They headed the military’s largest clandestine detention centre during its
Dirty War against left-wing subversion.
In total, 11 men were found guilty by the court and given prison sentences.
During the case, Videla denied he had given orders to steal the babies. He has
repeatedly been accused of remorselessness by human rights groups.
The trial, which began in February 2011, sought to establish the true
identities of around 400 infants stolen by the regime.
It proved that 35 babies were stolen. Some were born in captivity while others
were kidnapped at a very young age together with their parents. The infants
were often raised by families linked to the dictatorship.
Twenty-six people were able to recuperate their identities.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the court in Buenos Aires to celebrate.
“It’s a historic day,” said Taty Almeyda of the Mothers of the Plaza de Maya,
a human rights group formed by women who had their children ‘disappeared’
during the dictatorship.
“It’s important that we’ve shown the crimes were systematic. But we won’t stop
here.”
An estimated 30,000 people were killed during the Dirty War.
Juan García, the son of a desaparecido – the name in Spanish for those people
taken by the state and murdered without their whereabouts ever being
revealed – was dumped in an orphanage in 1976 after his father, a member of
the Montoneros guerrilla group, was murdered.
“We’ll continue this fight for justice,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
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