Australia detains nanny over alleged Pinochet-era crimes

Yahoo – AFP, Daniel DE CARTERET, 20 February 2019

A military coup in Chile in June 1973 led to a regime that presided over
thousands of murders, tortures and forced disappearances

Australia on Wednesday announced it had arrested a nanny living in the country for more than three decades on allegations of Pinochet-era kidnapping and torture.

Adriana Elcira Rivas Gonzalez, 66, was detained on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Australia's attorney general office said, adding she "is wanted to face prosecution in the Republic of Chile for aggravated kidnapping offences".

She is alleged to have been a member of dictator Augusto Pinochet's feared secret police in the 1970s and is wanted in connection with the disappearance of a senior Communist Party official.

US-backed Pinochet, who died in 2006, toppled a democratically elected president and presided over thousands of murders, tortures and forced disappearances as Latin America was ravaged by Cold War-fuelled violence.

Court documents show she is accused of being involved in the disappearance of Victor Manuel Diaz Lopez, undersecretary general of the Communist Party.

He was detained by several agents early in the morning of May 10, 1976, transferred to a secret police facility on the outskirts of Santiago and then disappeared without trace.

Rivas had been arrested in Chile in 2007 during a return to her homeland, but escaped back to Australia in 2010 while on bail.

Chile requested her extradition in 2014 from Sydney, where she has been working part time as a nanny and a cleaner in the city's Bondi suburb.

According to Chilean human rights archive Memoria Viva, "La Chani" -- as Rivas was known -- was once a personal secretary to notorious secret police boss Manuel Contreras and was later linked to an infamous Lautaro Brigade death squad.

In a 2013 interview with Australian broadcaster SBS, Rivas claimed she was innocent, but defended the use of torture in Chile at the time.

"They had to break the people -– it has happened all over the world, not only in Chile," she said.

More than 3,000 regime opponents and alleged collaborators were killed or went missing during Pinochet's rule, according to researchers at Chile's Diego Portales University. Nearly 40,000 were tortured.

Rivas appeared in a Sydney court Wednesday with the case adjourned until March 1.

Chilean-born lawyer Adriana Navarro, who has been lobbying for Riva's extradition, said the arrest was met with "elation as well as a lot of sadness and pain" by families of victims in Chile still seeking justice.

"They want Adriana Rivas, if she says she is not guilty of the charges, to front the Chilean justice system and be absolved if that is the case," she told reporters outside the court.

"However, the evidence that the Chilean government has and the justice system has in Chile is very sound, and there are many witnesses to Adriana Riva's participation in the crimes," she added.

Argentina jails ex-Ford directors for 'dirty war' collaboration

Yahoo – AFP, 11 December 2018

Former Ford executive Pedro Muller, pictured in court in Buenos Aires, was jailed
for 10 years for collaborating in the military dictatorship's "dirty war"

An Argentine court on Tuesday handed jail sentences to two former directors of automaker Ford for participating in the military dictatorship's "dirty war" against leftist opponents.

After a year-long trial, the court sentenced Hector Sibilla, the former security chief at Ford's Buenos Aires plant, to 12 years in prison, and manufacturing manager Pedro Muller to 10 years.

They had been on trial since last December, accused of complicity in the persecution of union leaders at the plant during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

The court said both men "were necessary participants in the illegal deprivation of liberty, aggravated by the use of violence and threats" with the aim of political persecution.

It found that Sibilla was also present during a torture session.

Prosecutors had requested the maximum penalty of 25 years in jail for both men.

"It's a vindication of the Argentine labor movement, which was a principal target of the dictatorship, with the complicity of the companies," said Tomas Ojea, a lawyer for the victims, after the sentence was read.

"The next step will be against the company itself," he added. "We are going to evaluate the steps to be taken to hold the company to account. It has to explain its actions."

The court heard testimony from dozens of people including Pedro Troiani and Carlos Propato, who were trade union leaders at Ford in Argentina when they were detained in the factory and tortured by the military junta.

The court found Ford's former executive Hector Sibilla was also present during 

a torture session

They were held prisoner for two years and letters were sent to their families claiming they had been fired for failing to show up for work.

Sibilla and Muller are currently out under a former of conditional release that bars them from leaving the country, but the judge said they would have to serve out their sentences in prison once all appeals have been exhausted.

Survivors and relatives burst into applause and cheers when the verdict was given.

