Chilean Woman Fights Extradition Over Pinochet-Era Crimes

A 72-year-old Chilean woman suspected of having kidnapped and tortured dissidents during the military rule of General Augusto Pinochet has lost her lengthy legal battle against extradition from Australia. Adriana Rivas moved to Australia in 1978, where she worked as a nanny and a cleaner in the Sydney suburb of Bondi. Chile requested her extradition 12 years ago, alleging that before she emigrated to Australia she had been involved in the disappearance of seven people, which she denies.More than 40,000 people were politically persecuted and some 3,000 were killed during the Pinochet era, which lasted from 1973 to 1990. Rivas was first arrested during a visit to her home country in 2006 but returned to Australia while on bail. Chile filed an extradition request in 2014. On Monday, a federal judge dismissed her lawyers' arguments that the request was legally flawed. Australian media said Rivas could try to appeal against the decision at the full federal court, but it was not clear whether the grounds for such an appeal would be met. A lawyer representing the relatives of the victims of the Pinochet regime said the families were 'truly, truly delighted' by Monday's ruling.Barring another appeal, Rivas will be sent back to her home country to stand trial on charges of aggravated kidnapping. Rivas was the personal secretary for Chile's infamous secret police chief Manuel Contreras from 1973 to 1976. Rights activists have long alleged that she was personally involved in the kidnapping and torture of dissidents. They say that she became an active agent for the National Intelligence Directorate (Dina), the secret police force founded by General Pinochet to hunt down his political opponents after he seized power in a military coup in September 1973.Dina agents abducted, tortured, killed and forcibly disappeared thousands of people before the agency was replaced by the equally brutal CNI, an army intelligence battalion. In a 2013 interview with Australian broadcaster SBS, Rivas described her years at the Dina as 'the best of my life' but denied any wrongdoing. Chilean prosecutors accuse Rivas of having participated in the 1976 forced disappearance of the secretary-general of Chile's Communist Party, Víctor Díaz, and six other Communist Party members, the youngest of whom was 29-year-old Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, who was pregnant at the time. All seven Communist Party members are assumed to have been killed in detention.According to documents supplied by Chile to request her extradition, Rivas 'took part in the detention... of the victims while she served as guard and in other operative roles'. Witnesses alleged in interviews given to documentary filmmaker Lissette Orozco that she was one of Dina's 'most brutal torturers' who played a key role in the elite Lautaro Brigade, which was tasked with killing the leadership of Chile's underground Communist Party. Rivas has denied taking part in any torture sessions. Ms. Orozco, who is Rivas' niece, spent five years making a documentary about her aunt, which was screened at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival.