By Senabri Silvestre

SANTO DOMINGO, Dom. Rep. (AA) – An Argentine court sentenced former Gen. Luciano Benjamin Menendez to life for crimes against humanity, local media reported Thursday.

Twenty-seven other ex-members of the armed forces received the same sentence while 10 others received lesser sentences by the Federal Court of Cordoba for human rights violations committed at various secret detention centers during a military dictatorship between 1975 and 1979.

The defendants were found guilty of offenses against 716 victims, including illegal deprivation of liberty, aggravated torture, robbery, kidnapping, rape, murder and child abduction, the Infobae newspaper reported.

Sixty percent of detainees at the centers disappeared or died during the years Menendez and his officers were in charge of security in Cordoba, the newspaper added.

Menendez, 89, who is already serving time for other crimes, was found guilty of the disappearances of 282 victims, 52 murders, 260 kidnappings and 656 cases of torture.

It is the first judgment on crimes committed before the March 1976 coup under the constitutional government of Isabel Martinez de Peron.

The sentence against the former head of the Third Army Corps of Argentine comes after four years of trial, during which almost 600 testimonies were heard.

As the sentences were being read, thousands of spectators, including human rights activists, supported victims’ families outside the court, carrying banners that read “Nevermore".

AA