Montevideo - Uruguay's Supreme Court has struck a critical blow to an amnesty law that gave the military and police immunity for violations of human rights during the 1973-85 dictatorship. The court published its unanimous ruling Monday in the case of Nibia Sabalsagaray, a 24-year-old literature professor and social activist who was kidnapped and taken to a military base before dawn on June 29, 1974.
By mid-day, her family was informed that she had committed suicide, despite ample evidence that she had been savagely tortured.
In 1988, the Supreme Court in a split decision of three votes to two, upheld the constitutionality of the statute of limitations that protected soldiers and police from prosecution for crimes committed during the regime.
In 2004, the victim's sister Estela Sabalsagaray appealed to the government for redress, but then-president Tabare Vazquez decided the following year that the law provided immunity.
Three years later, criminal prosecutor Mirtha Guianze filed a new constitutional challenge to the controversial amnesty law's application to the Sabalsagaray case, which the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
The family's attorney, Juan Errandonea, said the verdict "rings the death knell for the statute of limitations," which will be submitted to a referendum during the October 25 national elections.
He said it would permit "soldiers and officers to be called to testify as suspects - no longer only as witnesses - they may end up implicating one another, the entire range of criminal proceedings that can occur in any other case."
A celebratory demonstration was planned for Tuesday in the centre of Montevideo by human rights groups and other social organizations to urge people to vote in Sunday's referendum.
A simple majority of the plebiscite vote would be needed to fully overturn the statute.
