MONTEVIDEO, (Reuters) – A former Uruguayan dictator was sentenced to 25 years in jail yesterday over a series of murders during the country’s 1973-1985 military rule, a lawyer in the case said.
Gregorio Alvarez, 83, was convicted in connection with the murder of 37 Uruguayans who were kidnapped in neighboring Argentina, where dictatorship-era intelligence services staged joint operations with their counterparts in Uruguay.
About 200 people were kidnapped and killed during Uruguay’s 12-year dictatorship, most of them in Argentina where rights groups say some 30,000 people were killed in a state crackdown on leftist dissent.
Along with Alvarez, who led the Uruguayan junta from 1981 to 1985, naval officer Juan Carlos Larcebau was jailed for 20 years for his involvement in 29 of the murders, lawyer Oscar Lopez Goldaracena told Reuters.
“In the verdict, the judge classified the offenses as human rights crimes,” he said.
The victims were kidnapped in Argentina and tortured at a secret detention center before being taken back to Uruguay in 1978. Their bodies were never found.
Alvarez, who was head of the Uruguayan army in 1978, had been jailed and awaiting trial since December 2007. Several high-ranking military officers are also in custody and facing trials for human rights crimes committed during the dictatorship.
Yesterday’s sentencing followed within days a Supreme Court ruling that a law protecting military officers from prosecution for dictatorship-era crimes was unconstitutional.
Uruguayans, who go to the polls for a presidential election on Sunday, will also vote in a referendum on whether to annul the amnesty law.
