AP BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, July 6,
2012
AP Former dictators Jorge Rafael
Videla, second from right, and Reynaldo Bignone, right, wait to listen the
verdict of Argentina's historic stolen babies trial in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
on Thursday
Former Argentine dictator Jorge
Rafael Videla was convicted and sentenced to 50 years on Thursday for a
systematic program to steal babies from prisoners who were kidnapped, tortured
and killed during the military junta’s war on leftist dissidents three decades
ago.
Argentina’s last dictator, Reynaldo
Bignone, also was convicted and got 15 years. Both men already were in prison
for other human rights abuses.
“This is an historic day. Today
legal justice has been made real never again the justice of one’s own hands,
which the repressors were known for,” prominent rights activist Tati Almeida
said outside the courthouse, where a jubilant crowd watched on a big screen and
cheered each sentence.
The baby thefts set Argentina’s
1976-1983 regime apart from all the other juntas that ruled in Latin America at
the time. Mr Videla, other military and police officials were determined to
remove any trace of the armed leftist guerrilla movement they said threatened
the country’s future.
The “dirty war” eventually claimed
13,000 victims according to official records. Many were pregnant women who were
“disappeared” shortly after giving birth in clandestine maternity wards.
Mr Videla denied in his testimony
that there was any systematic plan to remove the babies, and said prisoners
used their unborn children as “human shields” in their fight against the state.
Nine others, mostly former military
and police officials, also were accused in the trial, which focused on 34 baby
thefts. Seven were convicted and two were found not guilty.
Witnesses included former US
diplomat Elliot Abrams. He was called to testify after a long-classified memo
describing his secret meeting with Argentina’s Ambassador was made public at
the request of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group
whose evidence-gathering efforts were key to the trial.
Mr Abrams testified from Washington
that he secretly urged Mr Bignone to reveal the stolen babies’ identities as a
way to smooth Argentina’s return to democracy.
“We knew that it wasn’t just one or
two children,” Mr Abrams testified, suggesting that there must have been some
sort of directive from a high level official “a plan, because there were many
people who were being murdered or jailed.”
No reconciliation effort was made.
Instead, Mr Bignone ordered the military to destroy evidence of “dirty war”
activities, and the junta denied any knowledge of baby thefts, let alone
responsibility for the disappearances of political prisoners.
The US government also revealed
little of what it knew as the junta’s death squads were eliminating opponents.
The Grandmothers group has since
used DNA evidence to help 106 people who were stolen from prisoners as babies
recover their true identities, and 26 of these cases were part of this trial.
Many were raised by military officials or their allies, who falsified their
birth names, trying to remove any hint of their leftist origins.
The rights group estimates as many
as 500 babies could have been stolen in all, but the destruction of documents
and passage of time make it impossible to know for sure.
The trial featured gut-wrenching
testimony from grandmothers and other relatives who searched inconsolably for
their missing relatives, and from people who learned as young adults that they
were raised by the very people involved in the disappearance of their birth parents.
Prosecutors had asked for 50 years
for Mr Videla and four others. Almeida, the rights activist, said that “in some
cases we would have preferred longer sentences, but since they’re such old men
now, it’s almost like a perpetual sentence.”
Mr Videla, 86, received the maximum
sentence as the man criminally responsible for 20 of the thefts.
Seven others were convicted and
sentenced by the three-judge panel on Thursday — former Adm. Antonio Vanek, 40
years; former marine Jorge “Tigre” Acosta, 30; former Gen. Santiago Omar
Riveros, 20; former navy prefect Juan Antonio Azic, 14; and Dr. Jorge Magnacco,
who witnesses said handled some of the births, 10.
Former Capt. Victor Gallo and his
ex-wife Susana Colombo, were sentenced to 15 and five years in jail,
respectively. Their adopted son, Francisco Madariaga, testified against them
and said he hoped their sentences would set an example.
Retired Adm. Ruben Omar Franco and a
former intelligence agent, Eduardo Ruffo, were absolved.
According to Argentine judicial
procedure, the basis for the convictions and sentences won’t be revealed until
Sept. 17, said the president of the judicial tribunal, Maria del Carmen
Roqueta
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