BUENOS AIRES - Former judge Victor Brusa was sentenced Tuesday to 21 years in prison for committing crimes against humanity during the "dirty war" waged by the 1979-1983 military dictatorship, a court official said.

As the first judge to be convicted in the government's crackdown on dirty war criminals, Brusa was found legally responsible in eight crimes during his tenure as judge.

The Federal Court of Santa Fe, 470 kilometers (290 miles) north of Buenos Aires, also sentenced five former police officers to between 19 and 23 years in prison for their role in several cases of kidnapping and torture during the military regime.

As the crimes were committed as part of a systematic plan by military leaders at the time to defeat leftist opponents, the courts deem them all crimes against humanity.

Brusa was re-appointed a judge in Santa Fe after the fall of the military junta, but was sacked in 2000 for hindering an investigation into a hit-and-run accident in which he ran over a swimmer with his motorboat and fled.

He was arrested in 2005 after the government revoked an amnesty law for dirty war crimes, placed under preventive arrest and charged with criminal association and judicial misconduct.

An estimated 30,000 people died in Argentina's dirty war, the dictatorship's brutal campaign against dissidents, according to rights groups.