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'Blond angel of death' on trial
A former navy captain known as the "blond angel of death" went on trial overnight with 16 other former police and military officers charged with crimes against humanity during Argentina's 1976-1983 "dirty war" against leftists.
Alfredo Astiz, 57, whose nickname came from his cherubic looks when in the 1970s he infiltrated human rights groups whose members were later kidnapped, is charged in the killings of two French nuns, the disappearance of an Argentine journalist and other crimes.
Dozens of people, among them relatives of people who disappeared, waved pictures of the victims.
Astiz could face a sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Astiz and the other men on trial worked in task forces at the Naval Mechanics School, or ESMA, where thousands of dissidents and suspected leftists died or disappeared during the military dictatorship.