LLA prison visit: Deputy publishes potentially incriminating chats

Freedom Advancement (LLA) MP Lourdes Arrieta opened a political Pandora's box in a series of X-posts published shortly before midnight on Saturday. Screenshots of three WhatsApp group chats – with a pink background and the caption “May God bless you and always protect you” – purportedly show logistical details of the visit by a group of LLA MPs, including Arrieta herself, to dictatorship-era repressors convicted of crimes against humanity in Ezeiza Federal Prison in July.

“As President Javier Milei said, it is time to reveal the truth about who authorized the visit of the oppressors and what the real reason was,” Arrieta said.

Screenshots published by Arrieta allegedly show that Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Fernando Martínez allowed the deputies to enter the prison. “Deputy Beltrán Benedit spoke with Patricia Bullrich so that those who wish to participate in our visit to the political prisoners currently incarcerated can [the prisons in] Campo de Mayo, Ezeiza and Marcos Paz can enter without any problems,” said a contact registered as Father Javier Ravasi in March. Javier Olivera Ravasi is a well-known advocate of the release of oppressors from the dictatorship era.

The chats allegedly show that Olivera Ravasi and LLA MP Beltrán Benedit organized several visits to the prison. In screenshots from more recent chats, MP Alida Ferreyra apparently confirms that she and Benedit made a similar visit in March and that “no news spread” at the time.

The Herald I asked Benedit and Ferreyra for comment and confirmation of Arrieta's screenshots, but did not receive an immediate response.

The screenshots also show that many LLA deputies knew about the visit – a key point of contention following the uproar surrounding the visit, as Arrieta himself claimed that some did not know who they were visiting. Arrieta also claimed that there had been previous meetings where they had discussed draft laws that would grant house arrest or even freedom to repressors.

According to the screenshots, Olivera Ravasi created a group chat in February to organize a “secret meeting” to discuss the draft laws with several LLA deputies, lawyers and former judge Eduardo Riggi.

Olivera Ravasi had already been identified as the main organizer of the prison visit and was expelled from the diocese where he lived after the scandal broke out. He is the son of a former military officer who is serving three life sentences under house arrest in San Juan for enforced disappearances, kidnapping, murder, torture, robbery and rape.

The chats also mention that Judge Agustina Díaz Cordero, vice president of the Council of Magistrates (the body that evaluates judges), was allegedly present at one of their meetings.

While the MPs' prison visit took place on July 11, the news only became known a week later. On August 6, a photo emerged showing MPs posing next to the former military personnel convicted of human rights violations, with Arrieta in the middle – she had claimed days earlier that she and her colleague Rocío Bonacci had been tricked by being told they were only going to see the living conditions in the prison and that they had left early. Bonacci is not visible in the photo.

Arrieta is currently at the center of the storm. In recent weeks, she has tried to distance herself from the visit, calling on the Chamber and the judiciary to investigate the incident and accusing Benedit and other deputies of framing her. On Wednesday, during a block session in Congress, she was heard shouting at her colleagues from the LLA and ended up reporting one of them (Nicolás Mayoraz) for gender violence.

In her posts, she refers to other LLA members who she claims were in the group chats and responded to messages sent there and then “played dumb.” However, the screenshots shared by Arrieta seem to indicate that she too knew what the meetings, group chats and prison visits were for. They also show that Arrieta deleted several of the messages she had sent to these group chats before taking the screenshots.

In her posts, Arrieta added that giving benefits to repressors was “not part of President Javier Milei's agenda” and showed that deputies Alida Ferreyra and Guillermo Montenegro stated in the chats that the executive did not allow them to publish a press release about the visit to Ezeiza prison on July 11. They were also asked to delete all images taken that day.

In the news, Benedit complained that the executive is “afraid to let us issue a press release” and called them “stupid.”

“These lawmakers obviously have a different agenda and do not hesitate to call the president weak for not wanting to push through their agenda,” Arrieta said. “So whose orders are they following? If they admit that the executive branch has stopped them, who is their political leader?”