Italy delays to January the final sentence of Morales Bermúdez tried in absentia by the Condor

The Supreme Court of Italy postponed until January 15 the final sentence against the former dictator of Peru, Francisco Morales Bermúdez, accused of the disappearance of Italians in the Plan Cóndor in 1980, the repressive system of Latin America.

The magistrates of the High Court made this decision while waiting to review the reasons for the sentence that their colleagues from the same court had handed down last July for other defendants, condemning 14 repressors, eleven Uruguayans and three Chileans.

The new hearing was set on January 15, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. GMT), sources close to the trial indicated.

The Supreme Prosecutor’s Office asks that the life sentence ruled for Morales Bermudez in the first and second instance.

Italy began to investigate two decades ago the murder and disappearance of Italian-Latin Americans in the Condor Plan and in 2007 requested the arrest of a total of 146 soldiers from the Boards of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Among these was Morales Bermúdez, who presided over Peru’s military dictatorship between 1975 and 1980, in what is known as the “second phase” of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces, established with the 1968 coup.

The passage of time and the death of many defendants, as well as the lack of permission to proceed from Argentina, notably reduced the list of defendants, although in July the Supreme Court confirmed life sentences for 14 of them, 11 Uruguayans and three Chileans.

All those convicted were convicted without having appeared in Italy, except the Uruguayan Jorge Néstor Troccoli, the only one who lived in Italian territory after escaping from justice in his country and who is serving his life sentence in the Salerno prison (south).

Cases of Morales Bermudez, who turned one hundred years old on October 4, and those of Major General Germán Ruiz Figueroa and Colonel Martín Martínez Garay, were separated from the July sentence to know their current status. This confirmed that Ruiz Figueroa and Martínez Garay had died.