Her justice Argentinian imposed yesterday Tuesday ten life sentences in the framework of the trial-river, which began more than three years ago, for hundreds of arbitrary cases arrests the kidnappings, torture, rapesviolent disappearances, of baby thefts and other crimes in three of its detention centers military dictatorship (1976-1983).

A court in La Plata imposed ten life sentences, one 25-year sentence and also announced the acquittal of one of the twelve defendants (another six died during the trial).

The trial – a river for more than 400 victims of the junta

The trial involved over 400 victims, who went through three “CCDs”, as they have come to be known by their Spanish acronym, the infamous “secret detention centerss”.

The country measured hundreds at the time of the junta. The three in particular were those in Banfield, Quilmes and Lanus, in a radius of 25 kilometers around Buenos Aires.

Among the accused, officers, non-commissioned officers, police officers, military doctorssometime Minister provincial government…

All pleaded not guilty, or that they were not in the country when the events unfolded, while one based his defense on the fact that “war” was being waged..

The main defendant, Miguel Ecekolac, died in custody in 2022, aged 93, having already been sentenced to life several times.

The iconic form of Adriana Calvo

According to the Mothers of May Square collective, 23 pregnant women were among the prisoners that passed through the specific CCDs. Some were forced to abort by their executioners, others they disappeared and ten infants were given to families close to the regime. Seven of these children did not learn their true identities until years later.

Among those imprisoned in Banfield was Adriana Calvoan iconic figure among the victims (she died in 2010), whose catapult testimony, in which she recounted how gave birth blindfolded and handcuffed in a police car marked the “trial of the junta” in 1985 and has been included in large part in the hit film “Argentina, 1985” (2022).

Wartime, says Miley

The convictions in the La Plata trial were announced as the issue of the heavy legacy of the dictatorship was brought back into the public debate.

The extreme liberal Javier Millay, president of Argentina since December, questions the historiography about that period, instead of a dictatorship he speaks of a “war” between the state and far-right rebels, while he finds the tally of 30,000 dead and disappeared exaggerated, for which is spoken of by organizations defending human rights.

Since trials for the crimes of the dictatorship resumed in 2006, following the amnesty that was applied in the 1990s, the Argentine judiciary has sentenced 1,176 people by mid-March, including 661 to prison or prison terms, most of them they listen at home. Nearly 80 court cases remain pending.