Jara was a Communist Party militant close to deposed President Allende. Photo: AFP.
Chile’s Supreme Court Monday sentenced seven retired military officers involved in the Sept. 12, 1973, kidnapping and murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara to 25 years in jail, it was reported in Santiago. Those convicted are between 73 and 85 years old and are all at liberty.
”The facts described… are real since they occurred in a certain place and time and are proven, legally accredited through the means of proof,” the court’s unanimous ruling read regarding the events the day after the coup d’état against the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende. Jara was abducted that day and murdered a few days later. His body was found near the Metropolitan Cemetery on Sept. 16.
In Monday’s decision, the judges dismissed the defense’s arguments against the Nov. 2021 sentencing by the Court of Appeals against Raúl Jofré González, Edwin Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Bethke Wulf, Juan Jara Quintana, and Hernán Chacón Soto to 25 years in prison for the murder and kidnapping of the musician.
The case of Jara, a Communist Party militant and helper of Allende’s Popular Unity government, was one of the most prominent crimes pending closure.
Monday’s sentence came just 15 days before the coup’s 50th anniversary and amid a strong social polarization over the subsequent years of the General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte dictatorship, a regime that lasted 17 years and left more than 3,200 opponents dead, in addition to several other thousands arrested and tortured.
Also abducted and murdered together with Jara was then Prison Bureau Director Littré Quiroga. Monday’s ruling imposed a 15-year sentence for the murders of Jara and Littré and 10 years for both kidnappings.
Quiroga’s body was found next to Jara’s in a field near a railroad track showing signs of torture.
