July 9, 2026 / 8:06 AM EDT
/ CBS/AFP
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An Argentine court convicted a senior former naval officer on Wednesday over the 2017 implosion of a submarine in the South Atlantic in which all 44 crew members died. The wreck of the ARA San Juan was the Argentine navy's deadliest disaster in peacetime. Claudio Villamide, commander of the submarine force at the time of the tragedy, was given a three-year suspended sentence for aggravated negligence and breach of duties. The federal court in the southern province of Santa Cruz also barred him from holding public office for six years. Three other former naval chiefs were acquitted.
Former Navy commander Claudio Javier Villamide, former chief of the Submarine Force Command, arrives alongside his lawyer Magali Crespos for the sentencing hearing in the trial over the 2017 sinking of the ARA San Juan submarine in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz province, Argentina, on July 8, 2026.
