[NYTr] Chile: Priest & Cohorts Charged in Pinochet-era Death Squad Killings

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

BBC via rick kissell - Sep 1, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6973614.stm

Chile priest charged over deaths

Twelve people in Chile - including a Catholic priest - have been 
charged over death squad killings during the military rule of Augusto 
Pinochet.

It is the first time a Catholic priest has been charged over abuses 
committed during Gen Pinochet's dictatorship.

Luis Jorquera - whose whereabouts are not known - is accused of
covering up the deaths of 28 dissidents.

More than 3,000 people were killed or "disappeared" during military
rule in Chile between 1973 and 1990.

Bodies 'exhumed'

Mr Jorquera was quoted by a newspaper in the Chilean capital of
Santiago as denying his involvement in the operation, known as the
Caravan of Death.

Witnesses say he was involved in exhuming the victims two years after 
they were killed. The corpses were then wrapped in sacks and dumped
from a plane into the sea.

He was a chaplain at a military prison camp set up in Chile's north 
shortly after Gen Pinochet seized power in a coup on 11 September 1973.

The Court of Appeals in Antofagasta, in northern Chile, charged the 12
- also including retired Army Gen Miguel Trincado and Army Maj Armando 
Fernandez Larios - over involvement in the squad.

The Caravan of Death was a military operation that travelled the
country to remove opponents of Pinochet's rule.

It was one of the most notorious cases of human rights violations under 
Gen Pinochet and responsible for 75 summary executions, court documents 
say.

Gen Pinochet - who died on 10 December, 2006 - was accused of fraud as 
well as human rights abuses, but poor health meant he never faced trial.

© BBC MMVII