A six-person jury for the US Middle District of Florida [5] in Orlando found Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez [6] liable for the 1973 detention, torture and execution of Chilean folksinger Víctor Jara [7]. The court ordered Barrientos to pay $28 million in damages, $8 million in compensatory damages, and $20 million in punitive damages. The jury found that Barrientos, 67, who now lives in Deltona, Fla., shot Jara, 40, in September 1973 after three days of beatings and torture. The singer was among thousands of leftists detained in Santiago's football stadium after Augusto Pinochet [8]'s coup d'etat against Chile's democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende. Barrientos was then serving as a lieutenant in Chile's armed forces. He fled Chile in 1989 and became a US citizen through marriage. He was one of nine retired army officers indicted for the murder in Chile four years ago, but the US Department of Justice has not responded to a request for his extradition.
C. Dixon Osburn of the Center for Justice and Accountability [9], which helped prosecute the case, said: “We believe that perpetrators of the worst human rights crimes should be held to account, no matter how long it takes or where they try to hide. We must strive for a world where all can live freely, unafraid to speak up or sing out for equality, opportunity and responsibility. We hope that the verdict today provides some measure of justice and accountability for those who have fought so hard to see this day."
CJA legal director Kathy Roberts said: "This is the first trial seeking accountability for the death of Víctor Jara. The verdict in this case represents another signficant step to understanding what happened at Chile Stadium in the first days after the 1973 coup. I could not be more proud of the Jara family in this moment, and I thank them for their unwavering strength and perseverance." (CJA [10], The Guardian [11], NYT [12], June 27)
