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Santiago (AFP) – An Italian delegation visited Chile this week to request the extradition of Chilean soldiers sentenced in Italy for Operation Condor and its members said they trust that the Chilean justice system will grant it soon.
Composed of the lawyer, Arturo Salerni, the representative of several of the victims, Jorge Ithurburu, who promoted the process in Italy, met with the Minister of Justice of Chile, Marcela Ríos, and the Deputy Minister of Human Rights, Haydee Oberreuter.
In addition, they made contact with the civil parties and witnesses of the trial, along with knowing the places where the events occurred.
“We have controlled the procedure for extradition here in Chile and probably in the month of May, the Chilean Supreme Court will be able to sentence the first three extradition requests,” said lawyer Salerni, at a press conference at the Museo de la Memory of Santiago.
“I believe that all the conditions provided for by the Italian-Chilean extradition treaty exist for this extradition to be granted,” added the Italian jurist.
In July 2021, the Italian Justice asked Chile to extradite three former Chilean soldiers, sentenced to life imprisonment in Italy for the murder of two of their citizens, within the framework of the Condor Plan, a coordinated operation of the military dictatorships of the Southern Cone in the 70’s for the extermination of opponents.
After more than 20 years of investigations, the Italian Supreme Court concluded the process last year, sentencing 24 Latin American former soldiers and repressors, six of them Chileans, to life imprisonment.
The soldiers sentenced by the trial are accused of torturing, making disappear and murdering 43 Latin American citizens of Italian origin in the 1970s: six Argentines, four Chileans and 13 Uruguayans, in addition to another 20 Uruguayans kidnapped in Argentina.
The Chileans sentenced, all to life imprisonment, are the former members of the Investigative Police Daniel Aguirre Mora and Carlos Luco Astroza and the former non-commissioned officer Orlando Moreno Vásquez, for whom extradition was requested.
The other three are former Colonel Rafael Ahumada Valderrama and former brigadiers and members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Manuel Vásquez Chahuán.
They are all elderly former agents of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), which left more than 3,200 victims, including dead and disappeared.
The Italian-Chilean victims are Juan José Montiglio Murúa, 24 years old; the 31-year-old former priest Omar Venturelli; the student Juan Maino Canales, 27, together with the marriage formed by Elizabeth Rekas Urra and Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea. In addition to the mechanic Jaime Donato Avendaño, 41.
Twenty-three Italians living in Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay were murdered in the framework of Plan Condor.
© 2022 AFP
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