Former dictator dead, Former dictator Jorge Videla, who ruled Argentina during its “Dirty
War,” died in prison Friday while serving a life sentence for crimes
against humanity. He was 87.
Videla, who ruled at the head of a military junta between 1976 and 1981, died of natural causes, C5N television reported.
As many as 30,000 people were kidnapped and “disappeared” by the
military during an all-out campaign against the left launched by Videla,
in which suspected opponents were swept into secret prisons, tortured
and murdered.
Videla, who came to power in a 1976 military
coup, was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for the disappearance of
31 prisoners and to another 50 years in 2011 for the theft of children
born to female prisoners.
Videla showed little remorse for a
record of human rights abuses that made the Argentine junta symbol of
repressive Latin American military dictatorships.
“As I have
done before, I wish to say that this court lacks jurisdiction to judge
me for cases involving the army in the anti-subversive struggle,” he
said on Tuesday in testimony in another trial stemming from the period.
He died in the Marcos Paz prison southwest of Buenos Aires.
“Last night he didn't feel well. He didn't want to eat and this morning
they found him dead in his cell,” Cecilia Pando, the head of the
Association of Family and Friends of Political Prisoners, told
reporters.
Source : http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2013/05/17/Former-Argentina-dictator-Videla-dies-at-87.html
