According to an official statement, the sentences will be announced starting at 5:00 p.m., local time, and both the prosecutor’s office and the Secretariat of Human Rights, which participated as a plaintiff, requested sentences of between four and 25 years for the accused.

The process covers crimes committed in the jurisdiction of the 7th Infantry Brigade, which was quartered in the city of Corrientes and had the territories of Chaco, Formosa, and Misiones, under its responsibility.

Several secret detention centers operated in the region during the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983); one of them was located in the 9th Infantry Regiment.

Among the accused are Eduardo Antonio Cardoso and Alfredo Carlos Farmache, command officers of the 7th Brigade; and Abelardo Carlos De la Vega and Horacio Losito, members of the regiment’s senior staff, who face charges of illicit association, illegitimate deprivation of liberty, application of torture and homicide.

This is the tenth trial for crimes against humanity carried out in the province and the one with the largest number of victims and defendants.

Almost four years passed between the submission to trial and the beginning of the debate. During that time, two defendants died and three others were removed due to health problems, the Secretariat explained.

1,197 genocide perpetrators have been convicted in Argentina since the end of the dictatorship, 40 years ago.

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