Under the label “Arrests: the Worst of the Worst,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security created an online site with information on individuals who have been detained by ICE. Among them is Armando Fernández Larios, who, in addition to having been a member of the DINA, is accused of several crimes against humanity. He took part in the so-called “Caravan of Death[1]”, participated in the assault on La Moneda Palace[2], and was involved in the assassination of Orlando Letelier[3] —a case for which Fernández Larios had federal protection and therefore could not be extradited. He is also accused by the Chilean judiciary of murder, enforced disappearance, and terrorism in some of the most emblematic cases of human rights violations.
Chile’s foreign minister, Alberto van Klaveren, acknowledged that the current government was aware that Fernández Larios, now 76, “had been detained for quite some time.”
Attorney Cristian Cruz, who—together with a team of professionals—has advanced cases involving crimes against humanity, including those concerning Uruguayans detained and disappeared on Chilean territory, explained several aspects of this U.S. decision, which could be described as surprising.
When asked specifically about the United States’ decision to intervene in Chilean justice and “remove” this former DINA agent from the country in order to protect him, Cruz stated the following:
“It should not surprise us that the United States and other powers act in Latin America, in Africa,” he began. He cited the case of Belgium, which recently opened a file concerning a former Belgian state official who allegedly co-participated in the murder of Patrice Lumumba[4], as well as Operation Condor, where there was repressive coordination among security agents from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. “We know,” he added, “that there was interference by Argentines in Uruguay, by Uruguayans in Chile; we know that for the coup d’état (in Uruguay) there were Brazilian agents at the border; we also know that there were Uruguayan agents who were identified torturing and participating in torture at the national stadium in 1973. So there has always been interference by other powers in countries like ours in the third world.”
Cruz and his team are handling 14 of the 15 cases of the “Caravan of Death” in La Serena, where between 2017 and 2018 information was requested from the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Foreign Ministry. He notes that “the Foreign Ministry only responded in 2021. What I mean is that there has been inactivity here, a neglect that borders on a limit that makes us distrustful.”
Regarding extradition and expulsion, he succinctly explains the differences between the two. “Extradition means that one state hands over an individual requested by another state so that the person may be tried in the territory of the requesting state. That is what happened with the Uruguayan army officers who, accused of committing the crime against Eugenio Berríos, were requested by Chilean justice, handed over by Uruguay, tried, sentenced, and convicted in Chile… Unfortunately, we understand that at the time two of them were sent back to Uruguay and did not serve even half of the sentence to which they had been condemned, which is another aspect we find troubling. Expulsion simply means removing someone from a country’s internal borders; that is, they could be sent to any country or left at the border, but usually they are expelled to their country of birth, their country of origin. Therefore, we also do not rule out that he may be expelled—like other Chileans—to Chile, which is obviously what we seek. Now, they could send him to CECOT in El Salvador, to that prison of Bukele…”
Cruz again refers to the La Serena Caravan of Death case, in which several agents have already been convicted: “We have filed a submission with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights regarding an officer who was not duly convicted, since he was favored—under our understanding—in an unconstitutional manner with a non-custodial sentence. I do not want to get into technicalities, but it was said of him that, given his age and his level of participation, he did not deserve to be in prison. However, there were other officers of younger age, lower rank, and lesser participation who did go to prison. But when it came to this former commander-in-chief, no. So we are not fooled; we understand the power he has—so much so that former president Lagos, who is supposedly a socialist militant, even went to testify in his favor. So, in truth, the Foreign Ministry, in our view, placed obstacles before the Inter-American Commission to prevent this case from being examined.”
He then adds, as part of the same concern, that “this is not the first time we have had reason to distrust the Chilean Foreign Ministry’s commitment to complying with national and international obligations in this matter.”
Regarding Fernández Larios, he described him as a cruel, sadistic individual who even tortured victims to death with a corvo knife and continued attacking them even after they had died. Even so, he explains that “this is not about four or five psychopaths acting on their own. No. It is the Chilean Army that acts and that generates, at its various levels, all of this activity: detaining or kidnapping victims, torturing them, falsely charging them, murdering them, making them disappear, justifying these acts with false or pseudo charges in courts-martial that never actually took place—this entire criminal enterprise.”
He also recounted the case of victims “who were interred, buried in a common grave, without names, not even separated from one another,” and that it was later determined that “when the body of an alleged victim was handed over, it not only did not correspond to that victim, but in fact corresponded to—using scientific terms—four genetic profiles. That is, you understand, and I hope compatriots understand, the cruelty of handing over a body that not only is not the person in question, but corresponds to the merging of four human bodies, and telling the family, ‘look, here is your loved one,’ when that was not the case. That is the cruelty of the Chilean Army; that is the malice with which these victims have been treated.”
House Arrest
In Uruguay, and also in Chile, there has been extensive debate about the possibility that military personnel convicted of crimes against humanity might serve their sentences at home rather than in detention centers properly equipped for them. On this point, Cruz refers to the case of a soldier known as “El Príncipe”[5], who was declared “insane or demented,” a diagnosis that was later shown not to have met all due guarantees.
Specifically, the human rights lawyer believes that if these initiatives move forward, “a very dangerous door is being opened,” and he illustrates this with what has occurred with the Italian mafia and with “historically organized mafia groups, which are led by family clans whose head is often a grandfather or grandmother.”
In closing, and by way of summary regarding Fernández Larios, Cruz believes that based on the background surrounding this case—where “quite a few officers tried to shift their responsibility by blaming Fernández Larios for their own actions—if he returns to Chile and tells the truth, he will also implicate many of those officers. Therefore, I think he must be kept in a situation that prevents de facto powers, military powers, from gaining access to him”.
[1] This was a military operation led by General Arellano Stark, carried out between September and October 1973, in which at least 93 people died, some belonging to the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and others with no political affiliation
[2] This took place on September 11, 1973, in Chile and marked the beginning of the coup d’état led by General Augusto Pinochet.
[3] Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar, Chilean politician, lawyer, ambassador, and Minister of State in the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende. According to information declassified by the CIA, he was assassinated on the orders of General Augusto Pinochet in Washington.
[4] Patrice Émery Lumumba, Congolese anti-colonialist and nationalist leader, the first to hold the position of Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo between June and September 1960, following the independence of this state from Belgian colonial occupation. He was overthrown in 1960 and assassinated in 1961. In 1966, he was named a national hero.
[5] Refers to former Colonel Edwin Dimter Bianchi, known as El Príncipe (The Prince), one of those involved in the assassination of Víctor Jara.
