A jury in Miami, Florida, Friday unanimously found an ex-Argentine naval officer responsible for the so-called Trelew Massacre of 1972.

According to the 2020 complaint, in 1972, Bravo, along with three other naval officers, woke up 19 political prisoners detained at a Trelew naval base. The officers lined the prisoners up against a wall and “opened fire on the unarmed prisoners,” as a result of which 16 of the prisoners died and the remaining were seriously injured. The three survivors were later kidnapped and killed by the military.

The lawsuit was brought by the families of three people who were killed and that of one of the three survivors of the incident. Bravo, who has been in the US since 1973 and is presently a US citizen, was sued under the Torture Victim Protection Act that allows US residents to be prosecuted for torture and extrajudicial killings committed outside of the US.

As this was a civil lawsuit, Bravo has been ordered to pay more than USD 20 million in damages to the families of the four victims. Bravo is the last of the four officers to be held accountable for his role in the killings as the others were found guilty and sentenced to life in Argentina in 2012.

The plaintiffs seek for Bravo to be extradited to Argentina in order to be tried there.