Former Uruguayan dictator Gregorio Alvarez leaves the court after his trial in Montevideo December 5, 2007. REUTERS/Andres Stapff

MONTEVIDEO (Reuters) - A former Uruguayan dictator was arrested on Monday and charged with secretly transferring political prisoners who later disappeared and are presumed dead, a prosecutor said.

Gregorio Alvarez, a former army general, led Uruguay from 1981 until 1985, when the country returned to democracy after 12 years of military rule.

Alvarez was ordered held at a new prison built to house other former dictatorship-era leaders facing investigations of human rights abuses.

Some 180 Uruguayans were killed during the military's reign, many of them in neighboring Argentina, victims of Plan Condor, a coordinated persecution of leftists and dissidents by the region's military rulers.

Judge Luis Charles charged Alvarez in connection with the 1978 disappearances of several Uruguayan political prisoners detained in Argentina and later transported home where they vanished and are presumed dead.

Alvarez, who was the head of the army at the time, denies the charges.

Uruguay's military dictatorship has faced renewed scrutiny under President Tabare Vazquez, who took office in March 2005 as the country's first leftist leader.

He has led an unprecedented government effort to determine the fate of the victims of the military's campaign to stamp out the Tupamaro guerrilla movement and other suspected dissidents.

Human rights investigators also have been emboldened by a Vazquez decision excluding several prominent cases involving alleged rights abuses beyond Uruguay's borders from amnesty laws.

In November 2006, former President Juan Bordaberry, the first military leader under the dictatorship, and one of his top aides were arrested pending a trial for their role in four 1976 murders of political opponents in Buenos Aires.

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