Gavazzo, symbol of the terror of the Uruguayan dictatorship, has died | He was responsible for the kidnapping of Juan Gelman’s daughter-in-law

The Uruguayan repressor José Nino Gavazzo, the most convicted soldier for homicides in his country’s history and kidnapper of Juan Gelman’s daughter-in-law, died Friday evening at the military hospital in Montevideo, where he had been transferred from his house arrest after suffering a stroke. Gavazzo, 81, had been hospitalized for more than a week in serious condition.

The retired soldier was convicted with other repressors for 28 particularly aggravated homicides and for the kidnapping and disappearance of Argentina María Claudia García Irureta Goyena de Gelman, mother of Macarena Gelman and daughter-in-law of the poet Juan Gelman , during the Uruguayan Dictatorship which extended between 1973 and 1985. Macarena was able to reunite with her grandfather in 2000.

In September last year, the Uruguayan Supreme Court of Justice upheld the conviction of Gavazzo and four other soldiers for the murder of García Irureta Goyena de Gelman, who was pregnant when she was kidnapped in Buenos Aires and then transferred to Montevideo. With the court ruling, the 30-year prison sentence for the four defendants was final.

In addition, a court in Rome sentenced 27 Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Uruguayan military and leaders to life imprisonment in July 2019, including Gavazzo, accused of the death and disappearance of some 20 Italians in connection with of the Condor plan, which coordinated the repression in the Southern Cone.

During the dictatorship, Gavazzo acted in Division I of the army and in the Organ for the Coordination of Anti-Subversive Operations (OCOA) until in 1976 he became head of the Department of Information and Information Service. Defense (SID), which developed intelligence and law enforcement operations against adversaries.

With other soldiers, he led the repressive actions defined in the framework of the Condor Plan. According to the Uruguayan newspaper The Daily, during his incarceration, he enjoyed the privileges of military prisons until 2015, a judge granted him house arrest, a regime in which he remained until his death.

He has been found guilty of more than 30 very aggravated homicide crimes committed during the dictatorship, 28 of them associated with the Condor Plan surveys. In addition to homicides, his responsibility for 197 missing who left the dictatorship in Uruguay.