Portal:Criminal justice/Selected biography/9
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Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz (b. 1929) was a senior Argentine police officer, who worked in the Buenos Aires Provincial Police during the first years of the military dictatorship known as the National Reorganization Process. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006, on charges of homicide, illegal deprivation of freedom (kidnapping), and torture. The tribunal, besides passing the sentence, stated that Etchecolatz's crimes were "crimes against humanity in the context of the genocide that took place in Argentina". The term "genocide" was thus employed for the first time in the official treatment of "Dirty War" crimes, as requested by the accusers. The "Dirty War" was a series of the atrocities committed under the military dictatorship of Argentina during 1976 to 1983. The dictatorship began with a coup d'état against President Isabel Peron followed by the accession of a military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Videla. During military rule, thousands of political dissidents were either killed or went into "forced disappearance".
