Former Uruguayan President-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry died early Sunday at home, where he was serving a 30-year sentence for killings and disappearances during his country's war against so-called subversives. He was 83. Bordaberry had been suffering from breathing problems and other illnesses before he died.
Elected in 1971, Bordaberry was a wealthy, conservative landholder who cut short his democratic term with a June 27, 1973 auto-coup carried out with military backing. He suspended the constitution, banned political parties, ordered tanks to ring Congress and ruled for three years by decree until his 1976 ouster by generals who went on to lead a right-wing dictatorship until 1985.