Ex-dictator of Uruguay held in ’76 killings
Police have arrested former dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry and his foreign minister in connection with four “dirty war” killings dating to 1976, officials said Friday.
The arrest of Bordaberry, 78, and former Foreign Minister Juan Blanco marked a new chapter in efforts by this small South American country to grapple with the 1973-85 dictatorship and its legacy of disappearances, torture and exile of thousands of political dissidents.
Their arrests were ordered by Judge Roberto Timbal, who is investigating the abductions and killings of two former lawmakers and two leftist rebels in May 1976 that shocked Uruguay as it was in the early throes of the long military dictatorship.
Leftist Sen. Zelmar Michelini and House leader Hector Gutierrez, two lawmakers who fled Uruguay, were seized from their homes in exile in Buenos Aires, and their bullet-riddled bodies were found days later along with those of suspected guerrillas William Whitelaw and Rosario Barredo.
President Tabare Vazquez, Uruguay’s first leftist leader, promised to make human rights a priority when he took office last year.
In May, eight former military and police officials were detained in an inquiry of the slayings of two leftist militants in 1976.
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