Family members cheered as some of the perpetrators of Argentina’s “Dirty War” were sentenced this thursday. Leftist supporters were targeted at the beginning of the military dictatorship, 1976-1983, and kidnapped, tortured, and murdered at the secret detention center in provincial Tucuman.
Former General Luciano Menendez and former police intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz were sentenced to life in prison for the inhumane crimes they comitted at the secret detention center. In addition, two former police officers, brothers Luis Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido were sentenced to 18 and 3 years.
The case was revived when a protected witness came forth with 259 pages of secret documents he smuggled from the detention center and hid for three decades. The evidence included the names of more than 250 people with notations indicating their fate. Included in the evidence were documents with handwritten notes made during torture sessions, reports about spying efforts, the names of intelligence agents and the identities of bodies.
During its reign the junta killed between 13,000 to 30,000 people. Approximately 20 dictatorship-era human rights cases are being tried this year in Argentina, and verdicts have been reached in 23 others.
