ONE OF the most notorious symbols of Argentina’s dirty war, a former naval officer known as the “Blond Angel of Death”, was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity on Wednesday night.
Alfredo Astiz (59), who earned his nickname because of his cherubic good looks, was one of 16 former officers convicted of murder, torture, kidnapping and theft against 86 people while operating death squads out of a naval school in Buenos Aires during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.
Astiz smiled as the judges sentenced him and 11 others to life in prison while relatives of his victims who packed the courtroom whistled and shouted abuse. Another four defendants received terms of between 18 and 25 years while two others were absolved but will remain in prison as they face separate abuse charges.
Crowds outside the court building in Buenos Aires, many holding photographs of disappeared relatives, cheered the ruling.
A naval intelligence officer, Astiz was a member of the notorious “task groups” that operated out of the Esma school for naval mechanics in a suburb of Buenos Aires. The groups would snatch victims off the street and hold them for months of interrogation under torture.
The military authorities always denied they had arrested anyone and victims became known as “the disappeared”. Many of those held in the Esma were drugged and loaded on to military aircraft which would dump them into the river Plate estuary.
Five thousand people are estimated to have passed through the building, the largest of the military’s secret torture centres. More than half were not seen alive again.
A commission set up after the return of democracy to investigate the military’s crimes finally listed 13,000 people murdered or disappeared. Human rights groups claim the actual figure is 30,000.
Posing as the brother of a missing person, Astiz went on to infiltrate a group of mothers of those who had disappeared after they started to hold weekly protests in front of the country’s presidential palace to demand information about their loved ones.
He oversaw the kidnapping of the group’s leaders along with two French nuns. All were subsequently murdered.
Human rights group the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is descended from the mothers disappeared by Astiz. A visibly emotional Taty Almeida, one of the leaders of the group, said the sentences marked “a historic day, one that the Mothers never thought we were going to see”.
Astiz has not expressed remorse for his actions. During his trial he insisted he was an officer following orders and was now the victim of political persecution for his role in successfully combating “terrorism”.
During the dirty war the military wiped out several Marxist guerrilla organisations but many non-violent opponents of the regime also disappeared into its secret killing centres.
Wednesday’s ruling is the most significant since 2003 when Argentina’s congress overturned a blanket amnesty for crimes committed by members of the dictatorship. Last year Jorge Videla, the head of the military junta that staged the 1976 coup, was sentenced to life in prison.
A trial is also under way into the case of babies born to women in captivity. Up to 500 women are believed to have been pregnant when they were disappeared.
Many gave birth only to be later murdered. The babies were then illegally adopted by families linked to the military.