face of those who still search for their missing people today and was able to bury Timoteo in July 2017 after having traveled to Buenos Aires to testify. “Timothy’s burial has meant a first legal, social, and even international achievement,” Messuti would say at the time.
The death of the lawyer has shocked and saddened those who, collectively or individually, are involved in the defense of historical memory and seek to have Franco’s crimes judged, as she was convinced they should be. “At some point the impunity of Franco’s regime will be defeated,” said Messuti, for whom it was key that the victims could be heard: “Not listening is another form of death.” […] In the will of the victims to be heard there is a feeling of right, a legal conscience,” he defended at an event held in Madrid.
Memorial organizations and organizations in defense of human rights have highlighted the work carried out for decades by Ana Messuti, who established herself “in the office of victims of Francoism that does not exist”, since “she opened her door to dozens and dozens of victims that they had nowhere else to go” and prepared “thousands and thousands of pages” to investigate alleged crimes of the Franco regime, stated Emilio Silva, president of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH).
“He did more than an entire State to repair the victims of the Franco dictatorship, we will never forget!” The association published this Sunday on X (formerly Twitter).
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