The State : Torture Suit OKd by Judge

A San Francisco federal judge ruled that three alleged kidnap-torture victims can proceed with a $60-million lawsuit against a man called the “Adolf Eichmann of Argentina,” Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason, 63, who commanded the 1st Army Corps in Argentina from 1976 to 1979 and was chief of staff from 1979 to 1983, when the military dictatorship under which he flourished fell. He fled the country and was arrested Jan. 24, 1987, at his home in suburban Foster City. He has reportedly been connected with at least 9,000 kidnapings and murders carried out by military leaders in an effort to combat resistance to the dictatorship. Suarez Mason is currently in a federal facility in San Francisco pending extradition to face charges brought by the new Argentine government. U.S. District Judge D. Lowell Jensen denied a request for a dismissal on claims that the suit was barred by the statute of limitations and that the court lacks jurisdiction.