Former military officer José Ignacio Saravia Day was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for the false imprisonment of three soldiers during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), one of whom remains missing. 

The conviction comes as part of a trial judging crimes against humanity committed in a police station in La Plata that operated as a detention and torture center in those years.

In addition, former Buenos Aires Province Police officer Pedro Muñoz was handed a 15-year sentence for his role as a secondary participant in crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, child abductions, and forced disappearances also committed at the same police station.

The convictions were celebrated by activists and relatives of the victims who were present at the La Plata criminal court.

The proceedings originally included an additional three former policemen among the defendants: Jorge Antonio Bergés — known as the “dictatorship’s obstetrician” for delivering babies in clandestine detention centers — who died in February, as well as Cecilio Reinaldo Gómez and Néstor Ramón Buzzato, who died before the oral proceedings began.

The kidnapping of the soldiers

In the 1970s, Saravia Day used to be a commander of the Mounted Granaderos, the elite military force in charge of the........

© Buenos Aires Herald