What follows is an unofficial translation of a letter prepared on 11 April 1994 by the Center for Legal and Social Studies (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS)) in Argentina and received by the DIRB. The original document in Spanish is available upon request.

Adolfo Miguel Dunda or Donda had the rank of corvette captain during the dictatorship. He was also known under the aliases "Rubén Pellegrino," "Guillermo Ribes," "Liebstein" and "Solís." He also operated under the "noms de guerre" of "Geronimo" and "Palito". He played an active role in the ranks of the illegal repression. He was an operations officer in the Task Group (Grupo de Tareas, GT) of the Mechanical School of the Navy (Escuela Mec nica de la Armada, ESMA), in 1979; second or deputy chief of intelligence in 1980; in 1981-82 he alternated as head of intelligence with Captain Miguel Angel Benazzi Berisso. He left to reside in Brazil in August 1983; in 1984 he was the naval attaché in the embassy of Argentina in Brazil.

He personally tortured with an electric prod a number of individuals (names are listed in the original Spanish-language document).

He was involved in the abduction of the diplomat Elena Holmberg, carried out in December 1978. Her body later appeared in the waters of the Luj n river.

A brother of his, José María Donda, a "montonero" militant, was abducted in May 1977 and remains disappeared; his wifethe subject's sister-in-lawwas abducted and gave birth in the ESMA [where she was being held].

Adolfo Miguel Dunda was subject to a rigurous preventive detention for his responsibility in 18 violations of human rights; he regained freedom through the Due Obedience law.

Adolfo Miguel Dunda is one of the 15 ESMA officers included in the presentation that CELS made at the CIDH (International or Interamerican Court of Human Rights) in September 1988, denouncing the Argentine state for having exonerated them through the Due Obedience [law], thus violating the Interamerican Human Rights Convention and the International and Interamerican Positive and Consuetudinary Law in matters of human rights.

Adolfo Miguel Dunda is named in the reserved report prepared by the National Commission on the Disappeared (Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP) listing the names of repressors, handed to the government of President Alfonsín around 1984.

For information on the Center for Legal Studies (CELS) in Argentina, please refer to the attached excerpt from Human Rights Directory: Latin America an the Caribean.

This response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Centro de Estudios Legales Y Sociales (CELS), Buenos Ayres, Argentina. 11 April 1994. Letter sent to the DIRB, Ottawa.

Human Rights Internet Reporter [Cambridge]. Human Rights Directory: Latin America and the Caribean. January 1990. Vol. 13, No. 2 and 3, pp. 120-21.