Argentine Dictator Sentenced for Crimes Against Humanity

HAVANA TIMES, Dec 30 — Former Argentinian dictator Reynaldo Bignone was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for crimes against humanity. The once de facto president was already serving two life sentences for kidnapping and torture, reported the Pulsar news agency.

After the torturer refused to give his last words of defense, the judicial body rendered its verdict. The ruling against him was issued by a Federal Court of Buenos Aires.

Reynaldo Bignone was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the unlawful detention of 15 workers in a clandestine center in the Posadas Hospital in an Argentinian province.

Within the hospital had functioned a clandestine detention center known as “the Chalet” during the last dictatorship in Argentina, between 1976 and 1983.
During the trial, two other oppressors were also sentenced: Former Brigadier Rafael Hipolito Mariani (eight years of imprisonment), and the civilian Luis Muiño (13 years in prison). The trial of these three had begun in October.
The former Argentinian, who acted as de facto president between 1982 and 1983, had previously been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Posadas Hospital case was reopened after the 2003 parliamentary repeal of the so-called “Forgiveness Laws.”

In reconstructing the case, it was documented that the hospital was taken over in 1976 by Bignone as part of a military operation when the coup took place.