14 Military Members Convicted in 'Historic' Ruling

Daniela Estrada reports for IPS News:

Eleven members of the Chilean armed forces and three Uruguayan military officers were found guilty of the kidnap-murder of Chilean biochemist Eugenio Berríos, an intelligence agent of the 1973-1990 regime of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Berríos was secretly taken to Uruguay in 1991, hidden or kidnapped for more than a year, and then killed. The 14 military men were sentenced Friday on charges of illicit association, kidnapping and homicide. The three retired Uruguayan officers have appealed the verdict.

"This is without a doubt a historic ruling, because in one way or another it closes a chapter in Chile's transition to democracy," journalist Jorge Molina Sanhueza, author of the 2002 book "Crimen Imperfecto. Historia del químico DINA Eugenio Berríos y la muerte de Eduardo Frei Montalva" (Imperfect Crime: The Story of DINA Chemist Eugenio Berríos and the Death of Eduardo Frei Montalva), told IPS.

"All the different aspects of an era come together somehow in the Berríos case," he said. "It's as if we had wanted to speak of a case par excellence of all of the military dictatorship's power in the shadows."

"It entails all aspects: identity theft, clandestine payments, homicide, cover-ups, protection networks," he added.

Berríos was involved in research on lethal biochemical weapons like sarin nerve gas in the dictatorship's secret police, the DINA.

The verdict handed down by Judge Alejandro Madrid found that Berríos was kidnapped and killed by active duty members of the Chilean and Uruguayan armed forces in one of the last episodes of Operation Condor.

Operation Condor was a coordinated plan among the military governments that ruled Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s, aimed at tracking down, capturing, torturing and eliminating left-wing opponents, with the tacit approval of the United States.

The unique thing about the murder of Berríos was that it was committed after both Uruguay and Chile had returned to democracy, and while Pinochet -- who died in 2006 -- was still army chief.

Madrid's ruling states that the 14 defendants "strayed from their duties, forming an organisation parallel to the regular structure."

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