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MONTEVIDEO — Uruguay's last dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for 37 homicides during the nation's 1973-1985 military regime, when dissidents disappeared in a region-wide crackdown on leftists called "Operation Condor."
Alvarez, 83, was commander-in-chief of the army in 1978-1979 and de facto president from late 1980 until shortly before democracy was restored. He was accused in the disappearance of dozens of Uruguayan political prisoners seized in neighboring Argentina and secretly returned home as part of an operation that saw South America's right-wing regimes cooperate to crush dissent.
Prosecution lawyer Oscar Lopez Goldaracena called Thursday's ruling "a very important step in clarifying" Uruguay's past. He said the defense can still appeal the ruling.
Alvarez — who has said he knew nothing of illegal abductions and forced disappearances — was detained by Uruguayan authorities in 2007, in a step human rights groups hailed as historic.
Prosecutors argued that Alvarez was in a position to know what happened to the political prisoners as army commander in chief and later as de facto president.
Alvarez was not in court Thursday for health reasons. In an earlier appearance, he raised his cuffed hands and told the court he thought he "was going to die in prison."
Alvarez's wife, Rosario Flores, protested the sentence, charging it was orchestrated for political purposes ahead of Sunday's presidential election.
"I want to know what proof they have and where are the bodies?" she told The Associated Press.
The judge also sentenced navy Capt. Juan Larcebeau to 20 years in prison for 29 homicides related to clandestine prisoner transfers in 1978.
About 150 Uruguayans disappeared in the secret flights from Argentina in the late 1970s and an additional 29 people went missing in Uruguay, according to a commission of families of the detained and missing. U.S. intelligence services provided secret help in "Operation Condor."
Current President Tabare Vazquez has made human rights prosecutions a priority, and emboldened courts have detained a number of suspects in recent years. Among them are Alvarez and Juan Maria Bordaberry, the first chief of the military-dominated government.
