The atrocities were committed in the Mayo Campo military barracks against 350 people, including pregnant women and workers in the automotive industry.
Le Monde with AFP
A fatal episode of Argentine history is concluding before the courts. Argentine justice sentenced to life prison on Wednesday ten former soldiers and police for crimes committed under the dictatorship (from 1976 to 1983). They were found guilty in particular of homicides, kidnappings, torture and rape. Reading the unanimous decision of the court was followed by the accused by videoconference, while the courtroom was filled with relatives of victims and members of human rights organizations.
Among the 350 victims, there were fourteen pregnant women whose children were stolen after birth. In the Campo de Mayo military barracks, epicenter of these crimes, pregnant women illegally detained gave birth in inhuman conditions before disappearing. The organization of grandmothers in May Place believes that during the dictatorship, some 400 babies were thus born in captivity and given to other parents. Only 130 found their original identity.
The list of victims also included many workers and unions of factories located in the industrial zone north of Buenos Aires, including Mercedes Benz and the American Ford.
numerous convictions Since 2006
The trial began in 2019 and was held largely at a distance due to the Pandemic of Covid-19. Initially there were 22 accused, but two died during the procedure. Most had already been sentenced in other trials for crimes against humanity.
Former General Santiago Riveros, 98, is the highest ranking officer sentenced Wednesday to life imprisonment. He had been sentenced to another life sentence on Monday, with three other soldiers, for his responsibility in the “flights of death”, who consisted of throwing into the sea of drug addicts, since planes taking off from Campo de Mayo .
The former president of the military junta Reynaldo Bignone, former commander of this barracks, who died in 2018, had also already been convicted of crimes perpetrated at Campo de Mayo.
Since the annulment in 2006 of amnesty laws, 278 sentences have been pronounced for crimes against humanity throughout the country. They concerned 1,070 convicted people, many of whom were imprisoned in perpetuity.