Condor plan condemns Italy, source of controversy in Uruguay

Italy has sentenced 24 soldiers involved in the Condor plan to "life imprisonment", including 13 Uruguayans for crimes against Italian citizens in different countries of South America during the 1970s.

For Uruguay, the judgment sheds light on the events that took place under the military dictatorship and does justice, because unlike Argentina, there have not been the same trials for crimes against humanity due to a law of expiry.

Although the second historical instance This only has practical consequences for two of the 13 convicts. It is Pedro Mato, who has a warrant for arrest and Jorge Néstor Tróccoli, the only one who resides in Italy. The others are imprisoned in Uruguay because of various trials with which the victims of the dictatorship managed to circumvent the legal barrier.

However, the conviction brought the criticism of the former Foreign Minister and current Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, who accused the government of not appealing first instance decisions as it should.

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Miguel Ángel TomaThe secretary of the Presidency of the Republic replied that the government had done what he had to do and that he had in his possession valid and relevant information to convict the accused.

The journalist Roger Rodríguez, who testified during the trials, emphasized the relevance of these sentences. In Uruguay, he says, there are few responsible prisoners and "not all are convicted". "That's why these tests were conducted in Italy."

All convicts are charged with the crime of willful homicide and must also pay the costs of the lawsuit and a series of compensation to relatives and badociations who accuse him, such as the Uruguayan Frente Amplio.

This process began with the denunciation, exactly twenty years ago, in Italy, in 1999, of some relatives of the missing, one year after the arrest of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet after the investigation of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón.

The verdict is "a great victory for justice," said lawyer Alicia Mejía, who represents relatives of Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, a member of the Central Council of the Communist Party of Chile and who died in 1976.

A great victory of justice, a great victory of the office of the prosecutor of Rome who followed this process, a great victory of the civil parties who can today calmly cry their dead.

The Deputy Minister of Justice and Fundamental Rights of Bolivia, Diego Ernesto Jimenez Guachalla, applauded the decision and declared that "it is a symbolic message for the new generations that we must build the memory, that those who have committed such crimes will not be left in the dark. "