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[BUENOS AIRES, 24 June 2010] — Argentina's leading newspaper publisher must pay the consequences if genetic tests show the children she adopted three decades ago were stolen from prisoners of the dictatorship, a leading human rights activist says. Estela de Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, spoke with The Associated Press on Wednesday as Argentines anxiously await the results of DNA tests being done to resolve a nine-year legal battle over the identities of the adopted children of Ernestina Herrera de Noble, the owner of Grupo Clarin, who is an opponent of President Cristina Fernandez. The children themselves — Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera — told the AP in a separate interview earlier this month that they feel like hostages in the fight. They said there is no concrete evidence they were stolen as babies from political prisoners and don't want to see their 84-year-old mother go to jail. De Carlotto denied her group is in an alliance with Argentina's government — which has accelerated human rights trials — to destroy their mother's media company. She said the grandmothers simply want truth and justice for victims of the dictatorship. "We are not tied to this government. This institution is independent, with liberty and autonomy," she said at the Grandmothers' headquarters in downtown Buenos Aires. "This is a wicked thing, because they're trying to throw mud at what for us has been a very painful process." But de Carlotto said that if the Clarin owner is proven guilty, she must be punished. "If it's discovered that these children were victims of state terrorism and that those who raised them under other identities are criminally responsible, they'll have to pay what the law stipulates," she said. Hundreds of babies were born in clandestine torture centers during the 1976-83 dictatorship, which human rights groups believe killed as many as 30,000 of the regime's political opponents. The Grandmothers have helped recover 101 of these children so far, and believe the Noble Herreras are among up to 400 others who still don't know their true identities. Their DNA will be compared to that of nearly 240 other families who provided samples to the National Genetics Bank in hopes of recovering a grandchild, de Carlotto said. If there is no match, Argentine law provides for their DNA to remain on file in case other potential relatives emerge. De Carlotto said if the Noble Herraras' adoption didn't involve political prisoners there would be no case — simple document fraud 34 years ago would be unpunishable even if Herrera knowingly signed falsified adoption papers. But if the DNA shows Marcela or Felipe were born in captivity in a clandestine torture center, then by definition, their adoption would represent a crime against humanity that doesn't expire. "If they are children of the disappeared, this crime is permanent, and penalties can't expire until the victims' rights are recovered," De Carlotto said. Herrera's lawyers unsuccessfully went to court trying to block the DNA tests, arguing the National Genetics Bank doesn't have appropriate safeguards, especially now that it is administered by the government's science ministry. They contend the results might be manipulated just to harm the president's enemy. De Carlotto, who turns 80 in October and has spent 32 years searching for the boy her oldest daughter bore before she was killed, rejected this argument as "infinitely evil, a perverse wickedness." "In questioning the bank, they are trying to plant doubts about all the restitutions, and the hundred children we have found. Are they suggesting that we want to find just anyone? I want my grandchild, not just any child." Despite all the rancor, de Carlotto predicted Marcela and Felipe will find ways of establishing some connections with their birth families. "Experience tells us that despite rejecting the idea, these children, almost all of them so far, begin to reason, to think, and to want to know about their origins," she said. The Noble Herreras said they feel the Grandmothers just want to generate headlines by announcing numbers 102 and 103 in their search for children of the disappeared — an accusation de Carlotto denies. "These children aren't the responsible ones. They are victims, and really, when they know their identity, they will be free. And we too will be free," she said. Further information