BUENOS AIRES: A court in Argentina on Tuesday awarded lifetime imprisonment to ten individuals as part of a mass prosecution of incidents of abductions, rape, torture, and disappearances during the country’s 1976-83 military dictatorship.
One defendant was handed down 25 years of imprisonment, while another was acquitted. Six others have died in three years since the trial started.
The cases involved more than 400 victims who were detained at three of Argentina’s hundreds of infamous detention centers near Buenos Aires.
The defendants, include police officers, police, detention officers, military doctors and a former provincial minister.
One of the main targets of the trial, Miguel Etchecolatz, who died in 2022 at 93 years of age, was already serving a life imprisonment.
According to human rights organization Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, among the victims in the cases were 23 pregnant women detained at the centers.
Some had to undergo unwanted abortions while some were disappeared. Ten of the babies born to the detained women were given to regime friendly families.
Javier Milei, the country’s new president, has termed the 70s as an era of war between authorities and left-wing guerillas.
Since the trials resumed in 2006 for crimes committed under the dictatorship, 1,176 people have been convicted, out of which 661 are currently in detention.
