Argentina "dirty war" general gets 25 years

[bemildred]

Source: Reuters

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - An Argentine court on Tuesday sentenced former military junta member Cristino Nicolaides to 25 years in prison for conspiring to murder leftist opponents during the 1976-83 so-called dirty war.

Seven other military officials were ordered to serve prison terms of between 20 years and 25 years for kidnapping and killing several members of a leftist guerrilla group, Montoneros, during the dictatorship.

Nicolaides, the military regime's last army commander, is the highest-ranking official to be convicted of human rights crimes since "dirty war" amnesty laws and pardons were scrapped in 2003.

Rights activists and relatives of dictatorship victims applauded the verdict after it was read aloud, and some yelled insults at the men as they filed out of the courtroom.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKN1850957120071218?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[annabanana]

1. It is encouraging that SOME countries hold

people acountable...

[roody]

2. Is this criminal a graduate of the School of the Americas?

[Judi Lynn]

3. In only EIGHT YEARS they tortured and mudered over 30,000 people in Argentina.

Just think what they could have done if they had stayed in power longer!

This was a US-supported (Kissinger personally assisted) filthy murderous torturing regime.

Thank you so much for posting this superb bit of truly worthwhile information. May the same befall all who have taken the same path, no matter how long it takes.

I was pleased to see in your article that they lost another one last week, who apparently killed himself by cyanide. C'est la fascist asshole!



Don't go away mad, Cristino Nicolaides, just go away.

[struggle4progress]

4. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- President Cristina Fernandez fired the coast guard chief on Monday after

a suspect in a human rights trial died of cyanide poisoning at a military brig. Coast guard chief Carlos Fernandez was ordered to retire after an investigation into the case of Hector Febres, who died Dec. 10 at a military detention center days before a verdict was expected in his trial, according to government news agency Telam. A former coast guard officer, Febres was accused of kidnapping and torturing four dissidents during military rule from 1976 to 1983. http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=184147

[Judi Lynn]

5. AP: 8 former Argentina officers convicted

8 former Argentina officers convicted
Posted on Tue, Dec. 18, 2007
By OSCAR SERRAT
Associated Press Writer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Seven former army officers and an ex-police official were convicted Tuesday and sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for human rights abuses during Argentina's bloody dictatorship.

Judge Ariel Lijo issued the unexpected ruling just over a week after Argentina's new President Cristina Fernandez took power, vowing to push the justice system to speed scores of slow-moving human rights cases to conclusion.

"Justice has been served," said Eduardo Luis Duhalde, the nation's human rights minister, who praised the court's decision to punish officers for a "killing machine" he said they unleashed in a 1980 operation to quash leftist guerrillas.

"I'm pleased with this sentence and everything that was proved in this trial," Duhalde said.

Ex-army commander Cristino Nicolaides and seven other former officers were found guilty on a range of charges linked to the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of leftist guerrillas seized by the country's military regime.
(snip)

In 1990, President Carlos Menem pardoned nine junta leaders convicted on charges of abduction, torture and execution. Lower-ranking officers also received pardons.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/349598.html


You might well wonder what kind of idiot would PARDON the Argentinian Dirty War criminals. Well, it was Carlos Saul Menem, friend of _{George H. W. Bush!}

Here's info. on this tool:

Bush Friend Arrested for Illegal Arms Trafficking
by Ana Simo

JUNE 7, 2001. A long-time friend of former U.S. President George H. Bush was arrested today on charges of illegal arms trafficking. If found guilty, he could face a jail term of up to ten years. Only a phone call from the new Bush White House might spare him the indignity, he thinks. But the phones aren't ringing.

The friend in trouble is the former President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, a golfing partner and business benefactor of the elder Bush. He is suspected of having illegally sold 6,500 tons of arms to Croatia and Ecuador between 1991 and 1995, in violation of international arms embargoes. Menem, who was put under house arrest today by a Buenos Aires federal judge, said in his defense last weekend that the U.S. knew all about the arms sales.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher gave Menem the cold shoulder on Monday. He was unaware, he said, of any action by the U.S. government entailing approval or encouragement of Argentinean arms sales to Croatia. Given how profitable the Menem connection has been for the Bushes, one might imagine Boucher was frostily putting interests of state ahead of the Bush family, until you realize that, with a Bush in the White House, they are essentially one and the same.

In 1988, a few months before Menem was elected for his first term, George W. Bush, the then oilman son of a sitting U.S. President, had tried to pressure the administration of outgoing President Raúl Alfonsín to favor Enron, the Houston-based company, over other, more qualified bidders to build a gas pipeline in Argentina. He was unsuccessful, but the Bushes hit it off with the high-rolling, big-spending Menem from the start. One of Menem's first acts as President was to give Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project.

The Enron deal triggered a public outcry in Argentina. A congressional inquiry was demanded, and a special prosecutor launched a probe. But after Menem fired him, the probe fizzled. Enron and its founder and CEO, Kenneth Lay, another close friend of the elder Bush, were among the biggest contributors to George W. Bush's presidential campaign, as well as to his two gubernatorial campaigns.

George W. Bush's brother, Neil Bush, also had his fingers in the Argentina pie. He jetted to Buenos Aires for a tennis match with Menem the day after the latter was first elected, in 1989. Earlier, Neil had been involved in a failed plan to drill oil in Argentina, to be financed in part with a $900,000 loan from the Silverado Savings and Loan Bank in Denver, of which he was a director. The S&L collapsed in 1988 amidst a financial scandal, costing U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion.

More:
http://www.thegully.com/essays/argentina/010607bush_menem.html

Here's the evil troll celebrating the "election" of _{George W. Bush} with his wife, and Katherine Harris!