Argentine general is sentenced to life

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Argentine general is sentenced to life
By Almudena Calatrava
Associated Press / July 9, 2010

BUENOS AIRES — Some of the most notorious figures of Argentina’s “dirty war’’ were convicted yesterday of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering 22 people at the beginning of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship when the country cracked down on leftist dissent.

Family members of the victims cheered and hugged as a judge handed down the sentences for General Luciano Menendez and former police intelligence chief Roberto Albornoz: life in prison for crimes against humanity committed at a secret detention center in provincial Tucuman.

Two former police officers — brothers Luis Armando de Candido and Carlos Esteban de Candido — were sentenced to 18 and 3 years, respectively. Their victims included Diana Oesterheld, who was seven months’ pregnant when she disappeared. Her mother, Elsa Sanchez, said the sentences gave her a feeling of “enormous tranquility’’ after many years of anxiety.

“We didn’t have justice for so long,’’ said Sanchez, whose husband, political cartoonist Hector Oesterheld, and their other three daughters also were killed.

Sanchez, 85, said the verdict has given her the strength to continue searching for Diana’s child. Many pregnant prisoners were killed after giving birth in prison, their babies adopted by people allied with the dictatorship.





Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2010/07/09/argentine_general_is_sentenced_to_life/

[Joanne98]

1. YAY

[lunatica]

2. They couldn't thwart justice forever

And in the intervening years they probably spent their energy on survival tactics. They may have looked like they were living the good life, but they must have known it was all on borrowed time. May they live a long life in prison.