Zelmar Michelini
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Zelmar Michelini (Montevideo, May 20, 1924 - Buenos Aires, May 20, 1976) was a Uruguayan reporter and politician, murdered in Buenos Aires in 1976 in the frame of Operation Condor.
Zelmar Michelini was member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1954 to 1958, and then of the Chamber of Senators starting in 1966. he was Minister of the Industry under Óscar Diego Gestido's presidency (Colorado Party), before renouncing in 1970 because of disagreements with the government's policies. At that time he left the conservative Colorado party to become a member of the Christian Democrat party of Uruguay. Alongside other left-wing parties (Communist and Socialist Party and others independent left-wing groups), he participated in the foundation of the Frente Amplio coalition ("Broad Front") in 1971.
Reporter in the newspaper Acción, he also founded in the 1960s the weekly Hechos. Zelmar Michelini became again senator in 1971, as a member of the Frente Amplio. However, he had to exiled himself to Buenos Aires after the 1973 coup d'Etat, and started denouncing the human rights violations committed by Bordaberry's dictatorship.
Zelmar Michelini was kidnapped on May 18, 1976 in Buenos Aires by a paramilitary group. His corpse was discovered on May 20, 1976, alongside Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, Rosario del Carmen Barredo and William Whitelaw.
Judge Roberto Timbal put under preventive detention former dictator Bordaberry and former Chancellor Juan Carlos Blanco on November 16, 2006, for being the organizers of these murders. Uruguayan police officer Hugo Campos Hermida has also been suspected of being responsible of this assassination [1].
