Argentina tries alleged 'death flights' pilots

The "death flights" were among the more macabre innovations of the dictatorship.

The military planes that flew out over the wide Rio de la Plata and back returned with many of their passengers missing. These passengers were political prisoners who were drugged to sleep and thrown alive into the sea.

A group of pilots who allegedly flew the missions are among the 68 suspects who went on trial Wednesday, charged with participating in hundreds of kidnappings, tortures and murders inside Argentina's Naval Mechanics School (Esma).

Tens of thousands of Argentines were kidnapped and killed by the military junta during their years in power.

The deadliest of the regime's secret detention camps was the Naval School of Mechanics in the capital Buenos Aires.

About 5,000 people were sent to the grandiose three-storey stone building in an upmarket northern suburb and very few survived their time in cells in the basement and attic. The bodies of many have never been recovered.

For the first time in Argentina, the pilots of those "death flights" are on trial.

Among the defendants are Alfredo Astiz, known as the Blond Angel of Death, and eight former "death flight" pilots.

Another was former naval lieutenant Julio Poch, who was extradited to Argentina from Spain in 2010 after allegedly confessing to the part he played to colleagues at the Dutch airline Transavia.

Another defendant, former naval captain Emir Sisul Hess, allegedly told relatives of the dead how sleeping victims "fell like little ants" from his plane.

The trial is part of a continuing series of actions against Argentine officers and other officials associated with the military dictatorship.

Legal action began once democracy returned to Argentina in 1983, but President Raul Alfonsin brought an end to the trials in 1986, arguing the country needed to look to the future and not the past.

Three laws granting amnesty for crimes committed during the Dirty War were passed in 1986 and 1987 and were overturned in 2003.

Since then, a number of high-profile figures from the regime have been convicted, including the de facto presidents Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone.

About 250 convictions have been secured, including Alfredo Astiz, who last year was given a life sentence for the part he played in infiltrating left-wing groups and betraying their members to the regime.