New disappeared charges in Chile

By Clinton Porteous
BBC News, Santiago

Contreras is already serving a 12-year sentence

A Chilean judge has laid new charges against General Pinochet's former secret police chief, Manuel Contreras.

They concern the 1974 disappearance of eight political prisoners at the Villa Grimaldi torture centre.

Court documents described barbaric detention facilities at the centre where some prisoners were held in small wooden boxes.

Contreras is already in prison, after being convicted over the 1975 disappearance of a left-wing activist.

Human rights groups have welcomed the sweeping resolution and say more charges should be laid as some 300 people disappeared at the centre.

Abducted

Judge Alejandro Solis described how the eight victims were abducted in the second half of 1974, taken to Villa Grimaldi, and never seen again.

He charged 14 members of the secret police force, known as Dina, over the disappearances.

Only three of the 14 have been detained because all the rest, including General Contreras, are already in jail or under court orders.

Despite this, there has been a strong reaction to the laying of charges stemming from crimes committed at Villa Grimaldi.

Located in suburban Santiago, it was probably Chile's most notorious torture and detention centre.

Viviana Diaz, of a group representing relatives of victims, pointed out that some 300 people had disappeared at the facility, according to an official report.

She told the BBC that more charges should be laid.

But a lawyer for one of the three officers arrested said the charges were unjust as the alleged crimes were covered by amnesty law passed in 1978.

The military government of General Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile for 17 years until 1990 and during that period more than 3,000 political opponents were killed, according to a later inquiry.

Villa Grimaldi has been demolished and is now the site of a memorial park.