Former Chilean Secret Police Agents Sentenced to Prison
teleSUR | January 8, 2015
A Chilean judge sentenced 23 former agents from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s secret police to prison on Thursday for their role in the forced disappearance of a left-wing activist following the 1972 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende’s government.
Among those sentenced was General Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who was in charge of the notorious National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).
This is only the latest sentence for Contreras, who has been found guilty in numerous other cases of human rights violations. He has been sentenced to serve a total of 400 years for his crimes.
Six of those sentenced today will serve thirteen year terms, while another fifteen will serve ten years. Two others, who played an accomplice role, will serve four years.
Bernando de Castro, who was a member of the President Allende’s Socialist Party of Chile, was disappeared after being arrested by the DINA. The dictatorship deliberately targeted opposition activists.
De Castro was disappeared alongside four others who have yet to be found. Their forced disappearance was part of a cover-up coordinated between the Chile’s secret police forces known as “Operation Colombo.”
As part of the cover-up, magazines sympathetic to the dictatorship published articles claiming that 119 political prisoners had been killed in “internal purges” of the Revolutionary Left Movement, which had launched an armed struggle against the Pinochet dictatorship.
The Justice system in Chile has been working to process claims by victims of the dictatorship, however only 10 percent of Pinochet’s former agents are serving prison sentences.

The world can’t go on with prosecuting war criminals decades after their heinous actions if there is to be any possibility of stopping and deterring such crimes. Prosecution must come as soon as possible, therefore giving notice to other potential war criminals of swift and certain punishment.
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Note that this was a national prosecution, ICC only goes after Africans.
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