The Supreme Court of Chile has found 18 former security agents from the Pinochet regime guilty of the kidnapping and murder of woman professor and communist party member Marta Ugarte.
Ugarte’s corpse was shockingly tortured before her body was dropped into the sea from a helicopter and was later discovered by a fisherman on La Ballena Beach in the Chilean region of Valparaiso on 1st September 1976.
She had last been seen alive on 9th August.
Her body was burnt, her arms and neck tied with wire, and one arm and all her ribs were broken, injuries consistent with having been tortured and thrown from a considerable height.
Subsequent investigations revealed she had been taken to a clandestine jail, where she was interrogated, tortured and finally executed before being dropped into the sea from the helicopter.
The Supreme Court ruled that Ugarte, 42, was killed solely for belonging to the Communist Party by the same regime that overthrew the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende.
The court had already handed down the sentences to the former security agents, but they are now final after it rejected their cassation appeals.
The court, thereby, upheld the sentences against Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo and Claudio Pacheco Fernandez to 15 years in prison for aggravated murder and 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping.
It also upheld the sentences against Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Jose Ojeda Obando, Juvenal Pina Garrido, Victor Manuel Alvarez Droguett, Orlando Altamirano Sanhueza, Guillermo Diaz Ramirez, Jorge Diaz Radulovich, Orlando Torrejon Gatica, Carlos Miranda Mesa y Carlos Lopez Inostroza to 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping.
Carlos Mardones Diaz, on the other hand, was sentenced to eight years in prison for being an accomplice, and Luis Polanco Gallardo was given five years in prison for being an accessory to aggravated murder.
Finally, Leonidas Mendez Romero and Jose Seco Alarcon got five years in prison and Emilio Troncoso Vivallos got four years in prison for being accomplices to aggravated kidnapping.
The Treasury must also pay compensation to the victim’s sisters.
The Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation found that over 2,000 people had been killed for political reasons during the military dictatorship of Chile from 1973 to 1990.
Despite being indicted by the Chilean justice, Augusto Pinochet died a free man in the Chilean capital Santiago at the age of 91 in December 2006. He was never convicted of any of the crimes of which he was accused.