Uruguay's aging former dictator Juan Bordaberry was rolled into a court house Tuesday hooked up to an oxygen tank to hear a judge sentence him to 30 years in prison.

The 81 year old Bordaberry, Uruguay's dictator from 1973 to 1976, was sentenced in mid-February on charges of subverting the country's constitution and violating human rights.
 

The Tuesday hearing was served as the judge's formal notification of the sentence.
 

A crowd of reporters and photographers gathered at the courthouse was unable to see Bordaberry, who arrived in an ambulance accompanied by several of his adult children.
 

"I saw him on a wheelchair and with a [breathing] tube," said Hebe Martinez Burle, the prosecuting attorney.
 

She told reporters that due to some unexpected locked doors, Bordaberry was unable to reach the courtroom.
 

A court official instead came down to read him the sentence, Bordaberry attorney Gaston Chavez told reporters.
 

"Today, justice was done," Martinez Burle said.
 

The ex-dictator has been under house arrest since 2006 for the 1976 murders of four Uruguayans in neighbouring Argentina.

Appeal
Chavez said his client will appeal the sentence.
 

Bordaberry was elected in 1971 but then dissolved government and headed a 1973 takeover that began a 12 year military dictatorship in the small South American country.

Bordaberry is the second Uruguayan dictator sentenced to a lengthy prison term in the last months.
 

In October 2009 Uruguay's last military dictator, Gregorio Alvarez, 83, was given a 25-year prison sentence for murder and rights violations during his 1981-1985 rule, which was marked by oppression and disappearances.
 

Neighboring Argentina got rid of an amnesty for crimes committed under its own 1976-1983 dictatorship, and Chile is prosecuting around 500 soldiers for crimes against humanity carried out during General Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule.
 

Democracy was restored in Uruguay in 1985.
 

Source: AFP