Argentine lower house repeals impunity laws

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With marchers demanding justice outside, Argentina's Chamber of Deputies voted late Tuesday night to annul two laws providing immunity from prosecution on atrocities charges for former officials of the 1970s dictatorship.

The legislators declared the Final Stop and Due Obedience laws "null" at 11:34 (0234 GMT on Wednesday) in a congressional session that lasted almost eight hours. Now the nullification bill will be sent to the Senate for its approval.

The thousands of demonstrators in the streets outside got something to cheer about when the lower house voted earlier to approve a government bill incorporating provisions of an international pact on crimes against humanity into the Argentine Constitution.

The measure was the first of three bills that must pass both houses to put an end to the so-called "impunity laws," which were promulgated by the administration of Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989). The head of the governing Peronist party bloc, Jose Maria Diaz Bancalari, called the vote a "historic decision," adding that such an outcome was the wish of President Nestor Kirchner.

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