AFP, BUENOS AIRES
An Argentine court on Wednesday convicted a former naval officer over the 2017 implosion of a submarine in the South Atlantic in which all 44 crew members perished.The wreck of the ARA San Juan was the Argentine Navy’s deadliest disaster in peacetime.Claudio Javier 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.
Workers stand near the ARA San Juan submarine during a ceremony marking the completion of repairs to the vessel at the Argentine Industrial Naval Complex in Buenos Aires on Sept. 27, 2011.
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.
The San Juan went missing on Nov. 15, 2017, a week after it set off from Ushuaia on Argentina’s southern tip for its home port at Mar del Plata naval base.
