Artists remember the suffering during the dictatorship. (Picture from March 2022)
(dpa) In Argentina, four former military personnel have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the so-called death flights during the last dictatorship (1976-83). This was reported by the Argentine news agency Telam, citing a court in San Martín near Buenos Aires on Monday evening (local time). Accordingly, those convicted of deprivation of liberty, torture and murder were a general, a commander and two other officers.
Human rights organizations estimate that up to 30,000 people “disappeared” and were killed by the military in the hunt for citizens whom they suspected of left-wing ideas. During the “death flights”, thousands of captured opposition members were thrown drugged from naval planes into the La Plata river in the notorious ESMA naval school in Buenos Aires and in the military garrison Campo de Mayo in a suburb of the capital.
According to the National Secretariat for Human Rights, this is the first trial of “death flights” in the army. “During the debate, testimonies provided evidence of the workings of this planned and systematic machine that disappeared and eliminated thousands of people,” the Human Rights Secretariat tweeted.
In 2017, 48 former military officers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for human rights violations in the largest trial in Argentine history. At that time, the use of the so-called death flights by the Navy was considered proven.