The court also sentenced a former general, Santiago Riveros -- head of the secret Campo de Mayo detention center where the men were held -- to 15 years in prison.

He has previously been convicted of crimes against humanity.

Before the sentence was read, only Muller, the manufacturing manager, availed himself of the opportunity to address the court.

"I have a clear conscience because nobody can accuse me over my conduct," he said.

Legal first in Argentina

The case marked the first time executives of a multinational company had been put on trial for crimes committed during the dictatorship.

The company itself was not implicated, but prosecutors sought to demonstrate there was complicity with the dictatorship responsible for the deaths and disappearances of some 30,000 people, according to human rights organizations.

Cases have also been taken against other international automakers, including Mercedes Benz, Renault and Fiat, but only the Ford case has so far gone to trial.

When the military took over in a 1976 coup, some 5,000 workers were employed at Ford's Buenos Aires plant, as well as 2,500 administrative staff.

Twenty four of the 100 trade union delegates at the plant were taken captive in retaliation for union activism.

Several were tortured at the plant, on the northern periphery of Buenos Aires, before they were transferred to secret detention centers.

Former Ford executive Pedro Muller, pictured in court in Buenos Aires, was jailed for 10 years for collaborating in the military dictatorship's "dirty war"

The court found Ford's former executive Hector Sibilla was also present during a torture session

Canada to award millions to former Guantanamo inmate: reports

Yahoo – AFP, July 4, 2017

A guard tower outside the fencing of Camp 5 at the US Military's Prison in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Canadian Omar Khadr, who is reportedly set to be
awarded millions of dollars of compensation by his government, spent ten
years at the detenteion camp. (AFP Photo/Thomas WATKINS)

Montreal (AFP) - Canada is set to apologize and award millions of dollars of compensation to a former Guantanamo detainee who was captured in Afghanistan at the age of 15 and pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier, reports said Tuesday.

Omar Khadr will receive at least Can$10 million ($8 million US) from the federal government for the treatment he was subjected to during his captivity, according to reports in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star which cited anonymous sources.

Khadr, a Canadian citizen, became the youngest prisoner at the US detention camp in Cuba following his capture from Afghanistan in 2002.

Canada's Supreme Court in 2010 ruled that his rights had been violated by Ottawa, which shared statements he made to Canadian officials with the United States.

While at Guantanamo, he was sentenced in 2010 to eight years plus time already served for murdering a US soldier with a grenade, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying.

He won the right to be extradited and was sent home to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence.

His lawyers fought for several years to have his status as a minor at the time of the attack recognized. Canada's Supreme Court finally agreed one week before his conditional release in 2015.

His legal team was pursuing Can$20 million against the Canadian government because his rights as a prisoner were violated.

Public Safety Canada said the government was not in a position to provide additional information owing to the strictly confidential nature of the case.

"There is a judicial process underway that has been underway for a number of years now, and we are anticipating, like I think a number of people are, that that judicial process is coming to its conclusion," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ireland.

The ruling has precedent. In March, Ottawa apologized to three of its citizens who were tortured in Syria, allegedly with the indirect participation of Canadian officials.

The government said it had settled civil suits with three Canadian nationals -- Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin -- who were arrested and tortured in Syrian custody just after the 9/11 attacks and detained until 2004.

In a similar case, Canadian computer engineer Maher Arar was tortured in a Damascus prison in 2002, after he was transferred there by US officials based on a Canadian tip-off.

But Arar was later cleared of any suspicion by the Canadian authorities, and in January 2007 won an apology from then prime minister Stephen Harper and Can$10 million in compensation from the Canadian government.

Pinochet agents apologize for Chile crimes

Yahoo – AFP, December 23, 2016

Human rights activists demonstrate during the private ecumenical ceremony in
 the Punta Peuco prison where nine former agents of Chile's 1973-1990 dictatorship,
apologize for their crimes, in Santiago, on December 23, 2016 (AFP Photo/
Christian Miranda)

Santiago (AFP) - Nine former agents of late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's regime asked forgiveness for their crimes Friday -- a first for Chile -- but victims' families rejected the gesture as a ploy.

The apology came in the form of a private religious ceremony at the Punta Peuco prison, where some 100 former regime agents are serving sentences for the kidnappings, killings and torture perpetrated during Pinochet's rule from 1973 to 1990.

The nine convicts included Raul Iturriaga, a high-ranking official in Pinochet's political police.

