‘Angel of Death’ gets life

BUENOS AIRES – Alfredo Astiz, Argentina’s infamous ‘Blond Angel of Death,’ and 11 other death squad members from the 1970s were jailed for life on Wednesday in one of the country’s biggest human rights cases.

Astiz, nicknamed for his cherubic looks, stood trial with other former officials accused of horrific crimes at the ESMA Naval Mechanics School, where about 5 000 dissidents were held and tortured during the 1976-1983 ‘Dirty War’ dictatorship. Few of the captives survived.Marking the end of a 22-month trial in which 79 survivors gave evidence, 12 defendants were sentenced to life while four others were punished with between 18 and 25 years in jail.Hundreds of people gathered on the street outside the packed courtroom, some holding up photographs of the victims of the men inside. The crowd, bundled up against a chilly Buenos Aires night, applauded at the reading out of each sentence.’We can finally be at peace, knowing that justice has been done,’ a woman in the crowd told local television.Former navy captain Astiz boasted of his dictatorship-era crimes in a magazine interview in 1998, saying he was ‘the best-trained man in Argentina to kill journalists and politicians’.He infiltrated human rights groups whose members were later kidnapped and was convicted in absentia in Europe of killing two French nuns held at the ESMA.When the proceedings were over, the people outside started dancing to live folk music, some weeping and hugging each other.Only about 200 people are known to have survived from the estimated 5 000 prisoners held in the ESMA. Many of the rest were drugged and dumped out of airplanes into the nearby River Plate in a gruesome weekly ritual.Human rights groups say Argentina’s military government killed up to 30 000 people during the six-year dictatorship. Most of them disappeared and their bodies were never found.- Nampa-Reuters

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