[Neil]

Originally Posted by jambutty

Of course the Belgrano was under orders to attack otherwise there was no point in the ship being at sea. That’s what warships do. But at the time she was torpedoed there is no doubt that she was steaming away from conflict.

From the link from you posted

Officials and ministers have always insisted that, far from heading home, the Belgrano was sailing west to a point outside the exclusion zone from which it was to attack.

Earlier this year the ship's captain, Hector Bonzo, admitted that the Belgrano's decision to sail away from the Task Force on the morning of 2 May was only a temporary manoeuvre.


"Our mission ... wasn't just to cruise around on patrol but to attack," Captain Bonzo said in a television interview in May. "When they gave us the authorisation to use our weapons, if necessary, we had to be prepared to attack. Our people were completely trained. I would say we were anxious to pull the trigger."
In 1994 the Argentine government dropped its claim that the sinking of the Belgrano was a war crime, its defence ministry conceding that it was "a legal act of war".