BUENOS AIRES – Authorities in Argentina have captured a former Chilean army colonel convicted of crimes against humanity during the regime of ex-Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Sergio Francisco Jara Arancibia was “one of Chile’s most wanted fugitives over murders committed in 1973”, Argentina’s federal police said Monday, announcing the retired military leader’s arrest in Mar del Plata, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the south of the capital Buenos Aires on the Atlantic coast.
#MarDelPlata detuvimos a un ciudadano de nacionalidad chilena sobre quien pesaba un pedido de captura internacional por homicidio. Era uno de los fugitivos más buscados por las autoridades del país vecino. ??????? #PFA #PoliceCoperation #LawEnforcement @INTERPOL_HQ pic.twitter.com/8k72GoEycn
— Policía Federal Argentina (@PFAOficial) July 15, 2018
The detainee will be extradited to Chile, according to the ministry of security and the nation.
Jara Arancibia had been “on the run for more than a year” and was the subject of an international arrest warrant. He was captured through surveillance of his son’s travels around various cities.
Last year, Chile’s supreme court found Jara Arancibia guilty of the murder of a doctor and a public official opposed to the bloody regime established by the now-deceased general Pinochet between 1973 and 1990.
En Mar del Plata, donde tuvo domiciliaria Etchecolatz, capturaron al ex coronel Sergio Francisco Jara Arancibia, genocida de la dictadura de Pinochet en Chile, condenado y un año prófugo.
¡EL ÚNICO LUGAR PARA UN GENOCIDA ES LA CÁRCEL! pic.twitter.com/oSRNAsEaJG— Radio La Imposible (@La_Imposible) July 16, 2018
Last week, a special magistrate in Santiago de Chile handed a five-year term to four former agents of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet for the qualified kidnapping (disappearance) of a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in 1974.
Judge Mario Carroza, of Santiago Court of Appeals, sentenced Gen (r) Cesar Manriquez Bravo, Brig (r) Miguel Krassnoff, Col (r) Orlando Manzo and retired Carabinero officer Ciro Torre to five years and one day in prison on April 11.
Chile jails Pinochet-era agents for Gallardo Agüero’s forced disappearance
Nestor Gallardo Agüero, an accountant of the MIR, was arrested in Santiago de Chile on September 28, 1974. He is one of the 119 victims of so-called Operation Colombo, an idea of DINA (Pinochet’s secret police) to camouflage the disappearance of 119 political prisoners with the help of the dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil.
According to official statistics, around 3,200 people were killed or disappeared and 38,000 tortured during Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Despite being indicted and arrested several times for various crimes and murders, Pinochet died in December 2006 without ever having been convicted.
