(Santiago de Chile) The Supreme Court of Chile on Friday confirmed the convictions of 22 former members of the formidable political police of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet for the kidnapping and assassination of 12 people as part of the “operation Condor.”
In the mid-1970s, the military dictatorships of South America, with tacit support from the United States, collaborated to track down and eliminate their left-wing opponents across national borders, as part of “Operation Condor”. “.
Its members were Argentina, Chile, Uruguay – considered the pivots – Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil.
Chile’s highest court has confirmed a previous conviction handed down against these 22 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the sinister political police of the Pinochet regime. She is accused of being responsible for the majority of the approximately 3,200 deaths and disappearances during the dictatorship.
Among those convicted were retired military officers Cristoph Willike, Raul Iturriaga, Juan Morales and Pedro Espinoza, who were sentenced to 40 years in prison for murder and kidnapping. The others received sentences ranging from 3 to 36 years for their participation in the same crimes. Most of them are already serving sentences for other crimes committed during the dictatorship.
The court decision establishes that it was the Pinochet dictatorship which, “formally on November 25, 1975”, during a meeting in Chile, created “a plan for coordination of actions and mutual support between the leaders of the services intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile, aimed at destabilizing opponents of the regimes managed by the armed forces and the forces of law and order”.
In Geneva, Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, welcomed the decision of the Chilean Supreme Court.
“The calculated cruelty of these dictatorships continues to have a profound impact on the families of those who suffered from these serious human rights violations, on societies and on the history of the region,” Mr. Türk in a press release.