Mario Sandoval
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)An Argentinian court has sentenced a former policeman who worked at a notorious clandestine torture centre during military rule to fifteen years behind bars.
Mario Sandoval, 69, was convicted of abducting and torturing left-wing student Hernán Abriata, who disappeared in 1976 and is presumed dead.
Sandoval has been accused of involvement in the disappearance and torture of other left-wing activists during military rule from 1976 to 1983, reported the BBC.
However, the case only concerned itself with the disappearance of architecture student Hernán Abriata, who was dragged from his home by police.
Sandoval was found guilty of “illegitimate deprivation of liberty" and “torture" of a political prisoner. He participated in the sentencing proceedings from his cell in a military prison.
Mr Abriata was taken by police to the notorious Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), the country’s largest detention and torture facility.
Some 5,000 people were sent there and most were never seen again. Only about 100 people detained in ESMA survived.
Survivors have accused Sandoval of being one of the most active agents at ESMA.
However, he has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and said he was not the man who seized Mr Abriata.
After the fall of the military junta, Sandoval moved to France where he taught for six years as an external lecturer at the Sorbonne, one of France’s top universities.
Sandoval was arrested at his home in the Paris suburbs and was extradited to Argentina after a lengthy legal battle.
Although he gained French nationality in 1997, Argentina successfully obtained Sandoval’s extradition as he was not French at the time of the alleged crimes.
He had unsuccessfully petitioned France’s Council of State in a bid to prevent his extradition. However, France agreed to his extradition to stand trial only in the Abriata case.
