The head of national security under former dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile was given a life sentence in prison on Monday. Ex-general Manuel Contreras (image) was formally convicted for the 1974 murders of former Chilean Army commander-in-chief Carlos Prats and his wife while in exile in Argentina. Aside from heading the DINA, Contreras had been one of the architects behind the infamous Operation Condor. (Operation Condor was an intelligence alliance between six rightist South American regimes during the “Dirty War” with the goal of eliminating dissent).
The kin of the late Prats expressed measured satisfaction over the Chilean court’s ruling:
"This sentence is justice for all that our parents lived through," Angelica Prats, one of the murdered couple's daughters, told reporters at the courts.
Her sister Cecilia lamented the fact that Pinochet, who died in 2006, never faced a full trial for crimes during his 1973-1990 dictatorship, when about 3,000 people were killed and another 28,000 tortured -- most of them suspected leftists.
Image- BBC News
Sources- earthtimes.org, McClatchy Bureau, BBC News, MSNBC
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