Operation Condor Trial To Finally End in Italy After 9 Years

The highly-anticipated sentencing in a 9-year-old trial are finally expected to be announced Tuesday in Rome as 28 military officers from Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile and Peru have been found guilty of human rights abuses and forced disappearances of Italian nationals during the 1970s and 1980s.

The investigation, opened by Italian attorney Giancarlo Capaldo initially included 140 people accused of human rights abuses, but the list was eventually downsized to 28, as most of them had died or were found too old to be tried, reported EFE.

The prosecutor asked for life sentences for 27 of the officers, and the acquittal of Ricardo Eliseo Chavez Dominguez because he was found innocent during the trial.

The deadly multi-state Operation Condor intelligence operation was designed to destroy opposition to U.S.-backed right-wing regimes in Latin America.

Plan Condor operations are thought to have led to the death or disappearance of 50,000 people throughout Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s.