Argentina

Baby-Stealing Dictators Sentenced

Used kidnappings against political prisoners.

Two former Argentine dictators were sentenced Thursday after being convicted of stealing babies during the country’s “Dirty War" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Jorge Rafael Videla, who ruled from 1976 to 1981, received 50 years in prison, while General Reynaldo Benito Bignone, who was in power from 1982 until 1983, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The two had been accused of systematically stealing babies from political prisoners and giving them new identities, and were specifically on trial for stealing 34 children. Videla claimed that while children may have been kidnapped, there was never any order to do so.