Disappearance, Kidnapping, Torture, and Assassination
Between Thursday, December 8 and Saturday, December 10, 1977 a militant group under the command of Alfredo Astiz, who was under the command of Argentine President Jorge Rafael Videla, kidnapped a group of 12 people connected with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Among them one was Alice Domon, along with Azucena Villaflor her companion and founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and French nun Léonie Duquet.
Most of the group was kidnapped in the Church of Santa Cruz ,where they used to meet, located in the San Cristóbal district within the city of Buenos Aires. Alice Domon was kidnapped there.
Sister Alice was taken directly to the secret detention center in the Navy Sub-Officers Mechanics School (ESMA), under the control of the Argentina Navy, where she was shut in detention in a "Hood". There she remained approximately 10 days, during which she was constantly tortured. On Nunca Más inquiry, the witness testimonies from Maggio and Cubas, survivors of the ESMA, related what they knew on the subject:
...The same thing happened to the French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Renée Duquet. I had the chance to speak with Sister Alice personally, she had already been taken along with Sister Renée to the third floor of the Officers' Mess in the ESMA, that was where I found her captive. This happened around December 11 or 12. I remember that was when she had been kidnapped at the church. I was soon aware of 13 people; the Sisters were weak and badly beaten; Alice already needed two guards to carry and maintain her in the bathroom. I asked if they had been tortured and they answered yes: they had been tied to a bed completely naked and stabbed all over their body; in addition they told of later being forced to write a letter to the Leader of their Congregation, they wrote it in French under constant torture, afterward they both had a photo taken of them seated next to a table. The pictures were taken to the basement of the same building where the torture took place: the basement of the Officers' Mess. They were both at ESMA about 10 days, tortured and interrogated. Later the eleven remaining people were transferred. The rumours mention the haste of their departure, this indicates the murders of the same (Testimony of Horacio Domingo Maggio, File #4450).
... Around 10 or 12 of them were taken down, including the French Sister Alice Domon. Later Sister Rennée Duquet, from the same religious congregation as Alice, was also taken to ESMA. They put Sister René in "Capuchita". Sisters Alice and Renée were savagely tortured, especially Alice. Their conduct was admirable. Up until their worst moments of pain, Sister Alice, who was in "Capucha", asked for the luck of her compadres and, at the pinnacle of irony, she emphasized the "little blond boy", who was none other than Frigate Lieutentat Astiz (who had infiltrated the group, passing himself off as a relative of a desaparecido. At gunpoint they made Sister Alice write a letter in her own handwriting As the crowning glory of this parody, they took pictures (of both Sisters) in the photo lab of the ESMA, in which they appeared seated at a table with a flag of the Montonero Party behind them. Sisters Alice and Renée were "transferred" and, along with them, the other that were captured in their group. (Testimony of Lisandro Raúl Cubas, File #6794).
The French nationality of the two sisters, Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, generated an international scandal, especially with France. For this reason, Army Chief and Junta Member Emilio Massera tried to make it appear as if both nuns had been kidnapped by the Montoneros guerilla organization. To this end, Domon was obligated under torture to write a letter to her superior in her order, in French, saying that she had been abducted by a group opposed to the administration of Jorge Videla. The torturers then took a picture of the two nuns seated in front of a Montonero flag and sent it to a national newspaper. The picture, which was taken in the basement of the ESMA, showed obvious signs that the two women were tortured, and were sent to the French press.
On December 15, 1977, La Nación published a notice from the EFE news agency under the title "Vivas y con buena salud" (Alive and in good health). The article informed that the Mother Superior of the Congreagation in France said that the Sisters Léonie and Alice had been detained but remained alive and in good heath. She clarified that the information came from the Papal Nuncio in Argentina.
Either on December 17 or December 18, 1977, the two Sisters and the rest of their group were trasladadas ("transferred": a euphemism used by the military when murdering dissidents) to the military airport in Buenos Aires, were seated in a Marine plane and thrown out of the plane while still alive into the sea on the coast of Santa Teresita, dying as soon as they hit the water.
In 2012 an Argentinian prosecutor filed charges against the Dutch-Argentinian pilot Julio Poch for flying the navy plane which supposedly dumped Domon, Duquet and three other women into the Atlantic Ocean.
An example of the atrocious humor of the marines linked with the repression during the so-called Guerra Sucia or Dirty War, they would occasionally make reference to the "flying nuns.". In 1990, Capitan Alfredo Astiz was sentenced in absence to life in prison by the Appellate Court in Paris for his responsibility in the deaths of Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon.
Read more about this topic: Alice Domon