After 50 years, former Chilean soldier Pedro Barrientos, the main perpetrator of the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, carried out a few days after the 1973 coup, was arrested in Daltona, in the United States.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed the former Chilean army member’s arrest on Oct. 5 and said Barrientos is now awaiting extradition to Chile.
According to documents available to the court, the former soldier came to the United States on a tourist visa in July 1990 – months after the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Seven years later he married an American woman and thus acquired American citizenship. However, last July, the local judiciary found that the former soldier had obtained citizenship illegally as he was responsible for extrajudicial killings and false statements, which invalidated the acquisition of this status.
The musician, actor, theater director and composer Víctor Jara was arrested on September 12, 1973, one day after the coup, at his place of work, the State Technical University (now the University of Santiago de Chile), and transferred to the Stadium of Chile, where he was brutally killed was tortured after being recognized by the military in charge of the sports facility. His ribs were kicked and his hands were broken with gun butts by torturers who ironically asked him to “play the guitar.” After four days he was murdered with more than 40 shots and thrown into an abandoned property.
Although Barrientos has always denied his involvement in Jara’s crimes, last August the Supreme Court of Chile unanimously upheld the 15-year and one-day prison sentence of seven former soldiers as perpetrators of the crime against Jara, the author of “Te recuerdo Amanda”, “Plegaria” . para un labrador” and “El cigarrito”.
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