A former Argentine military dictator, Jorge Videla, was Wednesday sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity including the torture and murder of dissidents, a court here ruled. Videla, an 85-year-old former army general who ran Argentina between 1976 and 1981, was one of 30 people put on trial for atrocities carried out in that period.
He accepted responsibility for his actions during the regime's infamous "dirty war" against "subversives," but defiantly told the court he was a political prisoner who had been unjustly convicted. Videla was ordered incarcerated for the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary under civilian, not military, rules. Videla came to power at the head of a military junta following the 1976 coup that toppled the government of Isabel Peron.