Tucuman: An Argentine court has sentenced to life imprison two of the country's worst oppressors during the "Dirty War".

Former governor Antonio Bussi, 82, and military chief Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 81, were jailed for the kidnapping and disappearance of a former official in 1976.

Bussi and Menendez looked on passively as the sentences were read out in court in the northern province of Tucuman on Thursday.

The two were senior members of the military government that ruled the country during the 1970s and 1980s, when thousands of people were tortured and killed.