US jury finds ex-Argentine officer responsible for massacre

MIAMI (AP) — A jury in Miami has found a former Argentine naval officer responsible for a 1972 massacre of political prisoners in his homeland. It ordered him to pay more than $20 million in damages to relatives of four of the victims. The verdict came Friday against 79-year-old Roberto Guillermo Bravo, who has lived in the United States since 1973. The families filed the civil case against Bravo under a U.S. law that allows judicial action against residents of the United States for acts allegedly committed elsewhere. Bravo and other officers allegedly shot to death 16 unarmed political prisoners and seriously wounded three others at the Trelew military base in Patagonia on Aug. 22, 1972. He contends the deaths occurred during a shootout started by the prisoners as they tried to escape.