The supreme Court of Cassation on
Thursday upheld a life sentence for former Peruvian dictator
Francisco Morales Bermúdez for the 'disappearance' of several
Italians as part of Operation Condor, the US-backed system of
repression and murder of political opponents in Latin America in
the 970s and '80s.
The high court rejected an appeal against first-instance and
appeals verdicts against Morales Bermúdez, who turned 100 last
October, and former Colonel Martín Felipe Martínez Garay.
A third defendant, former Peruvian secret service chief German
Ruiz Figeroa, died in 2019.
They were all tried in absentia.
Operation Condor was a United States-backed campaign of
political repression and state terror involving intelligence
operations and the assassination of opponents.
It was officially and formally implemented in November 1975 by
the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South
America.
Due to its clandestine nature, the precise number of deaths
directly attributable to Operation Condor is highly disputed.
Some estimates are that at least 60,000 deaths can be attributed
to Condor, roughly 30,000 of these in Argentina, and the
Archives of Terror list 50,000 killed, 30,000 disappeared and
400,000 imprisoned.
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