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Argentine couple sentenced for baby kidnap during military regime

Other News Materials 5 April 2008 04:51 (UTC +04:00)

An Argentine couple was sentenced to years in prison Friday for kidnapping a baby in 1978 born to an opponent of the military dictatorship who was interred in a torture camp. ( dpa )

Osvaldo Riva was sentenced to eight years in jail and his wife, Maria Gomez Pinto, received a seven-year sentence.

The couple falsified a birth certificate and raised the child, Maria Eugenia Barragan, as their own.

Barragan, now 30, filed criminal charges against her "parents" when she learned that her real mother was one of the tens of thousands of victims who disappeared during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

A former military official who allowed the couple to kidnap the baby was also sentenced for his misdeeds.

Through years of detective work and insistence on information, a group called Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Fifth of May Plaza) have tracked down 85 babies kidnapped from their missing adult children and tried to reconnect them with their real families.

It is estimated that hundreds of such cases occurred.

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