Chile's armed forces are still shielding their own from justice for killings and torture during Augusto Pinochet's iron-fisted 1973-1990 dictatorship, Amnesty International charged on Wednesday.
Some Pinochet-era officers remain in senior military posts, while others have moved into politics and are hindering efforts to punish those responsible for abuses, said Sergio Laurenti, Amnesty's executive director in Chile.
"Clearly there has been institutional shielding ... by the armed forces to protect their members," Laurenti said ahead of the launch of the group's global annual human rights report.
"The main reason is that there are officials in the armed forces in high ranks who are responsible for human rights violations," he added.
About 3,000 people were killed during Pinochet's rule and another 28,000 were tortured, most of them suspected leftists.
Laurenti singled out the Navy's denial of knowledge about torture aboard the infamous training ship Esmeralda early in the dictatorship, saying it was "symptomatic" of protection the armed forces have afforded military personnel.
Rights groups and the relatives of the dictatorship's victims say the wheels of justice are turning too slowly.
Only around two dozen security officials have been convicted of crimes so far, nearly two decades on since the dictatorship ended, while nearly 500 are under investigation.
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