Chile sentences 64 former Pinochet era officers.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald
Chilean judge Hernán Crisosto of the Appeals Court of Santiago sentenced 64 former secret police officers (DINA) to jail time for the detention and disappearance of Washington Cid Urrutia in 1974 during the country’s military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-90). Judge Crisosto sentenced the former spy agents to 13, 10 and four years in jail.
The retired generals César Manríquez Bravo and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, as well as brigadiers Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Pedro Espinoza Bravo were given the highest sentences in this trial of 13 years. All of them are already serving prison terms of over 200 years for dozens of other human rights violations trials. A total of 35 other DINA officers, among them many women, were given ten-year sentences, while 24 others received four-year sentences for being accomplices to the crime. One agent was given a 541-day jail sentence. Crisosto, who is specialized in human rights violations cases, absolved 11 officers.
The 24-year-old was a militant of the revolutionary left movement (MIR) and was captured by DINA officers, together with his wife María Isabel Ortega and Hernán Carrasco Vásquez, on December 8, 1974, in his home in Santiago. The three were taken to a torture and extermination centre in Villa Grimaldi. His name first appeared in a July 1975 list of 119 disappeared Chileans published once in two Chilean newspapers. The article at the time said that the victims had supposedly been killed abroad in internal fighting between MIR members; but it was later revealed to be a cover up.
In 25 years of democracy, there have been 1,149 convictions handed down for dictatorship-era human rights crimes. During Pinochet’s dictatorship, a total of 3,200 citizens were killed by the regime, according to official figures. There are still 1,192 Chileans who are unaccounted for. A total of 33,000 people were kidnapped, detained and tortured due to their political views.
Chile’s military government retained support among conservatives after its downfall, and for years they blocked attempts to deal with the dictatorship's crimes. Pinochet himself died in 2006 without ever being convicted for human rights abuses.
Read more: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/202289/chile-sentences-64-formerpinochet-era-officers-