"God is doing something extraordinary in this country. This would not have been possible until recently," Anglican priest Pablo Alvarez told journalists after the ceremony, which was closed to the press.

But dozens of victims' family members protested outside the prison, rejecting the ceremony as a hollow bid to obtain a pardon or early release.

"We have the right and the moral duty to be here to prevent this media show," said Alicia Lira, head of a rights group for victims' families.

Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nunez, right, leaves the federal courthouse with his

 attorney, Luis Calderon, left, Monday, June 27, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Barrientos, 

former lieutenant under the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet, tortured and killed 

a famed Chilean folk singer whose family had been seeking justice for more 

than 40 years, a federal jury in Florida ruled. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Family members emphasized that none of the convicts have provided information on the fate of nearly 1,000 people missing and presumed killed by the regime.

They also demand the closure of Punta Peuco, which they condemn as a luxury prison with tennis courts, terraces and barbecues.

More than 3,000 regime opponents and alleged collaborators were killed or disappeared during Pinochet's rule. Some 38,000 were tortured.

Pinochet, who came to power in a military coup, died in 2006 without being brought to justice.

US makes major Guantanamo transfer to UAE

Yahoo – AFP, Thomas Watkins, August 16, 2016

The transfer of 15 prisoners to the United Arab Emirates reduces Guantanamo
Bay's inmate population to 61 (AFP Photo/John Moore)

Washington (AFP) - Fifteen Guantanamo Bay detainees have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates, the largest such release in years, the Pentagon announced.

The latest transfers bring the remaining population of the detention center down to 61. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, about 780 inmates have been housed in the US military-run facility.

According to a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, 12 of the men are from Yemen and three are Afghans.

The Pentagon has previously struggled to find a third country to take Yemeni detainees, given that they can't go home because of the civil war in their nation.

"The United States is grateful to the government of the United Arab Emirates for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close" Guantanamo, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Once transferred, former inmates are usually freed subject to supervision and undergoing rehabilitation programs.

Amnesty International USA welcomed the announcement as a sign President Barack Obama is serious about closing the controversial facility before he leaves office.

Guantanamo Bay (AFP Photo/AFP)

"It's a significant repudiation of the idea that Guantanamo is going to be open for business for the indefinite future," Naureen Shah, Amnesty International USA's security and human rights program director, told AFP.

One of those transferred is an Afghan called Obaidullah, who allegedly had hidden land mines in 2001. He was detained for 14 years without trial.

Monday's announcement represents the largest transfer of prisoners under the Democratic Obama administration.

"The continued operation of the detention facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists," Ambassador Lee Wolosky, the special envoy for Guantanamo closure, said in a statement.

"The support of our friends and allies -– like the UAE -- is critical to our achieving this shared goal."

Obama urgently wants to close the facility before he leaves office at the start of next year but has been continually thwarted by Republican lawmakers.

Closure a long shot

Still, the United States has in recent months accelerated the rate at which detainees who have been approved for transfer are released from the facility.

When Obama took office, there were 242 detainees at Guantanamo.

Monday's announcement means 19 inmates will remain who have been cleared for transfer.

Obama wants to send the rest, deemed to be the most dangerous, for incarceration in the United States -- but that is an extreme long shot given Republican opposition.

In February, the president presented Congress with a new closure plan for Guantanamo, which he says serves only to stoke anti-US resentment and fuel jihadist recruitment.

Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte recently renewed calls to keep Guantanamo open and published an unclassified report on 107 current and former detainees that she said highlighted their terrorist pasts.

November's election will likely help determine the future of the notorious prison, as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has vowed to fill Guantanamo with "bad dudes" should he win the White House.

Trump has said he would "bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."

To date, just 10 of the detainees face criminal trial, including the "9/11 Five" -- led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- who are accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Shah said it was important for Obama to push ahead with plans to shutter Guantanamo, or the next administration could start filling its cells with suspected jihadists captured in the campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

"We are at an extremely dangerous and pivotal point where if President Obama fails to close Guantanamo then the next administration could bring more detainees there," Shah said.

Guantanamo is a US naval base carved out of a remote chunk of land on the tip of southeastern Cuba.

The administration of George W. Bush opened a prison there to hold terror suspects.

Colonia Dignidad: No 'glorious chapter' for German diplomacy

Torture, slavery, child abuse: Germany's foreign minister met with victims of a German sect run in Chile for decades. At the same time, the government in Berlin is declassifying the Colonia Dignidad files.

