Cause for Optimism That Timerman May Be Released from House Arrest

The state-controlled Argentine radio today officially announced that the Supreme Court has ordered Jacobo Timerman, the former editor and publisher of La Opinion, to be released from house arrest under which he has been confined to his Buenos Aires apartment for more than a year.

Rabbi Morton Rosenthal, director of the Latin American affairs department of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, said the fact that the court order was announced officially for the first time is a “cause for optimism” that Timerman will be allowed to leave and join his children in Israel. When the Supreme Court issued its order last week it was reported in the newspapers but there was no official announcement from the court itself.

Rosenthal said the generals who are running Argentina have been meeting for several days to discuss the Timerman case and other important is sues and are expected to make an announcement tomorrow. Argentine newspapers are speculating that Timerman will be stripped of his citizenship and will be expelled from the country. He and his wife are expected to go to Israel.

According to Rosenthal, the only person previously stripped of his citizenship by the present regime was Jose Gelbard, the former finance minister who died in Washington and like Timerman, was a Jew. The Peronist government had stripped the citizenship of a law professor, Walter Beverragi Allende.

Timerman was seized in his home in April, 1977 and kept in various prisons in Argentina. A military tribunal ruled in October, 1977 that the military junta had no charges on which to hold him and the Supreme Court in July, 1978 said his arrest was illegal. Nevertheless, the military has continued to hold him under house arrest.