[JURIST] Former Argentinean military officer Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro [Desaparecidos profile] has been sentenced [press release] in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to six months in jail for one count of visa fraud, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] said Monday. According to ICE, he will likely be deported to Argentina when his US sentence is complete, where he faces charges of torture, kidnapping, and murder for his role in Argentina's 1976-83 Dirty War [Global Security backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. If convicted of those charges, he faces up to life in prison.

Barreiro was arrested [JURIST report] in April for violating US immigration laws, along with two former Peruvian military officials, Telmo Ricardo Hurtado and Juan Manuel Rivera-Rondon. All three are suspected of war atrocities in their home countries, with Barreiro being accused of having served as the chief interrogator at La Perla [IPS report], a clandestine prison, where thousands of suspected dissidents and government opponents were tortured and killed. Reuters has more.