சர்வாதிகார அரசாங்கம் பொதுமக்களை கொல்ல உடந்தையாக இருந்த கத்தோலிக்க பாதிரியாருக்கு ஆயுள்தண்டனை

1976 இலிருந்து 1983 வரை அர்ஜண்டைனாவின் சர்வாதிகார ஆட்சிக்கு துணையாக ஆயிரக்கணக்கான மக்களிடமிருந்து ஒப்புதல் வாக்குமூலங்களை வாங்கி அவற்றை அரசாங்கத்துக்கு கொடுத்து அவர்கள் கொல்லப்பட காரணமாக இருந்த ரோமன் கத்தோலிக்க பாதிரியாருக்கு ஆயுள்தண்டனை விதிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.

இவருக்கு ஆயுள்தண்டனை கொடுத்ததும், போப்பாண்டவரின் வாடிகன் உடனே கையை கழுவிவிட்டது.



Priest gets life sentence over Argentina junta killings
1 day ago
LA PLATA, Argentina (AFP) — A Roman Catholic priest who compared himself to Jesus Christ was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday for collaborating in murders, kidnappings and torture during Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

Christian Von Wernich, 69, was chaplain to the Buenos Aires police force. He used this position to obtain confessions from prisoners, which he then passed on to police who tortured them at secret detention centers.

Von Wernich was convicted of complicity in seven murders, 31 cases of torture and 42 abductions in the Buenos Aires region; a mere smattering of the estimated 30,000 disappearances during the military junta's countrywide purge of leftists.

Von Wernich, the first priest sentenced in Argentina for abuses under the military dictatorship, displayed no emotion as he heard his life sentence, sitting behind a thick pane of glass and wearing a bullet-proof jacket.

Testifying earlier in his defense, he compared himself to Jesus Christ "who was put on trial with support from the people, who asked that he be crucified."

He accused the witnesses in his trial -- all survivors of the torture chambers -- of being possessed by the devil.

"The false witness here is the devil, because he is pregnant with malice," he said staring fixedly at his judges on the podium, behind which a huge cross hung from the wall.

His sentence came at the end of a three-month trial in the town of La Plata, 57 kilometers (35 miles) south of Buenos Aires.

Hundreds of people following the trial celebrated the sentence with songs, by setting off fireworks, and by torching an effigy of Von Wernich.

"Justice has been done. This is a historic day we Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo never thought we'd live to see," said Tati Almeyda, a member of the group that for 30 years has been pressing for the identification of the victims of the military repression, many of them close family members.

"That a court has acknowledged that genocide exists in our country is an encouragement for us to carry on and justifies so many years of struggle," Adriana Calvo, of the Association of former Detainees and the Missing told AFP.

The government's Secretary for Human Rights Eduardo Duhalde welcomed the verdict and said: "Now we think it should be followed up with sentences for all those found guilty of illegal repression."

The Catholic Church, in a statement issued immediately after the verdict was announced, said it was stricken with pain at seeing "a priest participating in very serious crimes."

"We believe the steps taken by the justice system in clarifying the facts should help renew every citizen's effort toward reconciliation and serve as a wake up call to put impunity, hatred and bitterness behind us," said Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio who signed the statement.

"If any member of the Church ... by recommendation or complicity, endorsed the violent repression, he did so under his own responsibility, straying from and sinning gravely against God, humanity and his own conscience," he added.