An Argentine court sentenced сaptains Alfredo Astiz, Jorge Eduardo Acosta, and 27 ex-officials to life for dictatorship crimes, the former navy officers found guilty of involvement in the torture and murder of hundreds of political opponents.
Argentina launched the anti-terror campaign aimed at the punishing any and every case of the terrorising people. On Wednesday, the Supreme court’s verdict read that 19 people received jail terms of eight to 25 years, while six were cleared of wrongdoing. Juan Alemann, an ex-finance minister during the dictatorship, was one of the cleared persons. Meanwhile, Alfredo Astiz, Jorge Eduardo Acosta, two navy officers, have been sentenced to life for crimes against humanity committed between 1976 and 1983 under military rule.
Many defendants, including ex-captains, were already serving life sentences for Dirty War crimes committed at the ESMA Naval Mechanics School that was converted into a clandestine prison and torture centre. Astiz has refused to apologise, that man is known as an “angel of death”, Reuters reported.
“The human rights organisations are groups of vengeance and persecution. I will never ask for forgiveness,”
the former navy officer Astiz said during the hearings about the tortures.
Both Astiz and Acosta, known as “the tiger”, were already sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for other counts of torture, murder and forced disappearance.
Argentina launched an anti-terror campaign
Out of the 54 people indicted, 29 were sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison; 19 were given sentences ranging from eight to 25 years in jail, and six were acquitted.
“This is much more than we expected,”
said Miriam Lewin, who survived ESMA, a well-known Buenos Aires navy school that was used as a clandestine torture centre. It became a human rights museum in 2004, Mr Macri said his country had to look to the future and build new relationships.
