Montevideo, July 22 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Uruguayan Senator Lucia Topolansky, wife of former President Jose Mujica, will serve as a witness in the newly reopened case of a disappeared militant from the revolutionary Tupamaros movement in the 1970's, the left-wing politician announced on Tuesday.

The case, once closed due to an amnesty law protecting those responsible for human rights abuses, resumed as Topolanksy brought new evidence to light, case lawyer Martin Fernandez told EFE. Last month, an Uruguayan lawmaker called the law a “national shame” as he sought to have the law repealed.

During the dictatorship in Uruguay that lasted from 1973 to 1985, the military regime repressed political activity and disappeared and tortured many leftist activists, including members of the guerrilla Tupamaros National Liberation Movement, of which Topolansky and her husband Mujica were both members.

Fernandez' father, Eduardo Perez, was also a Tupamaros militant who was disappeared by dictatorship regime forces who died under mysterious circumstancing involving a smoke grenade thrown into his jail cell.

Although Uruguayan legislation on punitive claims against the state, in force since the transition to democracy in 1986, allowed human rights violators from the dictatorship era to be granted amnesty, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission ruled in 2011 for Uruguay to reopen investigations into 1970's crimes against humanity.

Topolansky, a senator of the Popular Participation Movement of the Broad Front leftist government coalition, was detained between 1972 and 1985 for her involvement in revolutionary politics. Uruguay's repression and disappearances of political movements have been seen as part of the U.S.-backed Operation Condor, which saw dictatorships quash rebellious voices and leftist movements throughout the continent.