The Argentine commanding officer at the Battle of Mount Longdon during the 1982 Falkland Islands war denied Friday that British troops had executed some Argentine prisoners during the conflict, but other soldiers supported the claims made in a recent book.
Retired Col. Carlos Eduardo Carrizo Salvadores told the Argentine newspaper El Dia "there exists no proof of firing squad executions of our soldiers at Mount Longdon."Commenting on an account of the battle written by British veteran Vincent Bramley that detailed the alleged shootings, Carrizo Salvadores said, "I was chief of the troops in that battle, and I never heard of shootings - either in the Malvinas or here."
The Argentine officer also denied Bramley's account of capturing four U.S. mercenaries allegedly fighting for Argentina, saying the story was "tremendous nonsense and an insult to we officials, enlisted men and soldiers who participated in the dispute."
"I meet every year in (the Argentine city of) La Plata with many veterans, and never in any of those meetings in 10 years has someone talked about executions in Mount Longdon," Carrizo Salvadores said.
But three former Argentine conscripts who fought in the same Falkland Islands battle backed up Bramley's accounts of shootings on Thursday.
Santiago Dionel Mambrin, 29, in comments published Friday in the newspaper Clarin, said he saw two British soldiers shoot an Argentine prisoner on June 11, 1982, during one of the bloodiest battles of the 10-week war, which killed a total of 1,000 people.
Mambrin said the two soldiers forced an Argentine prisoner to strip down to a T-shirt and then shot him in the head.