Yesterday we mentioned how victims of Guatemala’s Dos Erres massacre received some measure of justice nearly three decades after the killings. The families of Carlos Prats and his wife can also rest a little easier 36 years after they were slain.On Thursday Chile’s top court upheld the murder convictions against several former members of that country’s secret police (DINA, in Spanish) for their role behind the Prats killing. Ex-DINA head Manuel Contreras were among those whose convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court for the 1974 bombing in Buenos Aires, which was masterminded by the late dictator Augusto Pinochet.
The court reduced Contreras’ sentence in the Prats case from life imprisonment to twenty years in jail but he has been imprisoned for other murders such as the 1976 car bombing of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington, D.C. The tribunal’s decision has brought some comfort to the family according to daughter Sofia Prats:
“As a family we’ve conformed with the reality that we know but no there has been juridical responsibility placed against those who at the time were sent by the Chilean government and military to commit their crimes.” – [ed. Translated text]Image- BBC Mundo (Carlos Prats had served as vice president under Salvador Allende before the military coup in 1973).
Online Sources- BBC Mundo, AP, AFP, The Latin Americanist
The trials being carried out in Argentina, Chile etc are a great thing, but who in the US is aware of them when the mainstream media is sleeping. Much of what happened under those dictatorship was known by the US because it helped them get into power. Justice sometimes is slow but it eventually catches up. Bravo
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