Most recent hunger strike by imprisoned activists over “politically motivated prosecutions” and state application of Antiterrorist Law comes to a close as conflict between Mapuche communities and the Chilean state intensifies.
Showing posts with label chile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chile. Show all posts
10 Feb 2012
Spanish court convicts judge Garzon
Spain's top court has convicted judge Baltasar Garzon in an illegal phone-tapping case and suspended him from the legal profession for 11 years, according to a court official.
Garzon, 56, who became internationally well known for his attempts to extradite Chile's former ruler, Augusto Pinochet, was found guilty of ordering illegal recordings of conversations between suspects in a corruption case and their lawyers.
Human rights groups and many Spanish supporters of Garzon view the accusations as attacks on Garzon for his investigation, launched in 2008, into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Spain’s nationalist government during the 1936-39 civil war.
The supreme court said in a statement on Thursday that Garzon had been suspended from the bench for 11 years, which, given his age, could effectively end his career. Garzon acted arbitrarily in ordering jailhouse phone tapping of conversations between detainees and their lawyers, the court said. It said his actions "these days are only found in totalitarian regimes". The Switzerland-based International Commission of Jurists condemned the supreme court verdict as "deplorable". It said Garzon had been prosecuted simply for doing his job.
27 Sept 2011
Nazi was post-war spy for Germany in South America
A high-ranking Nazi officer, who helped develop a mobile gas chamber, became a spy for West Germany after World War Two and went on a training course for the BND intelligence agency despite German warrants for his arrest, BND archives showed.
"In hindsight, the recruitment of Walther Rauff is politically and morally incomprehensible," said BND historian Bodo Hechelhammer on Monday.
Rauff, who was a top SS security officer in Nazi Germany, was a BND agent in South America between 1958 and 1962, earning more than 70,000 Deutsche marks (about $US18,000), Hechelhammer said. Rauff died in Chile in 1984 having evaded attempts to bring him to justice.
The BND, formed after World War Two with the help of the United States, even sent money to pay for Rauff's legal fees when he fought extradition from Chile to face war crimes.
After the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 Rauff fled to South America, where he was recruited by the BND. He operated under the name of Enrico Gomez and was assigned to report on Fidel Castro, a mission that turned out to be futile because he was denied entry into Cuba.
Between 1960 and 1962, Rauff took part in two BND training courses in Germany - the second in February 1962 when there was a German arrest warrant for him.
19 Aug 2011
Chilean students demand education reform
Tens of thousands of students demonstrating in the capital against their country's education system. Al Jazeera
20 Jul 2011
Chile's President Allende killed himself, experts say
A team of international experts has concluded that the former president of Chile, Salvador Allende, killed himself during the 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.
A detailed report was released two months after Mr Allende's body was exhumed as part of an inquiry into his death. Mr Allende's family has always accepted the official version. But some of his supporters suspected he had been killed by soldiers.
Allende, who was 65, died in La Moneda presidential palace on 11 September 1973 as it was being bombed by air force jets and attacked by tanks. The official version was that he shot himself - with a rifle given to him by his friend, the then Cuban leader Fidel Castro - as troops stormed the palace.
Mr Allende's family agreed to have his body exhumed from a cemetery in the capital, Santiago, so that an international team of experts, including specialists in ballistics, could determine the cause of death.
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