Argentine ex-generals guilty of 'dirty war' deaths

A pair of octogenarian ex-generals who served during Argentina's "dirty war" against internal dissent were sentenced to life in prison Thursday after defiantly declaring they were innocent of the murder charges on which they were convicted, reports The Times' Patrick J. McDonnell.

"I am being pursued politically by those defeated in yesterday's war," white-haired ex-Gen. Antonio Domingo Bussi, 82, testified before being sentenced in the northern province of Tucuman.

Also sentenced by the same three-judge panel was Bussi's former boss, former Gen. Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 81, who testified that he had done what was necessary to confront "international communism."

Human rights advocates called for the pair to be sent to prison, but Bussi was immediately returned to house arrest at his residence in an exclusive gated community. Menendez was dispatched to military custody.

The pair were convicted of murder and related charges in connection with the disappearance of provincial Sen. Guillermo Vargas Aignasse. He vanished after being arrested March 24, 1976, the day of Argentina's last military coup.

The military takeover kicked off Argentina's 1976-83 dirty war against suspected leftists, which resulted in as many as 30,000 killings, according to human rights activists. Many bodies have never been found.

Read more about the post-war trial in Argentina here.

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-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photos: At top, Argentine former Gen. Antonio Bussi, right, reads his speech next to his lawyer and his military chief, Gen. Luciano Benjamin Menendez, left, during the last hearing of their trial. Above at right, relatives of people who disappeared during Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship hold placards with images of their missing kin in court in San Miguel de Tucuman, in the northern province of Tucuman. Credit: Jorge Olmos Sgrosso / AFP/Getty Images