Former dictator Galtieri arrested in Argentina

GENERAL Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentina's de facto president during the 1976-83 dictatorship, has been arrested on the orders of a judge prosecuting human rights abuses of that era.

Galtieri is being held at a military jail after a warrant was issued for his arrest, accusing him of taking part in the abduction, torture and execution of some 20 leftist guerrillas and other dissidents.

The 72-year-old general, who led Argentina to war with Britain over the Falkland Islands in 1982, was the third of four presidents to serve during the military’s rule. He was picked up at his suburban Buenos Aires home and driven under heavy guard to the jail on the city’s outskirts.

Federal Judge Claudio Bonadio also ordered the arrest of 42 other former military and state security officials, including General Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason and former army chief General Cristino Nicolaides.

Both men presided over military battalions accused of widespread atrocities during the seven-year dictatorship.

Galtieri’s arrest revived public scrutiny of a dark chapter in which some 9,000 leftist dissidents were officially reported as killed or missing after a systematic state crackdown. Human rights groups put the toll at up to 30,000.

Galtieri was appointed president in November, 1981, and eight months later ordered Argentine troops to invade the Falkland Islands in a bid to reclaim the British colony in the South Atlantic Ocean, which Argentina claims it inherited from the Spanish crown.

The two countries fought a 78-day war during which more than 700 Argentinians and 255 British troops were killed. Argentina’s swift defeat hastened the fall of the military dictatorship and the restoration of democracy.