Former Argentine military official Ricardo Cavallo has been extradited from Mexico to Spain to face charges of genocide and terrorism connected to his country's "dirty war," during which thousands were killed or vanished.

　　Cavallo arrived aboard a Spanish air force Boeing 707 jet at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base on the outskirts of Madrid shortly after 9:30 am yesterday after a 13-hour-flight from Mexico City. He was escorted by a five-vehicle military convoy into Madrid for his first appearance at the National Court.

　　His extradition was one of the first won by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who will hear the case against Cavallo and has taken on other major human rights cases such as that of former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

　　The case is also important because the request for the now successful extradition was filed under the terms of a bi-national extradition treaty, rather than an international rights agreement, as was the failed effort to get Pinochet to stand trial in 1998.

　　Cavallo, the former director of Mexico's private National Registry of Motor Vehicles, was arrested by Interpol in 2000 after five former political prisoners alleged he had tortured them in Argentina.

　　His accusers say Cavallo served as a military interrogator at the Navy Mechanical School, one of the most notorious centers of repression during the 1976-83 military dictatorship. At least 9,000 Argentines vanished - presumably killed, often after torture as the government sought to roundup and silence leftists and anti-government activists.

　　Cavallo has said that he was in Argentina's military, but he has denied involvement in torture.

　　Garzon is investigating human rights abuses under the former military dictatorships of Chile and Argentina, and has brought charges against officials for the deaths of Spaniards in both countries. An amnesty law in Argentina prevented Cavallo's prosecution in his native country.

　　Earlier in Mexico, a convoy of federal agents took Cavallo from a special holding cell in Mexico City to the airport.

　　Dozens of people, including relatives of his alleged victims in Argentina, gathered at the airport to see Cavallo's departure, yelling "murderer" and "justice" as they waved signs and briefly blocked the convoy.