The big news from yesterday: Catholic priest Christian von Wernich was sentenced to life in prison for his role in assasinations and tortures during the dictatorship. He was found guilty of involvement ("co-authorship") of 7 murders, 31 cases of torture and 42 kidnappings. It was the first conviction of someone from the Catholic Church in relationship to crimes committed during the military dictatorship and is important demonstration of the Church's complicity in the torture and murder of 30,000 people. (Hugo tells me as I write this that in some masses, priests even blessed the instruments of torture). Von Wernich served as the police chaplain of the Buenos Aires police during the dictatorship and was often present at torture sessions using his role as priest to try to extract "confessions" from torture victims. The Church still denies any official involvment in the acts of state terrorism carried out by the dictatorship, maintaining that some individuals were involved of their own personal accord (umm yeah right).
I watched the sentencing hearing on TV which was intense -- von Wernich's lawyers asked for his absolution and von Wernich himself spoke, quoting the Bible and speaking of "false witnesses". The courtroom was full of family members of victims, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and other human rights activists. At one point the hearing was interupted for a bomb threat. The judge announced the sentence around 7:30 to a display of fireworks (I really good fireworks display which I wonder who organized/paid for?) and the cheers of hundreds of protesters outside. Although in many ways it is too little, too late, it is still good to see that some justice is being carried out. But as one of the prosecution lawyers said -- there are still a lot more trials that need to happen and we are still missing Jorge Julio Lopez.
the story from pagina 12 explains everything better than I could
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