Uruguay on Monday moved to prosecute for the first time an active-duty military man for an alleged crime from the 1973-1985 military dictatorship.
Criminal court judge Rolando Vomero ordered General Miguel Dalmao jailed pending trial along with retired colonel Jose Chialanza, a Supreme Court statement said.
They are accused of aggravated homicide in the case of a young woman Nibia Sabalsagaray, a communist activist, who in June 1974 was detained at their unit; Dalmao at the time was in charge of its "antisubversive" work.
The official story at the time was that Sabalsagaray hanged herself in her cell. But prosecutors now say she died of injuries sustained while she was being tortured during her interrogation.
The cases are important in this South American country, which along with Argentina and others, had military regimes late in the Cold War era that grossly abused authority, with impunity that has strained their democracies.
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