URUGUAY-DDHH – TELAM Agency
Former Uruguayan soldier Armando Méndez, guilty of the murders and torture of Argentine Gerardo Alter and Uruguayan Walter Arteche during the military dictatorship in the neighboring country (1973-1985) and later an official of the democratic government of Luis Lacalle Herrera, died yesterday at 73 years while serving house arrest.
Méndez, who was sentenced by the Uruguayan authorities to 24 years in prison on December 5 for a crime of “very particularly aggravated homicide as a co-perpetrator”, had been under house arrest for nine days, the Montevidean newspaper El Observador published. .
Alter, an Argentine who was a member of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros, was arrested in Montevideo along with the Uruguayans Jorge Selves and Walter Arteche in August 1973.
Alter and Arteche died the same day they were arrested after being beaten and tortured with an electric prod, according to data obtained from investigations into the Plan Condor project, an agreement between the dictatorships in the region to persecute, imprison, and assassinate political militants and guerrillas. in their territories, regardless of their nationality.
The former military man was a member of the Anti-subversive Operations Coordinating Body (OCOA) during the dictatorship, a body accused of torture and other types of crimes, and after the return of democracy he was director of Customs in the government of Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera (1991- 1995), father of the current president Luis Lacalle Pou, pointed out Europa Press.
Although on September 21, 2021, the Uruguayan Ministry of National Defense classified the documents referring to Méndez as confidential information for 15 years, the Justice processed it a month later.
Source: Ambito
