Buenos Aires, March 27.- The Federal Oral Court One of the Argentine city of La Plata sentenced 10 defendants to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in the Banfield Well, the Quilmes Well and the Lanús Brigade.
Those sentenced to that penalty are Federico Minicucci, Guillermo Domínguez, Carlos Fontana, Carlos Romero, Jorge Di Pasquale, Roberto Balmaceda, Jaime Smart, Juan Wolk, Jorge Bergés and Horacio Castillo.
After three and a half years of hearings, judges Ricardo Basilico, Esteban Rodríguez and Walter Venditti also ordered 25 years in prison for Julio Candioti, while Enrique Barre was acquitted.
Among the plaintiffs are the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo association, the restored grandchildren Carlos D'Elía, Victoria Moyano, Pedro Nadal, María José Lavalle and her sister María.
Laura Garack, who is looking for her brother, the survivor of The Night of the Pencils, Pablo Díaz, and Graciela Borelli, a relative of a Uruguayan citizen who was a victim of Plan Cóndor, are also complainants.
In a statement, Abuelas stated that she accused the defendants of illegal deprivation of liberty and torment of 23 pregnant women and a mother kidnapped with her son, and of the abduction, retention and concealment of 10 grandchildren, seven of whom have already recovered their identity.
The defendants are repressors of the clandestine detention centers Pozo de Banfield, Quilmes and Brigada de Lanús, dependent on the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires, during the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983).
Also accused was the former director general of Investigations of the Buenos Aires Police Miguel Etchecolatz, under whose command no less than 20 torture and extermination centers and several clandestine maternities operated, where kidnapped women gave birth and their children were taken away from them.
Etchecolatz died in 2022 while serving time for other crimes committed.
In addition to the horrors perpetrated, he refused to say where the missing people were. (Text and photo: PL)
