Argentina has arrested an accused torturer under the 1976-1983 military dictatorship who is blamed for some 600 cases of torture and homicide, including prisoners thrown alive from planes, a court source told AFP Tuesday.
Carlos Galian, 64 — also known by the alias Pedro Bolita — "has been accused of human rights violations while he worked at the Naval Mechanics School, between 1976-1978, against at least 600 people," a court source said, speaking privately.
About 5,000 regime opponents went through the school, essentially a killing field, and just about 100 are known to have survived.
Galian was linked to the "death flights" on which opponents, real or perceived, of the military government were tossed out of planes into the Rio de la Plata or Atlantic Ocean.
About 30,000 people went missing after being arrested during the right-wing military regime that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, according to human rights organizations.
Many of those abducted were accused of being leftist sympathizers or deemed subversive by the regime. They were sent to torture centers then murdered and their bodies disposed of in mass graves.
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