Zelmar Michelini

Zelmar Michelini (Montevideo, Uruguay, 20 May 1924 – Buenos Aires, Argentina, 20 May 1976) was a Uruguayan reporter and politician, assassinated in Buenos Aires in 1976 as part of Operation Condor.

Zelmar Michelini was member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1954–58, and then of the Chamber of Senators starting in 1966. he was Minister of the Industry under Óscar Gestido's presidency (Colorado Party), before renouncing in 1970 because of disagreements with the government's policies. At that time he left the conservative Colorado party to become a member of the Christian Democrat party of Uruguay. Alongside other left-wing parties (Communist and Socialist Party and others independent left-wing groups), he participated in the foundation of the Frente Amplio coalition ("Broad Front") in 1971. Reporter in the newspaper Acción, he also founded in the 1960s the weekly Hechos. Michelini became again senator in 1971, as a member of the Frente Amplio. However, he had exiled himself to Buenos Aires after the 1973 coup and started denouncing the human rights violations committed by Bordaberry's dictatorship.

Michelini was found dead the day on 21 May 1976, the day after his 51st birthday, at 21:20 in a red Torino sedan that had been abandoned at the corner of Perito Moreno and Dellepiane in Buenos Aires. Also found in the automobile were the bodies of the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of Uruguay, Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz (51), who had been living in exile in Buenos Aires since the 27 June 1973, military coup in his country, and of Tupamaros militants William Whitelaw (29), and Rosario del Carmen Barredo (26), both Uruguayans and living in Buenos Aires since the military coup in Chile of 11 September 1973. All of them, abducted 18 May 1976 in Buenos Aires by a paramilitary group, had been tortured and shot; they had their hands and feet bound. Also kidnapped was Dr. Benjamín Liberof (55), a Communist physician from Argentina and a naturalized Uruguayan, whose whereabouts remain unknown.

Judge Roberto Timbal put former dictator Bordaberry and former Chancellor Juan Carlos Blanco Estradé under preventive detention on 16 November 2006, for being the organizers of these murders. Uruguayan police officer Hugo Campos has also been suspected of being responsible of this assassination.