July 25, 2008, New York Times

By Alexei Barrrionuevo

RIO DE JANEIRO — A court in Argentina sentenced a notorious former military leader to life in prison for atrocities committed in 1977 at a clandestine torture center used by the military dictatorship where only 17 of more than 2,200 political prisoners survived.

Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, the former commander of the regional Third Army Corps in Córdoba during the military dictatorship, oversaw the kidnapping, torture and murder of four activists who protested against the military government that lasted from 1976 to 1983. The atrocities occurred at La Perla detention center in Córdoba, the biggest in the province at the time. 

After a trial lasting almost two months, the court on Thursday also sentenced six other former military officers and one civilian for crimes committed during the military regime. Four of them were also given life sentences, with remaining three receiving sentences ranging from 18 to 22 years in prison, Argentine newspapers reported.

Mr. Menéndez, 81, was stone-faced and silent as the televised verdict was read to loud cheers inside and outside the courtroom, where hundreds of people waved flags and placards commemorating the victims.

“Today justice was done,” the daughter of one of the victims told the television channel Todo Noticias.

The convictions on Thursday were the latest of “dirty war” suspects to be judged by Argentine courts. Some 13,000 people were killed during the dictatorship, according to official figures, although human rights groups say the figure is closer to 30,000.

The Supreme Court in 2005 struck down amnesty laws from the 1980s that had protected former military officials who served during the dictatorship, The Associated Press reported.

“This is a decision that should be celebrated as an example that accountability is possible,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch.

The retired general was under house arrest for convictions related to the military regime’s “dirty war” against accused leftists. He will now be transferred to prison.

The four victims — Hilda Palacios, Humberto Brandalisis, Carlos Lajas and Raúl Cardozo — were members of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party who were kidnapped on Dec. 15, 1977.

Prosecutors said that the four were taken to La Perla, which was run by the Third Army Corps, and killed the next month. Their bodies were dumped in the street to make it appear as if they had been killed in an exchange of gunfire with the military. Only the remains of Ms. Palacios were found and returned to family members.

July 1, 2008, New York Times

By PASCALE BONNEFOY

A Chilean judge sentenced the former secret intelligence chief for Gen. Augusto Pinochet to two life terms for the 1974 murder of Carlos Prat, former commander in chief of the Chilean Army, and his wife, Sofia Cuthbert. They were killed when a bomb placed under their car exploded as they returned home to their apartment in Buenos Aires. Judge Alejandro Solis sentenced Manuel Contreras, the former director of the intelligence service, known as DINA, and seven other military and civilian agents involved with the intelligence service.

Published in El País (Madrid), June 29, 2008: “Todo mi dolor se transformó en otra fuerza” Available at:

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/portada/Todo/dolor/transformo/fuerza/elpepusoceps/20080629elpepspor_2/Tes

June 30, 2008 [http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/42711.html]

By Helen Hughes and Jack Chang | McClatchy Newspapers

SANTIAGO, Chile — A Chilean judge sentenced the country’s former intelligence chief, retired Gen. Manuel Contreras, to two life prison terms Monday for masterminding a double assassination that was one of the most notorious covert operations conducted by this country’s military government.

The historic court decision, which can be appealed, holds Contreras responsible for the murders of Gen. Carlos Prats, the former army chief, and his wife in a 1974 bombing attack in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires.

The sentence is the biggest to be handed out so far in this country’s ongoing human rights prosecutions and should help resolve what was long one of the most painful episodes of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule.

Justice Minister Carlos Maldonado applauded the verdict, calling the assassinations “a terrorist attack in another country” and pledging the government’s commitment to bringing justice to the regime’s victims.

U.S. journalist John Dinges, who’s written two books about the Pinochet regime’s abuses, said Monday’s decision was a landmark in the human rights prosecutions.

“This is as monumental a human rights action as has been taken in all this long history of human rights adjudication in Chile,” Dinges said. “You have members of the Chilean military now convicted of assassinating a former chief. That’s enormous. That takes it way beyond human rights and takes it to an attack on the state.”

The murders of Prats and Sofia Cuthbert consolidated the rise of Pinochet’s authoritarian regime, which was responsible for the politically motivated deaths and disappearances of some 3,000 people during its 17 years in power.

Pinochet’s replacement of Prats as army chief set the stage for the 1973 coup that ousted socialist President Salvador Allende. According to court testimony, the Pinochet regime then sent U.S. citizen Michael Townley to plant a bomb under Prats’ car in Argentina.

On Chilean orders, Townley went on to assassinate former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier in Washington, also by planting a car bomb. That 1976 attack, in a neighborhood known as Embassy Row, was the first case of foreign-sponsored terrorism on U.S. soil.

Appellate Judge Alejandro Solis, who was assigned to investigate the Prats case, sentenced eight others to prison Monday for their roles in the assassination, but not Townley, who couldn’t be prosecuted because he lives in the United States.

Townley, who testified to Argentine and Chilean courts about the Prats assassination and has been a U.S. government-protected witness, was released after he served half of a 10-year prison sentence in the United States following his guilty plea in the Letelier case.

The others sentenced Monday included Townley’s ex-wife, Mariana Callejas, who joined her then-husband on the bombing mission, and other Chilean army officials such as retired Gen. Raul Iturriaga and retired Col. Pedro Espinoza.

Chilean courts already have convicted Contreras for other dictatorship-era crimes, and the retired general has been confined to a military prison on the outskirts of Santiago, the capital. His attorney, Fidel Reyes, declined to comment Monday.

For Contreras, once one of the most feared men in Chile, Monday’s sentencing finishes his fall from power.

Contreras, who’s now 79, was the main author of Operation Condor, an informal pact among the continent’s military governments to share intelligence, help one another track down and trade dissidents and conduct assassinations such as Letelier’s.

In Argentina, Prats had drawn Pinochet’s ire by speaking out against the Chilean regime’s abuses and calling for a return to democracy, and Contreras quickly moved to eliminate him.

Prats’ daughters said Monday that the judge’s decision was a crucial step toward documenting the Pinochet regime’s crimes, but they added that they’d hoped to see Pinochet himself convicted. The former dictator died in December 2006 of complications from a heart attack without having been tried. Contreras has testified that he acted under Pinochet’s orders in several human rights cases.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t happen,” Cecilia Prats said of a Pinochet conviction. “But the country knows clearly that he was part of this group of people that attacked our parents.”

(Hughes is a McClatchy special correspondent. Chang reported from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.)

McClatchy Newspapers 2008