Italy convicts five over 'Dirty War' deaths

An Italian court has sentenced five former members of Argentina's military to life imprisonment for the murder of three Italians…

An Italian court has sentenced five former members of Argentina's military to life imprisonment for the murder of three Italians during the 1970s "dirty war."

The defendants - Jorge Eduardo Acosta, Alfredo Ignacio Astiz, Jorge Raul Vildoza, Hector Antonio Febres and Antonio Vanek - were convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering the Italians.

The five men were tried in absentia, and it is not clear if Argentina will hand them over.

Four are under arrest in Argentina and face prosecution by federal courts there in connection with deaths and disappearances dating to the 1976-83 military dictatorship. Officials say Vildoza, a former navy captain, remains a fugitive.

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During the dictatorship, at least 9,000 Argentines vanished - and presumably were killed - as the government rounded up leftist and other anti-government activists. Human rights groups put the figure at 30,000.

The verdicts were delivered to a courtroom that included human rights activists and relatives of the three Italian victims, Angela Maria Aieta, Giovanni Pegoraro and his daughter Susana Pegoraro. The three held dual Italian-Argentine citizenship.

Enrico Gasbarra, president of Lazio region, which includes Rome, told reporters the text of the verdicts will be distributed to schools in Rome. "The young must know and remember the horrible things that happened in Argentina so that they cannot be repeated in any part of the world," he said.

Estela Carlotto, president of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group that has struggled to learn the fate of the "disappeared" and to push for convictions of those responsible, called the Rome verdict "an example of justice."

AP