SANTIAGO, Chile ? A judge investigating abuses during Chile's dictatorship is seeking the extradition of a former U.S. military officer on murder charges in the 1973 killing of two Americans, including one whose disappearance was the focus of the film "Missing," court officials said Tuesday.
Former U.S. Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis was charged in the deaths of journalist Charles Horman and U.S. student Frank Teruggi, who were killed during the 1973-1990 regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The court statement said retired Chilean army Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo was also charged in the murders.
Judge Jorge Zepeda asked Chile's Supreme Court to authorize an extradition request so that Davis may be tried in Chile, the court said in its statement.
In the document outlining the charges, Zepeda said the killings of Horman and Teruggi occurred during a secret investigation by U.S. officials into the activity of Americans at home and in Chile, "activity that U.S. agents considered 'subversive.'"
The court statement described Davis as being commander of the U.S. military mission in Chile at the time of the coup, working as a liaison between the U.S. and Chilean militaries. Davis' whereabouts were not immediately clear.
Espinoza is jailed in a special Chilean prison for offenders convicted of human rights abuses, and is already serving sentences in separate cases.
Horman was 31 at the time of his death. He was detained six days after the 1973 military coup that swept Pinochet to power and was taken to Santiago's National Stadium, which became a camp for prisoners and dissidents.
A national truth commission said Horman was executed on Sept. 18, 1973, while he was in the custody of state security agents. It also said Teruggi, then a 24-year-old university student, was similarly executed just several days later, on Sept. 22.
Horman was the focus of the 1982 film "Missing," by director Costa Gavras and starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, which won a best screenplay Oscar.
Zepeda said the U.S. journalist was considered a subversive for his work as a screenwriter for Chilean state film company "Chile Films." The judge alleged that Davis could have stopped Horman's execution but didn't because he considered his work "subversive" and "extremist."
Horman may have also been killed because he involuntarily found out about U.S. "collaboration during the military events unfolding" in Chile's military coup, Zepeda said documents indicated.
"The judge has made ample use of declassified U.S. documents, demonstrating their value to moving the wheels of justice forward in these two infamous murders," said Peter Kornbluh, who heads the Chile documentation project at the Washington-based National Security Archive.
Released documents indicate U.S. agents in Chile advised the FBI that their sources told them Teruggi was closely linked to an organization called the Group for the Liberation of the Americas, Area Chicago, the judge said, and that Teruggi purportedly was producing leftist propaganda to be distributed in the U.S.
Both Teruggi and Holman were monitored by U.S. agents in Chile, Zepeda said, adding that the information gathered was passed on to Chilean intelligence officials who ordered the men's detentions.
A national commission has determined that 3,095 people were killed or disappeared during Pinochet's dictatorship.
____
Online:
National Security Archive:
http://www.nsarchive.org
buckyballs gilad annie hall jon lester mitchel musso bad lip reading gilad shalit
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.