The Argentine army is holding Jacobo Timerman, editor and publisher of the newspaper La Opinion, for what an army spokesman said was part of an investigation of the so-called “Gravier affair” in which a banking group has been alleged to have supplied funds to leftist guerrillas. David Gravier, 35, an Argentine financier, is reported to have died in a plane crash in Mexico last August.
Timerman, 53, and his deputy editor, Enrique Jara, were taken from their homes early last Friday. After demands for information by their families and the Argentine Newspaper Publishers Association, the government announced on Saturday that Timerman was being held in connection with the “Gravier affair.” Capt. Carlos P. Carpintero, the government’s public information secretary, in announcing Timerman’s arrest, stressed that it was not for journalistic or religious reasons. Timerman and Gravier are both Jewish.
There was no immediate announcement on Jara, a 36-year-old Uruguayan citizen, but news reports today said that the army has announced it is holding him but gave no reason. Meanwhile. Enrique Raab, a 43-year-old journalist working for La Opinion, was seized at his home Saturday and his whereabouts are still unknown.
Newspapers here have alleged that Gravier’s banking group handled $17 million in extortion funds taken by the Montonero leftist guerrilla group, providing the guerrillas with $130,000 in interest. La Opinion has opposed both leftist and rightist guerrilla groups. Reports from New York said that the FBI does not believe Gravier is dead and is conducting a search for him. Gravier’s disappearance caused the failure of his Banque Pour L’Amerique du Sud in Brussels and the American Bank and Trust Co, in New York.
The Buenos. Aires Herald, the English-language daily, wrote that a number of newspapers in the country have conducted a trial of those involved in the course of reporting the events. It added that history abounds in examples of a biased press and heated public opinion which have launched governments to take actions and hand down hasty verdicts, the most obvious example being the Dreyfuss case.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
