Bolivian authorities on Saturday announced the arrest of an Argentine ex-military officer wanted for human rights violations committed during his country's "Dirty War" in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bolivian Interior Minister Wilfredo Chavez said the suspect, Luis Enrique Baraldini, would be extradited within hours to his native Argentina, which had offered a reward of some $23,000 for information leading to his arrest.

Chavez presented a handcuffed Baraldini at a press conference in La Paz, saying the former officer "was a member of the epoch of dictatorship in Argentina and has therefore been charged in that country."

He added that Baraldini had been detained in Santa Cruz, some 900 kilometers (560 miles) east of the Bolivian capital, where he allegedly lived under a false name for several years.

Argentina's Ministry of Justice and Human Rights had put a wanted poster for Baraldini on its website, with his picture and the reward offer.

It linked him to human rights violations committed under former general Guillermo Suarez Mason, accused of ordering the killing of thousands of alleged dissidents during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

An estimated 30,000 people died in Argentina's "Dirty War," the dictatorship's brutal campaign against mostly leftist dissidents, according to rights groups.

Those targeted in the campaign are popularly known as the "disappeared" because many were taken to detention centers where they were tortured and executed without their families knowing their exact whereabouts.

In recent years Argentina and other Latin American countries have put several former military officers and senior officials on trial for crimes committed during similar crackdowns in the 1970s and 1980s.