A former police chief in Argentina, wanted for alleged crimes against human rights, has shot himself dead in front of television cameras.

Mario Ferreyra was giving an interview on top of a water tank at his home in the northern province of Tucuman.

Police were coming to arrest him when he killed himself.

Mr Ferreyra was wearing his customary black shirt and cowboy hat and told the interviewer that he was innocent and had not committed any crimes.

He then told his wife, Maria, that he would love her forever, pulled a pistol from his boot and shot himself behind the ear.

'Pact of silence'

The Cronica television cameras were still rolling, transmitting live, as the distraught family gathered round.

Police, who had come to arrest Mr Ferreyra at his farm, came running, but it was too late. He was dead.

Mr Ferreyra was accused of kidnapping and torture during the military government that ran Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

The victims' families say the suicide was part of a pact of silence - that the ex-police chief would not testify against former colleagues accused of kidnapping and killing some of the tens of thousands of Argentines who died during a period that became known as the "Dirty war". Official records put the number of disappeared at 13,000, while human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000.

By the voice of reporter it seems she was there (her cold blood to keep narrating is amazing). Here's a rough translation:
"A terrible situation we just wen through on the house of the Malevo* Ferreyra. It's terrible what just happened. The family cries and the police arrived, that's why he made this terrible, terrible decision, that's why he said goodbye to his wife, he said "good bye forever María."

*Malevo is Argentinian slang, its literal translation would be something like "evildoer" but "gangsta" would be a more accurate one.


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