Dictator sentenced to 25 years in prison gets luxurious pension

Curious. A fellow called Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone,who was the last head of the 1976-83 dictatorship in Argentina, has been awarded a fifteen thousand peso pension in spite of having been recently sentenced by the courts to 25 years in prison for 44 kidnappings, 38 cases of tortures, 11 illegal house searches and six cases of robbery--activities coordinated from the Campo de Mayo illegal detention center.He has also been charged with the burning of key military documents containing evidence of the abuses practiced under the de facto military dictatorship.

Although in 2009 the Argentine Congress passed a law (26,475) which deprived authorities of the so-called "Proceso de Reorganización Nacional" from receiving the benefits of office, Judge Alicia Braghini ordered Bignone’s retirement to be restored, according to Página 12 (Nov. 8,2010). Many other representatives of the illegal military government will no doubt now also demand their luxurious retirement benefits, to the dismay of the more than three fourths of retired Argentines whose retirement is barely $1,000 pesos.