DNA tests on Argentine publisher’s adopted children shows no match with 2 victims’ families

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – DNA taken from the adopted children of one of Latin America’s most powerful media moguls doesn’t match that of two families whose relatives were kidnapped and killed by Argentina’s military dictatorship, a legal source close to the case told The Associated Press.

The Lanoscou-Miranda and Gualdero-Garcia families sued Grupo Clarin owner Ernestina Herrera de Noble a decade ago in the hopes of finding out whether the siblings were stolen from their relatives at birth.

The Noble children had fought for years to limit the investigation into their background to the two families who initially sued their adoptive mother. Human rights groups and later the Argentine government insisted on comparing their DNA to the entire database of families of the disappeared.

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The initial result was widely reported in Argentina on Monday and confirmed to The AP by a person who insisted on anonymity because of a judicial confidentiality requirement.

The blood and saliva taken from Marcela and Felipe Noble on June 24 after a lengthy court battle don’t match the genetic profiles provided by the Lanoscou-Miranda and Gualdero-Garcia families to Argentina’s national bank of genetic data, which by law must now be used to resolve such cases.

The gene bank’s work has only begun, however.

Its scientists will now compare the DNA to the genes of hundreds of other families of people who disappeared during the 1976-1983 military regime.

Judge Sandra Arroyo said the process is being monitored by representatives of both sides.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo suspects the Noble adoptees were handed over illegally to Herrera by members of the junta.

The human rights group has helped identify 104 children who were stolen from their mothers shortly after birth in clandestine detention centres, and believes about 400 others have yet to be found.

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.