Reuters AlertNet Lite - Uruguay ex-dictator to be tried on 10 more murders

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Uruguay ex-dictator to be tried on 10 more murders

20 Dec 2006 21:52:37 GMT
Source: Reuters

MONTEVIDEO, Dec 20 (Reuters) - A former Uruguayan dictator will face trial over his alleged responsibility for the murders of 10 more political dissidents while he was in power in the 1970s, a judge ruled on Wednesday.

Juan Maria Bordaberry, 78, is already in jail on accusations of shared responsibility in the murders of four political opponents in neighboring Argentina in 1976.

On the latest charges, an Uruguayan judge ruled the 10 deaths "resulted from the detention and torture to which (these people) were subjected, as part of the regime installed by Bordaberry, without which these crimes would not have been committed."

Bordaberry was elected president in 1971, dissolved Congress two years later and governed along with military leaders until they pushed him out of power in 1976. Military rule lasted until 1985.

Nearly 200 Uruguayans were killed during the dictatorship, many of them in Argentina, victims of a concerted crackdown on leftists by the region's military rulers known as Plan Condor.

Rights abusers from that period are shielded from prosecution by an amnesty law, but exceptions can be made for crimes committed before the coup or when civilians have been implicated, as in Bordaberry's case.

The center-left government of President Tabare Vazquez paved the way for a landmark conviction this year of eight former military and police officers for kidnappings in Argentina, where up to 30,000 dissidents were murdered during that country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

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Last updated:Wed Dec 20 21:54:12 2006