DNA taken from Juan Peron

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Forensic experts extracted DNA samples Friday from the body of former President Juan Peron for a paternity test being sought by a woman who claims to be his daughter.

Removing 12 locks and a bulletproof plate that guarded his coffin, investigators took bone samples under the watchful eye of a judge handling the paternity claim of a woman who went public long ago saying she was the product of a brief affair between Peron and her mother.

Thwarted for decades by Argentina's military leaders and then by Peron's family, Martha Holgado finally got her chance to obtain the DNA now that Peron's body is being moved to a new $1.1 million mausoleum outside Buenos Aires to honor his legacy.

"This for me is the end of a long lapse of time that was real agony, just agony," Holgado told The Associated Press on Friday. "I want to have my identity and to live with my name and my identity that corresponds. It is my human right."

Holgado's lawyer Santos Cifuentes and medical adviser Dr. Gustavo Penacino watched workers remove bone fragments from Peron's leg and other parts of his body — enough material for thorough DNA tests by laboratories in Argentina and abroad that should be completed in six weeks, Penacino said.

Peron, who was elected president three times before dying on the job in 1974, radically reshaped economic and political life by founding Argentina's still-dominant Peronist party 61 years ago. An authoritarian leader still widely admired by many and reviled by others, he and his glamorous wife Evita directed their nation's wealth to grateful legions of poor, urban workers.

Twenty-five police officers ringed the tomb in the Buenos Aires cemetery of Chacarita as medical experts got their first detailed look at the body since 1987, when tomb raiders hacked off the general's hands and stole them along with a saber, cap and other items.

"Peron is recognizable but ... the body is desiccated," funeral director Dr. Ricardo Peculo said after examining the remains. He pronounced the corpse "very well preserved. The body still has its features and some of the hair," Peculo said.

Peron's body was injected with a formaldehyde solution after death to slow decomposition, he said, but the body was never embalmed like Evita's remains after her 1952 death from cancer.
He said no "reconstruction" of the body would be required before the expected cortege on Tuesday by thousands of Peronist faithful to a mausoleum some 45 miles southwest of Buenos Aires.

The move means Peron's remains are being disturbed for the third time since his death, offending some who think he should be left in peace. Others say the new destination is more fitting for a national hero.

The new mausoleum also has room for Evita, whose body now rests in her family's crypt in the opulent Recoleta cemetery, a major Buenos Aires tourist attraction. Peron's family hopes to reunite the bodies, a possibility Evita's family has steadfastly rejected.