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Beatriz Cantarini de Abriata, the mother of Hernan Abriata, now 92, holds a portrait of her son in front of the French Embassy in Buenos Aires, during a demonstration in 2014. DANIEL GARCIA / AFP

Former Argentine police officer Mario Sandoval, 66, was extradited this Sunday evening December 15 from Paris to Buenos Aires. Presumed involved in the disappearance of a student during the Argentinian dictatorship, the legal proceedings have been underway for eight years.

After almost eight years of legal battle in France, the ex-Argentine policeman Mario Sandoval was extradited Sunday evening to Buenos Aires, placed under escort on the Air France flight AF228 joining the Argentine capital from Paris.

Mario Sandoval is extradited by France after an extremely complex judicial process. The last obstacle to his extradition was lifted last Friday by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Mario Sandoval had been exiled in France since 1985 and had obtained French nationality in 1997. It was only in 2012 that an Argentinian judge demanded his extradition. He suspects him of being involved in nearly 500 cases of murder, torture or kidnapping of political opponents during the Argentine dictatorship.

There followed an eight-year legal procedure , punctuated by a number of twists and turns between all levels of French and European justice. Mario Sandoval will have tried everything to avoid extradition. He thus for a time even argued for homonymy.

Only one charge has been brought against Mario Sandoval today by the courts: that of the disappearance of an architecture student, Hernan Abriata. It was to the mother of the latter, who is 92 years old, that the first words of the French civil party lawyer went. She hopes that the future Argentine trial will bring her some form of justice and information on the place where her son is buried.

Also to listen: Argentina: identifying the bodies of victims of the dictatorship