Argentinian junta torturer sentenced to 15 years in prison

Mario Sandoval, 69, was convicted by a court in Buenos Aires of involvement in the 1976 kidnapping and killing of Hernán Abriata, a 24-year-old student activist with the Peronist University Youth (JUP).

Six trials have now taken place over crimes committed during Argentina’s military rule from 1976 to 1983, commonly described in the country as “the last civil-military dictatorship”, Página 12 reports.

Mr Sandoval worked in the notorious ESMA torture centre, where thousands of so-called “subversives” were killed during the US-backed junta’s war on socialists and their perceived sympathisers.

After the collapse of the military dictatorship in the mid-1980s, Mr Sandoval moved to France, where he obtained citizenship and became a university professor lecturing in economic intelligence.

He was denounced by one of his students, whose parents were Argentine exiles in France, and an international arrest warrant was issued in 2012. He was extradited from France in 2019.

Mr Sandoval denied involvement in Mr Abriata’s murder and refused to provide information on the whereabouts of his remains, which have never been recovered.