Crime & Justice

An official of the dictatorship in Uruguay is sentenced to 10 years in prison

Montevideo, Feb 22 (EFE).- Jorge “El Charleta” Guldenzoph was sentenced to 10 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during Uruguay’s civil-military dictatorship (1973-1985).

The sentence against Guldenzoph, an official of the National Directorate of State Intelligence (DNII) of the Ministry of the Interior during the dictatorship, is dated Feb. 15 and was seen by EFE on Thursday.

Guldenzoph was found responsible for “repeated crimes of deprivation of liberty” and abuse of authority against detainees agravated with “repeated crimes of serious injury,” according to the sentence handed down by 23rd Criminal Court Judge Isaura Tórtora.

The time served since his indictment in July 2020 will be deducted from the 10-year sentence, the text added.

“El Charleta” was a member of the Comunist Youth Union and “acted as an informer, torturer, and sexual abuser during the dictatorship,” according to the website Sitios de Memoria Uruguay, which specializes in crimes against humanity committed as part of the so-called Condor Plan during the country’s dictatorship.

The Condor Plan was a clandestine operation that coordinated the dictatorships of Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile.

According to the website, the court case for which Guldenzoph was convicted originated from a 2011 collective complaint filed by more than 40 victims, and a previous case, filed in 1985, also for torture, was incorporated into it.

For years, he remained unpunished and worked as a private businessman linked, among other groups, to the Unification Church (the religious cult founded by Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon), the website added.

According to the verdict, the victims identified Guldenzoph as a participant in “interrogation using cruel and inhumane treatment, serious injuries, and deprivation of liberty.”

“The accused was part of a systematic and coordinated plan to persecute opponents of the de facto regime; in this context (…) knowing his actions, he caused the deprivation of liberty, the abuse of authority against the detainees, and serious injuries, putting the lives of the victims at risk,” the sentence stated.

The Uruguayan civil-military dictatorship was a period of authoritarian rule that lasted from the coup d’état of June 27, 1973 to March 1, 1985.

According to the Museum of Memory, Uruguay became the country with the most political prisoners per capita in the world, as it is estimated that about 20% of the population was imprisoned during those 12 years and 200 citizens were murdered and an estimated 191 others disappeared. EFE

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