Víctor Jara, singer-songwriter and Communist Party militant close to deposed President Allende. Photo: AFP/File photo.
Chilean police have reported the capture of former military officer Nelson Haase Mazzei, who had been a fugitive since 2023 for the kidnapping and murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara and prison director Littre Quiroga, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Security forces located the fugitive last Sunday, July 26, on a rural plot in the commune of Puyehue. The former officer was immediately transferred to a penitentiary center to serve a total sentence of 25 years in prison, following the final ruling issued by the Supreme Court in August 2023.
Chilean authorities ratified similar 25-year prison sentences for six other former uniformed personnel implicated in these crimes against humanity.
Ministra Paola Plaza da orden de ingreso a último condenado en causa por secuestro y homicidio de Littré Quiroga y Víctor Jara https://t.co/nSHc1DFOed pic.twitter.com/8evOx0SLwe
— Poder Judicial Chile (@PJudicialChile) July 25, 2026
Likewise, former military prosecutor Rolando Melo Silva received an eight-year prison sentence for acting as an accessory after the fact to the kidnapping and murder of the victims.
The crime occurred after the 1973 coup d’état against President Salvador Allende. The renowned folk artist and Littre Quiroga suffered brutal torture at the then Estadio de Chile, before their bodies were found with dozens of bullet wounds near the Cementerio Metropolitano.
With this arrest, Chilean authorities have imprisoned the last of the convicted fugitives in this historic judicial case. The capture represents a significant advance in the search for justice for the families of the victims of the military repression imposed in the South American nation during the far-right dictatorship of Pinochet.
Víctor Jara was born in the region of Nuble, Chile, on September 28, 1932. His self-imposed “task” was to rescue popular folklore as a banner of identity, freedom, and dignity of the Chilean people, doing so through innovative and beloved music.
The singer-songwriter was a militant of the Communist Party and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth during the government of the Popular Unity. Culture, theater, and song were his only tools to push forward in education, thought, and struggle.
Jara was brutally tortured and riddled with 44 bullets, 22 of them in the back, by military personnel at the Estadio de Chile in September 1973. The singer-songwriter suffered severe blows, including fractures to his hands and ribs, after his detention following the coup d’état.
(Telesur)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/AU
