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ARGENTINA | 19-09-2017 11:39

Six given life sentences for crimes against humanity

10 jailed for involvement in Operation Independence programme in Tucuman

Six people were handed life sentences on Friday, convicted of committing crimes against humanity during right-wing military rule from 1976-1983.
 
During that period the country suffered one of the most brutal dictatorships in Latin America, which saw 30,000 people forcibly kidnapped according to human rights organisations.
 
Judges at a federal court in the northern province of Tucuman jailed 10 of 17 people accused of involvement in the so-called "Operation Independence." Three others who were supposed to go on trial died.
 
The six given life sentences include Roberto "El Tuerto" Albornoz, Luis De Candido, Ricardo Oscar Sánchez, Miguel Moreno, Enrique del Pino and Jorge Omar Lazarte, all of whom were top officials during the period.
 
During the regime some 500 children were illegally taken from their families, according to the human rights group Grandmothers de Plaza de Mayo, which continues to search for the missing children.
 
Among the victims' family members in court during the sentencing were women who were pregnant when the regime began and whose children are still unaccounted for.
 
Meanwhile, hundreds of activists and family members demonstrated outside the court, chanting calls for prison sentences for "every genocidal person walking the streets of Argentina."

- AFP

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