Rome prosecutors on Friday
requested 30 life sentences against former heads of state,
military junta members, and secret service officials from
Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay for the killing of 23 people
of Italian origin during the 1970s and 1980s.
Charges include aggravated mass murder and kidnapping.
The killings took place as part of the so-called Operation
Condor, a campaign of political repression and state terror
involving intelligence operations and the assassination of
opponents, which began in 1968 and was officially implemented in
1975 by right-wing military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru.
Victims included dissidents and leftists, union and peasant
leaders, priests and nuns, students and teachers, intellectuals
and suspected left-wing guerrillas.
The Rome trial is taking place after a 10-year
investigation into 140 people - including 59 Argentinian, 11
Brazilian, and six Paraguayan suspects - that officially ended
six years ago.
The indictments were far fewer due to the death of several
military junta members as well as bureaucratic issues linked to
the notification of the defendants.
In March 2007, a Rome court handed down life sentences
against five Argentinian ex-Navy officers - Jorge Eduardo
Acosta, Alfredo Ignacio Astiz, Jorge Raul Vildoza, Hector
Antonio Febres, and Antonio Vanek - for aggravated mass murder
in the deaths of three Italian-Argentinians who went missing
during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
Photo: Rome Assizes Court Judge Mario D'Andria reads life
sentences against five Argentinian officers in 2007.
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