LA PLATA, Argentina (AP) — A Catholic priest accused in a series of deaths and kid­nap­pings dur­ing Argentina’s Dirty War was con­victed and sen­tenced to life in prison Tuesday

For­mer police chap­lain Chris­t­ian von Wer­nich was found guilty of being a “co-participant” with police in seven homi­cides, 31 tor­ture cases and 42 kid­nap­pings, end­ing a trial that has focused atten­tion on the church dur­ing the 1976–83 mil­i­tary rule.

Hun­dreds of peo­ple beat drums and set off fire­works out­side the fed­eral cour­t­house after the ver­dict was announced. Dozens of spec­ta­tors cheered inside the packed court­room includ­ing head­scarved mem­bers of rights group the Moth­ers of the Plaza de Mayo, who for the last 30 years have been seek­ing to learn the fate of sons and daugh­ters who dis­ap­peared dur­ing a crack­down on dissent.

“At last, at last! My God, it’s a con­vic­tion!” said Tati Almeyda, of the Moth­ers of the Plaza de Mayo. “We never thought we’d see this day. Jus­tice has been served.”

Von Wer­nich ear­lier in the day pro­fessed his inno­cence: “False tes­ti­mony is of the devil because he is respon­si­ble for mal­ice and is the father of evil and lies.”

On Mon­day a pros­e­cu­tor rec­om­mended a life prison sen­tence for von Wer­nich, 69, say­ing the priest had been linked by sur­vivors to at least five clan­des­tine deten­tion camps in Buenos Aires province.

“Do peo­ple really under­stand what a clan­des­tine tor­ture cen­ter was? Do peo­ple know all the ter­ror that went on in those places?” pros­e­cu­tor Car­los Dulau said.

Dur­ing months of trial, more than 70 wit­nesses tes­ti­fied and judges toured for­mer tor­ture cen­ters at police sta­tions with sur­vivors. The dirty war offi­cially left some 13,000 dead or miss­ing, although human rights groups have put the toll at nearly 30,000.

Defense lawyer Juan Mar­tin Cerolini argued Tues­day that von Wer­nich as a priest was obliged to visit police deten­tion cen­ters as part of his duties. But Cerolini insisted that role did not mean von Wer­nich had any part in a state crackdown.

Cerolini rejected sur­vivor tes­ti­mony sug­gest­ing von Wer­nich — who has worn a bul­let­proof vest over his cler­i­cal col­lar dur­ing the trial — con­spired with police to help extract infor­ma­tion from pris­on­ers sub­ject to tor­ture under the guise of giv­ing them spir­i­tual assistance.

“Von Wer­nich never kid­napped, tor­tured or killed any­one,” Cerolini said. He charged that the trial was unjust and that the gov­ern­ment is fail­ing to pros­e­cute “ter­ror­ist acts” com­mit­ted by for­mer left­ist rebels against state secu­rity forces.

Von Wer­nich said in his last words to the judges that he never vio­lated the priestly pro­hi­bi­tion against reveal­ing infor­ma­tion obtained in the Roman Catholic sacra­ment of confession.

“No priest of the Catholic church ... has ever vio­lated this sacra­ment,” he said.

Argentina’s Catholic Church, which with­held com­ment dur­ing the months of trial, said on its Web site that it was “moved by the pain” brought about by the priest’s con­vic­tion for what con­sti­tuted “seri­ous crimes.”

“We believe the steps taken by the jus­tice sys­tem in clar­i­fy­ing events (of the past) should serve us to renew the forces of all cit­i­zens on the path to rec­on­cil­i­a­tion,” said the state­ment, which urged Argen­tines to put away “hate and rancor.”

The state­ment did not address pub­lic crit­i­cism sur­round­ing the trial that the church failed to vig­or­ously defend human rights dur­ing the dictatorship.

How­ever, defend­ers of the church over the years have rejected such charges, say­ing sev­eral priests and nuns were among those killed dur­ing the junta years.

Activists said they hoped von Wernich’s con­vic­tion would encour­age other courts to move for­ward with pend­ing cases against scores of other for­mer secu­rity agents.

Crit­ics say the dis­ap­pear­ance of a key wit­ness dur­ing last year’s trial of for­mer police chief Miguel Etcheco­latz has had a chill­ing effect on efforts to pros­e­cute those cases. Etcheco­latz was con­victed in Sep­tem­ber 2006 in the same La Plata courthouse.

The tri­als came after the Supreme Court in 2005 annulled a pair of 1980s amnesty laws block­ing pros­e­cu­tion of scores of for­mer state secu­rity agents or their civil­ian allies.