An Argentine judge struck down amnesty laws Tuesday protecting hundreds of soldiers accused of torture, murder and kidnapping during Argentina's military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, potentially paving the way for a wave of trials.
Federal Judge Gabriel Cavallo said in his landmark ruling in Buenos Aires that immunity laws preventing prosecution of all but the highest-ranking officers in the military junta that ruled Argentina during its "dirty war" against suspected left-wing dissidents are unconstitutional because they violate international human rights treaties signed by Argentina.
The ruling immediately applies to 11 former officers in the one case before Cavallo, the 1978 murder-kidnapping of a couple and their 8-month old daughter.
But Argentine legal experts said the verdict could eventually set a precedent for hundreds of other cases related to more than 10,000 dissidents and other citizens who disappeared or were murdered during the "dirty war."
Although leaders of the military junta faced trial and were jailed briefly in the 1980s, a group including about 400 lower ranking officers accused of taking part in abuses staged a series of uprisings in the late 1980s. Called the "Painted Faces" because they covered their faces with boot grease, the rebellious officers forced the incipient democratic government to pass two amnesty laws in 1986 and 1987.
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