A court in Italy has sentenced 24 South American ex-officials to life in prison for illegally detaining, torturing and killing hundreds of opposition activists in the 1970s and 1980s. Among the victims - who were killed as part of Operation Condor, a pact between South American military rulers - more than 20 were Italians.

Twenty-three of the 24 defendants were sentenced in absentia. It is doubtful whether their countries of origin will extradite them; the regime that left records of its crimes; operation Condor: Landmark human rights trial reaches a finale. Nevertheless, relatives of the victims welcomed the sentences handed out by the Court of Appeal in Rome as an acknowledgment of the crimes committed under military rule in Latin America.

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