Argentina's 'blonde angel of death' is jailed

Alfredo Astiz was sentenced along with 11 other death squad members who stood trial over crimes committed against dissidents during the so-called 'Dirty War'.

Marking the end of a 22-month trial in which 79 survivors gave evidence, 12 defendants were sentenced to life while four others were given between 18 and 25 years in jail.

Astiz, nicknamed for his cherubic looks, infiltrated human rights groups whose members were later kidnapped and was convicted in absentia in Europe of killing two French nuns held at the ESMA Naval Mechanics School where thousands of dissidents were held and killed.

In a magazine interview in 1998 he boasted of his dictatorship-era crimes, saying he was "the best-trained man in Argentina to kill journalists and politicians".

"I'm not sorry for anything," Astiz said.

As the men were handed their sentences in the packed Buenos Aires courtroom, hundreds of people gathered on the street outside, some holding up photographs of their victims.

The crowd applauded after each prison term was read out.

"We can finally be at peace, knowing that justice has been done," a woman in the crowd told local television.

Other defendants included Jorge Acosta, known as 'The Tiger', who said during the two-year trial that "human rights violations are unavoidable during a war".

Only about 200 people are known to have survived from the estimated 5,000 prisoners held in the ESMA.

Many of the rest were drugged and dumped out of airplanes into the nearby River Plate in a gruesome weekly ritual.

Death squads drove up to ESMA - the best known of hundreds of clandestine prisons used by the dictatorship - in daylight and unloaded blindfolded prisoners from their car boots.

Human rights groups say Argentina's military government killed up to 30,000 people during the six-year dictatorship.