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<h1 id="reader-title">Former Chilean military officers charged
in 1973 murder of singer Víctor Jara</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Jonathan Watts</div>
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<p>Forty-two years after the Chilean military murdered the
poet and musician Víctor Jara, ten of the alleged
perpetrators have finally been called to face justice
after a judge announced charges against a group of
former officers.</p>
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<p>Move made to extradite alleged killer of Victor
Jara from United States, 40 years after bloody
coup</p>
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<p>Four of the suspects immediately handed themselves in
and other arrests were expected to follow. <br>
</p>
<p>Jara – who was also a folk singer, theatre director and
communist party member - was taken prisoner during the
coup by General <a class=" u-underline"
data-component="auto-linked-tag"
data-link-name="auto-linked-tag"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/pinochet">Augusto
Pinochet</a> in September 1973. <br>
</p>
<p>Military officers tortured him, broke his wrists and
hands, played Russian roulette with him and then on 16
September executed him with 44 bullets. </p>
<p>He remains arguably the best-known victim of the coup,
but there are many other outstanding cases. </p>
<p>According to Chile’s truth and justice commission,
3,095 people were killed during the 1973-90 Pinochet
dictatorship, including about 1,000 who “disappeared”.
Bodies are still being found today.</p>
<p>Judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza also indicted several of the
officers in the kidnapping and murder of former prison
director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. Like Jara, he was held
prisoner at the national stadium in Santiago, then
singled out and taken into the dressing rooms where he
was tortured and executed.</p>
<p> This step in the legal process is more advanced than a
simple charge. The next stage will be a trial on charges
arising from both cases, which will probably take place
around the end of this year or early next year.<br>
</p>
<p>Jara’s widow, Joan Turner Jara, originally from
Britain, called the charges “a message of hope” but said
much work still needed to be done to secure justice for
her husband and other victims of the Pinochet
dictatorship.</p>
<p>“If Víctor’s case serves as an example, we’re pushing
forward in demanding justice for Víctor with the hope
that justice will follow for everyone,” she told
reporters.<br>
</p>
<p> Others involved in the long struggle to hold the
military accountable said the judge’s announcement was
an important step forward.</p>
<p> “These are important advances that are also healing in
terms of the psychological and moral [wellbeing] of
family members. But it is also healing for society. We
want a society built upon truth and justice,” said
Alicia Lira, president of AFEP, a support group for
relatives of political prisoners executed during the
dictatorship.</p>
<p>Human Rights lawyer Nelson Caucoto said the courts were
moving closer to a judgment in the Jara case, and
pointed to progress recently made in another emblematic
human rights case, that of activists Rodrigo Rojas and
Carmen Gloria Quintana, who were burned alive by
military officers in 1986.<br>
</p>
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<p class="rich-link__standfirst u-cf"> Seven
soldiers allegedly set fire to Carmen Gloria
Quintana and Rodrigo Rojas, who died from burns,
for documenting protest against dictator Augusto
Pinochet </p>
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</aside>
<p>Earlier this week, <a class=" u-underline"
data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body
link"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/22/chile-army-custody-carmen-gloria-quintana-burned-alive-augusto-pinochet">a
judge ordered the arrest of seven army officers for
their role in the attack</a> in which Rojas and
Quintana were drenched in petrol, set alight and then
left for dead. Rojas died from his injuries, and
Quintana was severely injured.</p>
<p>“These are cases that are burned into Chile’s
historical memory,” said Caucoto in a telephone
interview with the Guardian. “They are crimes committed
during a dictatorship and supposedly to never be solved.
Now, the accused will be planning their defense and this
year we may have sentencing.”</p>
<p>The Chilean courts are not the only setting for the
long struggle for accountability. In 2013, Joan Jara and
her daughters Amanda and Manuela filed a civil lawsuit
in the US for torture and extrajudicial killing against
former lieutenant Pedro Barrientos Nuñez, who fled <a
class=" u-underline" data-component="auto-linked-tag"
data-link-name="auto-linked-tag"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/chile">Chile</a>
in 1989.</p>
<p>Barrientos, <a class=" u-underline"
data-component="in-body-link" data-link-name="in body
link"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/23/florida-safe-haven-war-criminals-federal-prosecutors">who
has US citizenship through marriage</a>, is alleged to
have played Russian roulette with Jara before ordering
his troups to open fire. Attempts to extradite him to
Santiago have so far proved unsuccessful, but the Jara
family’s lawyers are hopeful about the prospects of
taking him to court in the US.</p>
<p>“We are gearing up for a trial. I am gathering evidence
and interviewing [former] members of the Chilean
military,” said Almudena Bernabéu, a human rights
attorney with San Francisco-based Center for Justice and
Accountability (CJA).<br>
</p>
<p>“Barrientos denies he was physically at the stadium
[where Jara was shot] but the conscripts say he was
there and was in the room when Jara was shot,” said
Bernabéu who filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of Jara’s
wife Joan and the folk singer’s two daughters, Amanda
and Manuela.</p>
<p>Barrientos was not included in the latest list of
indictments in Chile because prosecutors wanted to
prevent the case being held up by his attempts to resist
extradition from the US. He may be added to the case
later if he is eventually returned to his homeland.</p>
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