Deutsche Welle, 27 April 2016

Human rights groups welcome as a "positive step" plans by the German government to make public files on the notorious Colonia Dignidad colony in Chile.

Files that would have remained sealed for another decade will be made available to journalists and researchers in the coming weeks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. The documents detail how informed German diplomats were about what was going on in the colony from 1986 to 1996. The foreign ministry isn't responsible for what Paul Schäfer and his cronies did, but the German embassy denied the colony's residents the protection they would have needed. "I salute the victims of Colonia Dignidad," Steinmeier told a group of victims Tuesday in Berlin.

Wolfgang Kneese managed to flee
when he was 20

Steinmeier conceded that German diplomats for decades turned a blind eye to the human tragedy playing out before them, adding that embassy staff in Chile should have been able to see what was going on at the Colonia Dignidad commune. From the 60s to the 80s, German diplomats looked the other way, and "did too little to protect their citizens in this commune," he said.

Respect for the victims

The foreign ministry in Berlin has pledged that it will find out what role German diplomats played. "Transparency is imperative," Steinmeier told the victims, who had traveled from Chile to Berlin to hear just those words.

Colonia Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, a German lay preacher, former soldier and convicted pedophile who fled the country to Chile after World War II.

Today, victims estimate that over the course of 30 years, more than 30,000 boys were raped at the remote commune hidden behind security fences. Schäfer brutally suppressed and controlled his followers, including brainwashing, draconic punishments and enforcing a vow of secrecy. Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet used the German commune, which was situated about 350 kilometers south of the capital Santiago, as a torture camp, and hid weapons and poison gas on the premises.

A scene from the film Colonia

One of the few who managed to extricate himself from the sect's grip doesn't like to be reminded of the role the German embassy played. "When I left the colony, I was wary of the foreign ministry," Wolfgang Kneese said, adding that Paul Schäfer's system involved people who profited from Colonia Dignidad, who went along with the sect's well-oiled apparatus of repression, and who looked the other way.

Emotionally crippled

A feature film about Colonia Dignidad actually got the ball rolling.

"Colonia" by Florian Gallenberger aired in Germany last year after the director had put in five years of research. The film reminded the foreign ministry of this dark chapter of German diplomacy, Steinmeier said, adding that it goes to show how culture can "act as a trigger for politics."

The commune is the only home Anna
 Schnellenberger ever knew

Anna Schnellenkamp still lives on the premises of the former colony. She was surprised at how well the film depicts Schäfer's harsh rule. "But in truth, it was much worse," she admitted.

Fleeing sex abuse charges by Chilean authorities, Schäfer disappeared in 1997. Almost eight years later, he was found hiding in Argentina, sent back to Chile and sentenced to 33 years in jail for sexual abuse of children. He died in 2010 in a Chilean prison. Meanwhile, life at the colony continued as before.

Today, the commune with its roughly 130 residents calls itself Villa Baviera and tries to attract tourists with Bavarian music and Oktoberfest events.

Many of the original followers stayed on, in part because "no one had documents, no one had money," Schellenkamp said, adding another reason: two out of three are older than 65 years of age. Many of Schäfer's victims feel like emotional cripples, Wolfgang Kneese says. Some hope the German government will grant them psychological support, others demand compensation.

It's time "the burden is taken from our shoulders," Schnellenkamp said.

Traumatized victims, open questions

Many victims find hard to bear the thought that perpetrators have gotten away. Hartmut Hopp, a former colony deputy, fled to Germany in 2011 to avoid imprisonment in Chile, where he was sentenced to five years in jail for child sex abuse in 2005. It's surprising that people, like Hopp, "continue to live freely in Germany," Wolfgang Kneese said. Hopp lives in the western German town of Krefeld, and it remains unclear whether Germany will enforce the Chilean verdict, start new proceedings, or simply put the matter aside. The latter is almost unbearable to many victims.

It's also not clear what will happen to the sect's isolated premises in Chile. Turn it into a memorial, urges film director Florian Gallenberger, who visited the area many times. They have some tourism, but that's all, the director argues. Perhaps an upcoming visit by German President Joachim Gauck to Chile will help resolve matters.

