Six former military and armed forces members, most of whom were part of intelligence branches, were convicted this week of crimes against humanity committed during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Two of them were handed life sentences for crimes committed in the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén in the Patagonia region.

A third will serve 16 years in prison for taking part in 178 kidnappings at the deadly Navy School of Mechanics torture center (ESMA, in Spanish) in Buenos Aires, after spending more than a decade on the run in Brazil.

Former Prefecture intelligence officer Gonzalo “Chispa” Sánchez was handed 16 years and 18 months on Wednesday for being a co-author of 178 kidnappings as part of the systematic repression plan carried out from and at the ESMA in the late 1970s.

He will remain at the prison unit inside the Campo de Mayo military compound, where he is currently under pretrial detention, and where several dictatorship criminals are detained.

Sánchez was a member of the........

© Buenos Aires Herald