PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS CONVERTED 4:3 MATERIAL Alfredo Astiz gained notoriety as the Blond Angel of Death during Argentina's Dirty War. Now he's one of 12 former death squad members starting life terms after one of the nation's biggest human rights abuse trials. Some 5,000 dissidents were tortured at the ESMA Naval Mechanics School between 1976 and 1983. Few survived. Ricardo Coquet is one of those few. SOUNDBITE: Ricardo Coquet, ESMA survivor, saying (Spanish): "We resisted. We never committed any crime. That's why this is just. They committed crimes and now they are imprisoned. Here's to life and liberty." Genevieve Jeanningros is the niece of a French nun thrown to her death from an aircraft. She was among relatives of the victims outside the courtroom in Buenos Aires when the sentences were handed down. SOUNDBITE: Genevieve Jeanningros, niece of French nun Leonie Duquet, saying (French): "All that suffering, all those dead, and there have been many...I have found magnificent people, very committed to the rights of man, and I think that is what has been born of this suffering." Human rights groups say up to 30,000 people were killed by Argentina's military government during six years of dictatorship. They are commemorated in monuments to those dark days. Astiz, the Blond Angel of Death, was previously convicted of abuses but later released under an amnesty that was subsequently overturned. Now he's among those finally paying the price for the atrocities. Paul Chapman, Reuters
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