A court in Paris ruled in favor of extraditing a former Argentine federal police officer wanted for alleged crimes against humanity during the South American country’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship.  He still has five days to lodge an appeal to a higher court.

Prosecutors accuse Mario Alfredo Sandoval of more than 600 human rights violations in Argentina at a secret prison where the government tortured and killed so-called “subversive elements” – Leftists, intellectuals, or anyone whom the junta assumed would be against it.  Some 30,000 people were “disappeared” into the secret prisons.

Sandoval denies the charges.  He fled Argentina when the junta fell in 1983, and eventually wound up in France, where he gained citizenship in 1997.   Sandoval currently works as a “consultant”.

Argentine prosecutor Sophie Thonon-Westfreid is urging France to keep an eye on Sandoval, lest he go into hiding before he can be extradited.  She’s also asking lawmakers in Paris to ratify an extradition treaty that would have allowed the case to move more quickly.