Posted on 07/07/2022 15:01
A plaque was placed in front of the hospital in the Campo de Mayo military complex to commemorate the victims of the regime. “To the fearless comrades who disappeared in Campo de Mayo, present now and forever,” the memorial reads. (Credit: Hijos Capital Twitter/Reproduction)
After four years of trial, the federal court of San Martín in Buenos Aires on Wednesday (July 6) sentenced former commander Santiago Omar Riveros and nine other defendants to life imprisonment. The maximum sentence for exsoldiers relates to crimes against humanity committed at the Campo de Mayo military complex during Argentina’s last dictatorship between 1976 and 1983.
The convictions were greeted with applause from victims and activists for historic redress for crimes committed by the military regime, which registered at least 323 victims of illegal imprisonment and torture in the trial. “The facts that are the subject of this process are inhuman, that is, incontestable,” said the court president at the reading of the verdict.
After hearing more than 700 witnesses who exposed the routine and repressive operations of the military camp, the judges delivered the verdict that made the trial one of the largest antihumanity trials in the country’s history. Another nine people were convicted. Penalties range from four to 22 years in prison.
The attempted crimes were committed in Campo de Mayo, the Argentine Army’s largest complex at 5,000 hectares, less than 30 kilometers from the Argentine capital. There was a kind of secret internment and torture center there during the dictatorship from 1976, as well as a maternity home that brought children to kidnapped women. The military dispossessed the babies, who were given new identities with no connection to the mother.
According to the newspaper El País, Argentine human rights organizations estimate that at least 4,000 people were arrested in Campo de Mayo, of whom less than 1% survived.
The first to be convicted was former commander of the military institutes Santiago Omar Riveros, 98 years old. He was the boss who controlled all criminal activities in the Campo de Mayo. Santiago was found guilty of crimes against more than 200 victims, including torture and unlawful detention.
There’s one more sentence in there #MegaCausaCampoDeMayo
Perpetua for “Escorpio”, Bignone y Riveros.#NeverMother pic.twitter.com/jcodGZZBaN— Leonardo Grosso (@Leonardo_Grosso) March 15, 2017
The former soldier also received the maximum sentence in the trial on Monday (July 4) for the existence of “death flights” that departed from Campo de Mayo with detainees thrown alive from the plane into the Rio de la Plata. He is under house arrest for health reasons.
Luis Del Valle Arce, Carlos Javier Tamini and Mario Domínguez, employees of Defense Zone IV, were sentenced to life imprisonment, as was the former head of Military Area 420, Luis Sadi Pepa. Finally, the last four defendants sentenced to the maximum sentence were Carlos Somoza, Francisco Agostino, Luis Britos and Miguel Conde.
Convictions celebrated by protesters
Outside, a crowd watched as the sentence was read. Most of them were female members of the NGO Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, which seeks to locate and promote the reunion of babies abducted by the military with the women who were delivered in Campo de Mayo.
Diez Genocidas were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and others were not sentenced to prison terms ranging from 4 to 22 years.
There were three years and three months of hearings, in which she declared around 750 testigos #MegacausaCampoDeMayo comes to an end. pic.twitter.com/wZP8L5jnXR
— Abuelas Plaza Mayo (@abuelasdifusion) July 6, 2022
The group was moved by the outcome of the trial, the largest since parole and impunity laws against participants in the military regime were repealed in 2006. Among the 323 victims were 14 pregnant women whose children were dispossessed by the military. Two of them were kidnapped in August 1977 and are still trying to find their children with the help of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo.