Argentinian ex-policeman Mario Sandoval was put on trial on Wednesday for alleged torture and enforced disappearance of a young activist 46 years ago during the South American country’s last dictatorship.

Sandoval, extradited in 2019 after a long exile in France, is suspected of involvement in the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of hundreds of people during the 1976-83 military dictatorship.

This particular case is about crimes that were apparently committed in 1976 against the then 24-year-old architecture student and left-wing activist Hernan Abriata.

Sandoval, 69, is a former Buenos Aires police inspector who was charged by survivors at the notorious Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), which served as the country’s largest detention and torture facility where 5,000 people were sent before disappearing.

“It’s a very long search for justice, 46 years,” attorney Sol Hourcade told AFP. “The family has identified those responsible for the kidnapping. We hope for a conviction.”

The family hopes that Sandoval will be sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Sandoval fled to France in 1985, two years after the fall of the military junta, and built a new life there as a defense and security adviser.

He even taught at the Institute for Advanced Latin American Studies in Paris.

In 1997 he was granted French nationality, but this did not save him from extradition as he was not French at the time of the alleged crimes.

Sandoval came into court handcuffed and with his face partially covered by a medical mask.

The first part of the trial was devoted to reading the charges against Sandoval, who denies the allegations and has petitioned the French Council of State to prevent his extradition.