Brazil prosecutors: Judge takes first junta case
Source: Associated Press
Brazil prosecutors: Judge takes first junta case
September 1, 2012
Associated Press
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) A Brazilian federal judge has agreed to hold the first trial for alleged crimes by the South American nation's long dictatorship, taking a case charging two former military men of kidnapping leftist opponents of the regime, prosecutors said Friday.
Judge Nair Pimenta de Castro in the Amazon state of Para accepted prosecutors' arguments that because the bodies of victims were never recovered, their kidnapping cases remain open and therefore are not subject to a blanket amnesty law adopted in 1979.
Prosecutors accuse retired army reserve Col. Sebastiao de Moura and retired army reserve Maj. Licio Maciel of kidnappings during the repression of the leftist Araguaia guerrilla movement.
The rural Communist group was crushed by government forces between 1972 and 1975, a period during which 62 of its members were "disappeared."
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