Related Article:

Switzerland to compensate victims of centuries-old child labor practice

US transfers nine Yemeni inmates from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia

Yahoo – AFP, April 16, 2016

Part of the US Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is seen from La Gobernadora viewpoint
 in Guantanamo province, Cuba on March 13, 2016 (AFP Photo/Nicolas Garcia)

Washington (AFP) - The Pentagon on Saturday announced the transfer of nine Yemeni inmates from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, bringing the remaining population at the controversial military prison down to 80.

The United States has in recent months accelerated the rate at which detainees who have been approved for transfer are released from the facility, which President Barack Obama wants to close before his term ends at the end of the year.

US President Barack Obama delivers a 

statement on the Guantanamo Bay 

detention camp on February 23, 2016 in

 the Roosevelt Room of the White House in

Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan)

Saturday's release marks the largest transfer since 10 Yemenis were sent to Oman in January. It is the first time Saudi Arabia has taken any former Guantanamo inmates.

"The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The men arrived in Saudi Arabia earlier on Saturday. Most had been cleared for release years ago, but faced delays owing in part to their home country descending into civil war, meaning they could not be repatriated.

The nine inmates are: Ahmed Umar Abdullah Al-Hikimi, Abdul Rahman Mohammed Saleh Nasir, Ali Yahya Mahdi Al-Raimi, Tariq Ali Abdullah Ahmed Ba Odah, Muhammed Abdullah Muhammed Al-Hamiri, Ahmed Yaslam Said Kuman, Abd al Rahman Al-Qyati, Mansour Muhammed Ali Al-Qatta, and Mashur Abdullah Muqbil Ahmed Al-Sabri.

Of the 80 remaining inmates, 26 have been approved for transfer. Obama wants to send the rest, deemed to be the most dangerous, for incarceration in the United States but Republican lawmakers have steadfastly resisted any such move.

Guantanamo is a US naval base carved out of a remote chunk of land on the tip of southeastern Cuba. The administration of George W. Bush opened a prison there to hold terror suspects soon after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

In all, it has housed about 780 inmates over the years.

Republican presidential candidates have vowed that, if elected, they would send more terror suspects to Guantanamo instead of closing it.

Related Articles:

Guantanamo population below 100 as 10 Yemenis sent to Oman

Pope Francis offers US help in closing Guantanamo

Pope Francis waves to the crowd during his general audience

at St Peter's square on December 17, 2014 at the Vatican

.

Mexican army makes rare apology over woman's torture

Yahoo – AFP, April 16, 2016

Mexican Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos reads out a public apology before
 26,000 soldiers assembled at a military base in Mexico City on April 16, 2016
(AFP Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Mexico City (AFP) - The Mexican army made a rare public apology on Saturday over a scandal in which two soldiers and a policewoman tortured a terrified woman in a video that went viral.

It is just the latest allegation of abuse committed by security forces in Mexico, who are often accused of violent acts against civilians, including murder.

General Salvador Cienfuegos, the defense minister, read out the apology before 26,000 soldiers assembled at a military base in Mexico City.

"In the name of all of us who make up this great national institution, I offer my heartfelt apology to all in society wronged by this impermissible event," Cienfuegos said.

In the video, which went viral on social media this week, a barefoot woman is seen crying and screaming on the floor as a female soldier puts the muzzle of an assault rifle to her head.

A federal policewoman is then seen handcuffing the woman and proceeding to tightly wrap a plastic bag around her head while one of the officials demands threateningly: "Are you going to talk?"

This screengrab of a video posted on several youtube sites on April 14, 2016 shows 

two soldiers standing over a woman with her head covered in an unknown location in 

Mexico. The two Mexican soldiers face military charges after this video surfaced of

 them helping a federal police officer torture a female suspect. It's unclear if the police

 officer faces charges. Mexico's Defense Department says the events occurred 

Feb. 4, 2015 in a small mountain town in southern Guerrero state. (via AP)

The incident is reported to have taken place in February 2015 in the town of Ajuchitlan del Progreso, in the southern state of Guerrero.

The defense ministry says it only learned of the video in December.

The male army captain and the female soldier seen in the video were arrested in January and charged with disobeying orders.

Mexican authorities are investigating a policewoman to determine if she was the one in the footage.

"It's necessary to publicly express our outrage over the regrettable events that occurred nearly 14 months ago," Cienfuegos said.

"Bad members of our institution besmirch the honorable behavior of thousands of women and men in military uniform."

"Although isolated, (such incidents) damage in a major way our image and the prestige we have worthily earned." he added.