(22 Dec 2010)
669485
Argentina - Ex-dictator sentenced to life over 1976 torture and murder
POOL
Cordoba - 22 Dec 2010
1. Wide of tribunal
2. Cutaway of journalist writing in notebook ++OVERLAID BY AUDIO FROM SHOT 3++
3. UPSOUND: (Spanish) Jaime Diaz Gavier, Head of Tribunal:
++FULL TRANSLATION UNAVAILABLE++
"The court declares Jorge Rafael Videla....responsible for the crimes of imposing torture, aggravated by the political persecution of the victim, 32 offences considered together, pre-meditated murder and for the act of various participants
++INTERCUT WITH SHOTS OF VIDELA AND AUDIENCE++
4. Close of former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla listening
STORYLINE:
On December 22nd 2010 former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla was sentenced to life in prison for the torture and murder of 31 prisoners in 1976, the first conviction for the military junta leader in 25 years of democracy.
Videla, who led the military coup that installed Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship, is considered the architect of a dirty war that eliminated thousands of people in a crackdown on armed leftist guerrillas and their supporters.
The judges on December 22nd found Videla "criminally responsible" for the torture and deaths of 31 prisoners who were pulled from civilian jail cells and officially "shot while trying to escape" as the military consolidated its power in the months after the coup.
The ruling thrilled victims' relatives who packed the courtroom, applauding and shouting "murderers" at Videla and other defendants when the verdicts were read.
The 31 victims in this case - many of them university students with links to armed leftist revolutionary movements - were taken to a clandestine centre in Cordoba and tortured with methods including electric shock and rape to give up information about their colleagues, who were then tortured and killed as well, lawyers for the victims' families said.
Videla told the court that Argentine society demanded the crackdown to prevent a Marxist revolution and complained that "terrorists" now run the country.
Videla must serve his sentence in a civilian prison, the judges decided, ruling out the privileges he enjoyed after he was first convicted of crimes against humanity in 1985, as Argentina was struggling to return to democracy.
Videla served just five years of a life sentence in a military prison before former President Carlos Menem granted him and other junta leaders amnesty.
After a concerted campaign to reform a judicial system packed with dictatorship-era judges, the Supreme Court overturned those amnesties in 2007.
Current President Cristina Fernandez has encouraged a wave of new trials of former military and police figures involved in the clandestine torture centres where thousands of the regime's opponents disappeared.
This was the first of dozens of trials coming up for Videla, now 85.
This time, he was among two dozen defendants - most of them former military and police officials - charged with torture, murder and cover-ups in the deaths of the 31 political prisoners in provincial Cordoba.
Most also were sentenced to life in prison on December 22nd, although some received lesser terms and seven minor defendants whose cases were joined to Videla's were found not guilty.
It was the fifth life sentence for former General Luciano Benjamin Menendez, who directed the early war against leftist subversives across much of northern Argentina.
Ricardo Alfonsin, whose late father, President Raul Alfonsin, helped put Videla and other junta leaders on trial 25 years ago, said such arguments are meaningless coming from men who lack all moral authority.
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