Argentina: verdicts rendered in two trials for crimes against humanity during the military dictatorship

Demonstration outside the courthouse during a trial over Argentina's dictatorship (file image).

REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

Text by: Théo Conscience Follow

3 mins

In Argentina, two verdicts were handed down this week in the trials for the crimes of the dictatorship.

Between 1976 and 1983, successive military juntas in power made more than 30,000 people disappear, according to estimates by human rights organisations.

This Wednesday, July 6, it is the so-called Campo de Mayo trial which ended with 19 convictions ranging from four years in prison to life.

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From our correspondent in Buenos Aires, 

The Campo de Mayo is the military camp located about thirty kilometers from Buenos Aires, it housed

during the dictatorship .

The trial that has ended has made it possible to highlight and document the overall functioning of this center of repression.

According to prosecutor Gabriela Sosti, barely 1% of the approximately 5,000 opponents who passed through this camp came out alive.

In the dock on Wednesday, 19 people were tried for acts of kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and homicides out of 350 victims.

Among them, 14 pregnant women whose babies were stolen at birth, after they gave birth in the clandestine maternity ward of the military hospital.

More than 750 witnesses took the stand during the three years of proceedings, which therefore ended on July 6 with 19 convictions, including 10 life sentences. 

The Death Robbery Trial

Ahead of these convictions, another highly anticipated verdict was handed down earlier this week, that of

trial .

A hearing which was held Monday, July 4 in person, a first in this trial started in October 2020 which took place entirely virtually.

Four former soldiers of the 601st Aviation Battalion, also stationed within the Campo de Mayo compound, were on trial for having participated in this summary execution mechanism which consisted in throwing the victims into the Rio de la Plata from a plane or a helicopter.

► To read also:

Life imprisonment for Esma's "death thefts"

They were all sentenced to life in prison for the murders of four people whose bodies were found dead on the Atlantic coast between 1976 and 1978.

► To read also: 

Miguel Etchecolatz, one of the former leaders of the Argentine dictatorship, is dead

One of the darkest pages in Argentine history

Here again, the challenge of this trial was to precisely reconstruct the functioning of this mode of execution.

Argentinian justice had already recognized the existence of these death robberies in a judgment rendered in 2014, but for the first time the modus operandi and the systematic nature of these assassinations have been documented.

Once a week, sometimes more, a truck came to pick up prisoners.

They were administered ketalar, a sedative intended to put them to sleep before being put on a plane or helicopter, to then be killed and dumped in the Rio de la Plata.

Two or three hours later, the truck returned empty with clothes that were then burned.

This reconstruction was made possible by the testimonies of many conscripts, these young men who were doing their military service at that time and who each saw part of this execution process.

Some said they found clothes or syringes near the runway, others talked about the bloodstains they cleaned on the cabin of the planes.

So many puzzle pieces which, put together, have shed harsh light on one of the darkest pages in Argentine history.

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