Argentina began a long-awaited human rights trial [on March 5] focused on Operation Condor, the 1970s conspiracy launched by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to enlist South America's dictators in a combined effort to leave no refuge for their leftist critics. The 25 defendants include former Argentine junta leaders Rafael Videla, 87, and Reynaldo Bignone, 85, both already serving life sentences for multiple human rights violations during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. This time, the charges include criminal association, kidnapping and torture. Also on trial is a former Uruguayan army colonel, Manuel Cordero, who allegedly tortured prisoners inside Automotores Orletti, the Buenos Aires repair shop where many captured leftists were taken to be interrogated under orders from their home countries. More than 400 witnesses are expected to be called in the two-year trial, which involves 106 victims from at least four countries who were killed in Argentina. A key piece of evidence is a declassified FBI agent's cable, sent in 1976, that described in detail the conspiracy to share intelligence and eliminate leftists across South America. The actual conspiracy went further than that: the U.S. government later determined that Chilean agents involved in Condor killed the country's former ambassador Orlando Letelier and his U.S. aide Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C., in September 1976. Operation Condor grew to include the military governments of six countries: Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.