Buenos Aires, December 18 (NA) – Justice upheld the life sentence for former gendarme Eduardo Abelardo Ríos for the murder of Blessed Wenceslao Pedernera and other crimes against humanity committed in the province of La Rioja.
The III Chamber of the Federal Cassation Court rejected the appeal filed by the perpetrator's defense and confirmed the ruling issued by the La Rioja Federal Court.
Judge Alejandro Slokar stated that the acts constituted a “genocide” and emphasized that the persecution by the power was aimed at the Rioja diocese.
The ruling also considers the raids, illegal arrests, rapes of women and girls, and the torture committed during the last civic-military dictatorship.
The victim, a member of the pastoral promoted by martyr Bishop Enrique Angelelli, was murdered on July 25, 1976, while his loved ones were kidnapped and interrogated during the National Reorganization Process, which overthrew then-President María Estela Martínez de Perón and ended on December 10, 1983, with the assumption of Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín.
