Chile's ex-army chief Juan Emilio Cheyre convicted for Pinochet-era murders

Source: Deutsche Welle

General Juan Emilio Cheyre has been convicted for his involvement in the notorious Caravan of Death. He is the most senior figure to be convicted for crimes under the 1973-90 miltary dictatorship.

Date 10.11.2018



A Chilean court on Friday convicted the country's former army chief for his role in the killing of 15 people following the 1973 military coup.

Juan Emilio Cheyre, 71, was handed a three-year-and-one-day sentence of house arrest for his involvement in the so-called Caravan of Death.

The Caravan was a military unit sent out by General Augusto Pinochet to kill left-wing opponents in the month after he ousted President Salvador Allende in a coup.

Cheyre was an officer at the time stationed with an infantry regiment in La Serena, 290 miles (470 km) north of Santiago. He witnessed the Caravan order officers to kill 15 people and later sought to cover it up.



Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/chiles-ex-army-chief-juan-emilio-cheyre-convicted-for-pinochet-era-murders/a-46235906

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Wikipedia:

The Caravan of Death (Spanish: Caravana de la Muerte) was a Chilean Army death squad that, following the Chilean coup of 1973, flew by helicopters from south to north of Chile between September 30 and October 22, 1973. During this foray, members of the squad ordered or personally carried out the execution of at least 75 individuals held in Army custody in certain garrisons.[1] According to the NGO Memoria y Justicia, the squad killed 97 people: 26 in the South and 71 in the North.[2] Augusto Pinochet was indicted in December 2002 in this case, but he died four years later without having been judged. His trial, however, is ongoing since his and other military personnel and a former military chaplain have also been indicted in this case.

Death squad
The squad was made up of several Army officers. They were led by Army Brigadier General Sergio Arellano Stark, appointed by Augusto Pinochet "Official Delegate of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and President of the Government Assembly." Other members included Arellano's second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Sergio Arredondo González, later director of the Infantry School of the Army; Major Pedro Espinoza Bravo, an Army Intelligence officer and later operations chief of the DINA secret police; Captain Marcelo Moren Brito, later commander of Villa Grimaldi, the torture camp; Lieutenant Armando Fernández Larios, later a DINA operative and involved in the assassination of Orlando Letelier (Salvador Allende's former Minister) and others.[2]

The group traveled from prison to prison in a Puma helicopter, inspecting military garrisons and then ordering — or carrying out themselves — the execution of the detainees. The victims were then buried in unmarked graves. General Joaquin Lagos explained why he didn't return the bodies of the 14 executed prisoners of Antofagasta to their families:

I was ashamed to see them. They were torn into pieces. So I wanted to put them together, at least leave them in a human form. Yes, their eyes were gouged out with knives, their jaws broken, their legs broken ... At the end they gave them the coup de grace. They were merciless. "[...] "The prisoners were killed so that they would die slowly. In other words, sometimes they were shot them by parts. First, the legs, then the sexual organs, then the heart. In that order the machine guns were fired[3][4]

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravan_of_Death