Buenos Aires (AFP) – An Argentine court sentenced 15 South American ex-army officers Friday for their role in Operation Condor, a program by the continent’s military regimes to torture and kill dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.
The court, the first to try atrocities committed under the six-nation plan, sentenced former Argentine dictator Reynaldo Bignone to 20 years and retired Uruguayan colonel Manuel Cordero — the only non-Argentine national in the dock — to 25 years.
Fifteen of the 18 defendants were convicted of criminal conspiracy for their role in the plan, which included the military dictators of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The US-backed operation began in the 1970s at the height of the Cold War.
It is blamed for 105 executions and kidnappings.
Bignone, 88, is already serving a 15-year sentence for the theft of babies born to political prisoners during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.
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