Uruguay court convicts seven retired military officers of dictatorship-era crimes

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The former officers were standing trial for proceedings opened in 2018, for deprivation of liberty and torture carried out against leftist activists arrested between 1975 and 1977 in the clandestine detention center known as ‘Inferno Grande.’

A Uruguayan court has convicted seven retired military officers of crimes committed during the country’s dictatorship (1973-1985); the length of the sentences to be served has not yet been determined.

The former officers were standing trial for proceedings opened in 2018, charged with deprivation of liberty and torture against leftist activists arrested between 1975 and 1977 in the clandestine detention center known as Inferno Grande. Most of the victims were from the Tupamaros guerrilla group, which resisted the dictatorship.

The convicted military officers are José Nino Gavazzo, Mario Julio Aguerrondo, Rudyard Raúl Scioscia Soba, Mario Carlos Frachelle Franco, Mario Manuel Cola Silveira, Ernesto Ramas and Jorge Silveira Quesada.

The Specialized Prosecutor for Crimes Against Humanity, Ricardo Perciballe, had called for the imprisonment of eight defendants for these crimes; however, one of them died during the judicial proceeding.

Gavazzo, Silveira and Rama had already been convicted of other crimes against humanity committed during the government. The others will be detained for the first time.

The indictment was filed in 2011, when former guerrilla and then-President José “Pepe” Mujica lifted the protection granted by an amnesty law passed in the 1980s, known as the Law of Limitations, that prevented investigations of human rights violations.

The Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Humanity still has 13 pending petitions for prosecution of some 50 people involved in crimes related to state terrorism, according to local newspaper La Diaria.

The convictions come at an important moment, since the reinstatement of the Limitations Law, passed in 1986, declared unconstitutional in 2009 and annulled in 2011, is back on the current government’s discussion agenda.

In the alliance supporting the current center-right president Luis Lacalle Pou is a member of the far-right – ex-general Guido Manini Ríos, from the Cabildo Abierto party. He is behind the proposal to re-implement an amnesty law.

Mujica was part of the Tupamaros during the dictatorship, when he was imprisoned for 12 years, along with two other guerrilla fighters. His story was told in the book “Memoirs of the Dungeon” and in the film “A Night of 12 Years,” directed by Alvaro Brechner and released in 2018.