[from Eliana Raszewski on Bloomberg, Dec. 22, 2010]
Ex-Argentine Dictator Videla Given Life Term for Crimes Against Humanity
Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who ran the South American country from 1976 to 1981, was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity.
Videla, 85, and other former officials, including former army General Luciano Benjamin Menendez, faced charges for the execution of 31 prisoners in 1976 in the central province of Cordoba.
“I haven’t come to defend myself or argue in my defense,” Videla told the court yesterday. “I’ll assume under protest the unfair sentence that I may receive.”
Menendez, 83, was also given a life sentence by the three- man court in the provincial capital city of Cordoba.
In 1985, two years after the country returned to democracy, Videla and fellow junta members Emilio Massera and Orlando Agosti, were sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed during the dictatorship. They were later pardoned by former President Carlos Menem.
In 2007, under the government of then President Nestor Kirchner, an Argentine federal court annulled the pardons.
According to human right associations, about 30,000 people disappeared during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
Massera, Videla and Agosti led the March 1976 military coup that unseated the government of Maria Estela Martinez de Peron. Massera died Nov. 8 after a stroke and Agosti died in 1997.
