The spying on the family members of the sailors of the ARA San Juan was a series of events happened in Argentina that consisted in the illegal spying and monitoring of people who were relatives of the crew members who died due to the sinking of the Argentine Navy submarine on November 15, 2017, carried out by agents of the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI). The facts have been considered a priori as a crime by the Argentine justice system, which proceeded to open the investigation under the direction of Judge Martín Bava of the city of Dolores, Argentina. High-ranking Argentine State authorities have been charged in the case, among them the then President Mauricio Macri, the former heads of the AFI Gustavo Arribas and Silvia Majdalani and the former head of the Mar del Plata Naval Base, from which the sunken submarine was based.[1]
See main article: Disappearance of the ARA San Juan (S-42). On November 15, 2017 the submarine ARA San Juan (S-42) of the Argentine Navy disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean, with 38 crew members and 6 tactical divers on board. After one year and two days the ship was found by a private company at a depth of, with all its crew dead and very close to the point of disappearance, in a place that the Navy had already known about twenty days before.[2] [3] The sinking and post-disappearance searches were marred by suspicions, irregularities, negligence, late or contradictory reports, infighting, espionage and conflicts with the sailors' families, who demanded information, participation in the investigations and respect for the sailors killed in service.
On July 18, 2019, the Bicameral Commission for the Investigation of the Disappearance of the ARA San Juan Submarine presented its final report on the case. The report had the unanimity of the twelve legislators of the commission, except for the chapter referred to the responsibility, in which the opposition majority (seven legislators) and the pro-government minority (four deputies), prepared different reports.[4] The majority opinion concluded that "there was a clear political and administrative responsibility" of the Mauricio Macri government, especially of the Minister of Defense Oscar Aguad and his closest officials, both in the operational and budgetary aspects, as well as in the concealment of information and the "neglect" of the family members. The minority opinion did not find fault under the responsibility of political officials.
In 2020, three hard drives were found in the offices of the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) with documentation referring to the spying and monitoring by agents of that agency on relatives of the victims of the ARA San Juan, carried out between December 2017 and the end of 2018.[5] [6] The AFI found no evidence that such operations had been legally authorized, which is why it reported the fact to the authorities at the end of September 2020.
The following facts are mentioned in the official documents that were found:
The criminal judicial investigation was conducted by Judge Martín Bava, head of Federal Court No. 2 of Azul, who is in charge of the vacant Federal Court of First Instance of Dolores, where the case is being handled.
On October 1, 2021, Judge Bava indicted (semi-full proof of guilt) the former heads of the AFI, Gustavo Arribas and Silvia Majdalani, the former director of the AFI's Internal Meeting, Eduardo Winkler, the former head of the Mar del Plata base, Nicolás Iuspa Benítez, and five AFI agents.[8]