MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Junta pardons 'unconstitutional'

A federal appeals court yesterday overturned pardons for former dictators Jorge Videla and Eduardo Massera, saying they must return to prison to serve their life terms for crimes against humanity

The two â€" under house arrest on baby theft â€" were leading members of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship that killed or made to disappear up to 30,000 people. Sentenced to life in 1985 following the return to democracy, they were granted pardons five years later by then president Carlos Menem, who freed them from a military prison in what he called "a gesture of national reconciliation." Yesterday's ruling by the Buenos Aires City Federal Appeals Court ruled the pardons unconstitutional. It is likely to be appealed. The pardons had also benefited convicted military chiefs Orlando Agosti, Roberto Viola and Armando Lambruschini, who have since died. Videla was found guilty of 66 homicides, the torture of 93 other people and the illegal confinement of more than 300. Massera was convicted of three murders, the torture of 12 people and the illegal confinement of 69 dissidents. Menem's decrees â€" which he said would ''close a sad and black chapter of Argentine history'' â€" prompted widespread protests at the time. The federal appeals court yesterday said that those decrees clash with international treaties whereby Argentina must investigate and punish human rights abuses. President Néstor Kirchner's government has reopened hundreds of human rights cases since a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that struck down 1980s laws granting blanket amnesty to people involved in repression. Videla, 81, is under house arrest in other cases. On Tuesday, an Argentine court denied his extradition to Germany for prosecution in the 1977 killing of a German activist. Spain also seeks his and Massera's extradition. After a stroke in 2002, Massera won a court ruling that he was mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of kidnapping babies born to jailed dissidents. Yesterday's ruling has ''little practical relevance because these are people already being prosecuted or who have been detained in other investigations,'' said Argentine rights activist Horacio Verbitsky. Gregorio Badeni, a constitutional law expert, said the court likely overreached in striking down pardons, which only the president is allowed to grant. In 1976 the military overthrew president Isabel Perón. Videla was de facto president until 1981. The military surrendered power to an elected civilian government in December 1983 after the country's disastrous defeat at the hands of Britain in the war over the Falkland/Malvinas islands. Buenos Aires Herald