Italy's Appeal Court Jails Collaborators 'Operation Condor'

by Oui Tue Jul 9th, 2019 at 10:16:33 AM EST

Will this sentencing stand in Italy's highest court??

○ Processo d'appello contro i responsabili dell'Operazione Condor
○ Operazione Condor, 24 ergastoli a ex capi di Stato e 007 per 23 italiani uccisi

Italian court jails 24 over South American Operation Condor | The Guardian |
Prosecutors in the case drew on the precedent set in 2000 by the arrest in London of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet under the principle of "universal jurisdiction".

Continued below the fold ...

In 2016, Argentina's last military dictator, Reynaldo Bignone, and 16 other former military officials were sentenced to years in prison, marking the first time a court had proved the existence of Operation Condor.

Last April, a newly declassified CIA document showed that European intelligence agencies sought advice from South America's 1970s dictatorships on how to combat leftwing "subversion".
"Representatives of West German, French and British intelligence services had visited the Condor organization secretariat in Buenos Aires during the month of September 1977 in order to discuss methods for establishment of an anti-subversion organization similar to Condor," the document stated.
According to the human rights prosecution office in Buenos Aires, 977 former military officers and collaborators are in jail for crimes relating to Argentina's dictatorship.

○ European spies sought lessons from dictators' brutal 'Operation Condor' | The Guardian - April 2019 |

The release of the documents fulfils a formal request made by Argentina in 2016, on the 40th anniversary of the military coup, during a state visit to Argentina by the then president Barack Obama. This third release marks the end of Declassification Project for Argentina, following the release of two tranches of the documents during Obama's administration.