MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ex-Argentine dictator Galtieri dead

General Leopoldo F. Galtieri, the former Argentine dictator who ordered the invasion of the Falklands Islands, has died the Central Military Hospital has announced.

The invasion, in 1982, touched off a 10-week war with Britain for the disputed islands.

Galtieri, 76, died at 4.15am today of heart failure after being admitted to the Central Military Hospital in Buenos Aires when his condition deteriorated. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Galtieri was the third of the four presidents of the 1976-1983 military junta during which thousands of dissidents and leftists were killed.

Human rights groups say as many as 30,000 were killed or disappeared during period known as Argentina's "dirty war."

Galtieri was appointed president in November 1981.

Six months later, he ordered Argentine troops to invade the Falkland Islands in a bid to reclaim the British territory in the south Atlantic Ocean, which Argentina claims it inherited from the Spanish crown.

He lost his post after the Argentine defeat in June 1982.

All of the former military leaders were imprisoned for human rights abuses three years after the fall of the dictatorship. In 1990, then-President Carlos Menem pardoned them.

Galtieri was arrested last July when a judge ordered the arrest of 42 former military and state security officials for prosecution on human rights abuses.