BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Tests on blood and saliva from the adopted children of a powerful Argentine media figure have failed to show any matches in a national gene bank where families of victims of the dictatorship have donated their DNA.
The Grupo Clarin company was celebrating the negative results Saturday in its newspapers, web sites and television and radio stations, saying it's now clear that after many years of legal battles, Ernestina Herrara de Noble never illegally adopted the babies of political prisoners and that the government of Argentina has been persecuting her in an attempt to control the nation's media.
But human rights groups including the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo says the work isn't done.
So far, the DNA of Marcela and Felipe Noble has been compared only to people known to have been detained in 1975 and 1976. Rights groups say the National Gene Bank is constantly being updated with new samples despite the military junta's efforts to remove any trace of their opponents. This year alone they've sought court orders to open 40 graves to collect more DNA.
"The National Bank of Genetic Data communicated last night that, in three of the 55 families whose genetic profile was compared to that of Marcela, it can't be determined whether or not there's a biological link with the young woman, and that parentage also could not be determined with one of the 57 families compared to the profile of Felipe," the Grandmothers group announced Saturday.
"The genetic information of these three families must be completed to determine whether or not Felipe and Marcela maintain parentage with them," the group added. "It's known that the BNDG is in a permanent state of construction, and that there are many families who don't know if their daughters or daughters-in-law were pregnant at the moment they disappeared."
The Noble children have insisted on their right to determine their own identity, and have fiercely defended their adoptive mother, whose independent media conglomerate has been engaged in an interminable power struggle with President Cristina Fernandez.
Lawyers for the Noble family say the case should now be thrown out.
But by law, human rights groups say, the comparisons must continue — and that only after additional searches following Argentina's winter judicial holiday can this particular effort be completed. The Grandmothers continue to be cautious and hopeful about new comparisons and the possibility of more complete data in the bank, so that not only the Grandmothers but also Marcela and Felipe can finally know whether or not they're the children of the disappeared."
So far, Marcela and Felipe's DNA has been compared only to people known to have been detained and disappeared in 1975 and 1976. Now the gene bank will move on to 1977, while human rights groups seek more samples from families of victims for whom the comparisons were inconclusive.
The Noble children had fought for years to limit the investigation into their background to the two families who initially sued their adoptive mother. Previous attempts to obtain reliable samples from them failed either because the courts failed to maintain the chain of custody over the material or because samples taken from their clothing were contaminated. They finally consented to donating their DNA directly to the bank on June 24.
The work of the lab's scientists is being overseen by Judge Sandra Arroyo and monitored by representatives of both sides.
The Grandmothers group has helped identify 104 children who were stolen from their mothers shortly after birth in clandestine detention centers, and believes about 400 others have yet to be found.
