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Chilean ex-lieutenant faces US trial in murder of singer and activist Víctor Jara
Source: Reuters
Chilean ex-lieutenant faces US trial in murder of singer and activist Víctor Jara
Reuters in Santiago
Thursday 2 June 2016 20.24 BST
A former lieutenant in the Chilean army under Augusto Pinochet will face a civil trial in Florida this month for his involvement in the 1973 murder of Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara, according to the US human rights group bringing the suit.
Jara, also a poet and political activist, inspired generations of artists from U2 to Bruce Springsteen with his lyrical odes to the working class. A communist, he fell afoul of the Chilean government when the leftist president Salvador Allende was overthrown by rightwing Pinochet in a bloody 1973 military coup.
During Pinochet’s rule, which lasted until 1990, an estimated 3,200 people were killed and 28,000 tortured by the state. According to Chilean court documents, Jara was shot dead by soldiers in Santiago’s Estadio Chile, which served as a mass detention and torture center in the early days the military government. His death soon became a potent symbol of the era’s abuses.
A high-ranking official was arrested for his involvement in the murder in 2008, and in 2012 a Chilean judge ordered the arrest of an additional eight soldiers.
But one of those soldiers, Pedro Pablo Barrientos Núñez lives in Deltona, Florida, rather than Chile, and the United States has not acted on Chile’s extradition request.
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Reuters in Santiago
Thursday 2 June 2016 20.24 BST
A former lieutenant in the Chilean army under Augusto Pinochet will face a civil trial in Florida this month for his involvement in the 1973 murder of Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara, according to the US human rights group bringing the suit.
Jara, also a poet and political activist, inspired generations of artists from U2 to Bruce Springsteen with his lyrical odes to the working class. A communist, he fell afoul of the Chilean government when the leftist president Salvador Allende was overthrown by rightwing Pinochet in a bloody 1973 military coup.
During Pinochet’s rule, which lasted until 1990, an estimated 3,200 people were killed and 28,000 tortured by the state. According to Chilean court documents, Jara was shot dead by soldiers in Santiago’s Estadio Chile, which served as a mass detention and torture center in the early days the military government. His death soon became a potent symbol of the era’s abuses.
A high-ranking official was arrested for his involvement in the murder in 2008, and in 2012 a Chilean judge ordered the arrest of an additional eight soldiers.
But one of those soldiers, Pedro Pablo Barrientos Núñez lives in Deltona, Florida, rather than Chile, and the United States has not acted on Chile’s extradition request.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/02/victor-jara-murder-former-chilean-soldier-faces-trial
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