Carmelo Soria
Encyclopedia
Carmelo Soria was a Spanish
-Chile
an United Nations
diplomat
. A member of the CEPAL (United Nations
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) in the 1970s, he was assassinated by Chile's DINA agents as a part of Operation Condor
. Augusto Pinochet had personally been indicted
in this case.
. He had three children with his wife Laura González Vera.
After the Spanish Civil War
(1936–39), Carmelo Soria, who was a member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), exile
d himself to Chile, where he obtained double citizenship. He became a UN civil servant in the 1960s. Between 1971 and 1973, during Salvador Allende
's rule, Soria temporarily abandoned his functions to become an advisor to the Popular Unity
government. In September 1973, after Augusto Pinochet's coup, he re-joined the UN. He then used his diplomatic immunity
status to protect opponents of Pinochet
by granting them political asylum in various embassies, thus making him a target for the DINA secret police.
On 14 July 1976, he was abducted
and his corpse found two days later in a car sunk in the Canal del Carmen in the Pirámide sector of Santiago de Chile. Soria was first detained in the Vía Naranja house in the sector of Lo Curro, shared by DINA agent Michael Townley
and where Eugenio Berrios
also worked. There, he was tortured and, since he didn't speak, subjected to sarin gas (which had been re-invented by Berrios). Soria was then detained and tortured again in the Villa Grimaldi
.
On 18 July 1976, notices of Carmelo Soria's death began to be announced on European radio stations, while it was censored in Chile.
On 4 August 1976, another member of Soria's family, Dr. Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue, the son of the ex-rector of the University of Chile and former Minister of Education Pedro Godoy, also "disappeared
".
On 15 December 1976, The Washington Post
published an article confirming that Soria's death had been caused by torture at the hands of the Chilean authorities, and not as a car-crash as pretended by the latter. Despite requests from UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim
made in 1976, the Chilean justice apparatus refused to open new investigations on the case. The Washington Posts informations were confirmed in 1992 by the testimony of DINA agent Michael Townley. Soria's assassination at the hands of the DINA was confirmed by the Rettig Report
at the beginning of the Chilean transition to democracy
.
, the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos
, already involved in the Letelier case
, escaped to Uruguay in order to avoid testifying in both the Letelier case and the Soria case.
In 1994, Carmen Soria, the daughter of the assassinated diplomat, presented a complaint for "assassination" of her father. She then received anonymous calls informing her that the investigations would lead nowhere as the corpse had disappeared from the cemetery. Two years later, the Supreme Court of Chile
closed the case, applying the April 1978 Amnesty Law. This led Carmen Soria to present the following year a complaint against Chile
before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(CIDH), charging it with "denigration of justice." The CIDH thereafter requested Chile to open new investigations and to insure Carmelo Soria's family financial compensation for his murder.
Furthermore, Soria's widow deposed a complaint to the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón
. On 4 May 2001, Garzón ordered the provisional detention of former Chilean Minister of Defence Hernán Julio Brady Roche (1975–1978) on charges of genocide
, terrorism
and torture
in relation to Soria's assassination, and requested his extradition
. Brady subsequently denied any knowledge concerning Soria's murder. However, the Audiencia Nacional (high court) archived the case on 31 May 2001, arguing that the Spanish justice was not entitled to pursue the Soria case, despite the universal jurisdiction principle, as it had refused a short time before to pursue Arnaldo Otegi
(leader of Batasuna
) for an alleged act of "apology of terrorism" committed in France.
In May 2002, Soria's corpse was exhumed on orders of the magistrate Andrés Contreras, in order to verify his identity. Soria's family had presented a complaint two weeks before concerning "illegal inhumation", alleging that during the transfer of Soria's corpse in 1983, a substitution had been made in order to dispose of his corpse. However the corpse's identity was confirmed in July 2002.
In January 2004, Chilean foreign minister Soledad Alvear
signed an agreement with Carmen Soria which promised that a law would be voted concerning the funding of US$ 1.5 million to Soria's family in reparations of Carmelo Soria's death. Alvear then signed it again in March 2004 before the UN. In July 2007, the Senate ratified this agreement with the UN, by 16 votes for against 14. It had beforehand refused this same agreement, in November 2005.
In October 2005, the family's lawyer, Alfonso Insunza, presented a request before the Chilean justice demanding that the General Eduardo Aldunate Herman, second-in-command of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH), be heard in the Soria case. According to former DINA agent Carlos Labarca Sanhueza's judicial testimony, General Herman was part of the Brigada Mulchén special DINA unit involved in Soria's assassination. The Brigada Mulchén, ultimately placed under the orders of Augusto Pinochet
, was found responsible of Soria's assassination by a Chilean Court of Appeal in 1992. According to Carmen Soria, General Herman was also involved in Eugenio Berríos
' assassination at the beginnings of the 1990s.
In August 2006, the magistrate Alejandro Madrid, charged with the Soria case, stated that one of the key participant to Soria's assassination, the military officer José Remigio Ríos San Martín, had been detained in 1993 by BIE agents (Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército, military intelligence agency) in order to convince him to change his judicial testimony. In this statement, Ríos San Martín had accused the Brigadier Jaime Lepe, secretary-general of the Army and a close contact of Augusto Pinochet
, and other DINA agents, of being responsible of Soria's death. According to the judge Madrid, the order to detain Ríos San Martín was directly issued by the Brigadier Jaime Lepe, whose promotion to General was blocked in 1997 by the former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
in 1997 following denounciations by Carmen Soria.
According to Ríos San Martín' testimony, the Brigada Mulchén was headed by the then Captain Guillermo Salinas Torre, who ordered Soria's kidnapping. The DINA then believed that Carmelo Soria was a member of the Chilean Communist Party. Ríos San Martín' testimony relaunched the Soria case by confirming previous statements made by Michael Townley at the end of 1992 concerning Soria's abduction.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
-Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
. A member of the CEPAL (United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) in the 1970s, he was assassinated by Chile's DINA agents as a part of Operation Condor
Operation Condor
Operation Condor , was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America...
. Augusto Pinochet had personally been indicted
Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial
General Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón on 10 October 1998. He was arrested in London six days later and finally released by the British government in March 2000...
in this case.
Life
Carmelo Soria was the nephew of the Spanish urban planner Arturo Soria y MataArturo Soria y Mata
Arturo Soria y Mata was an internationally important Spanish urban planner whose work remains highly inspirational today. He is most well known for his concept of the Linear City for application to Madrid and elsewhere....
. He had three children with his wife Laura González Vera.
After the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
(1936–39), Carmelo Soria, who was a member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
d himself to Chile, where he obtained double citizenship. He became a UN civil servant in the 1960s. Between 1971 and 1973, during Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
's rule, Soria temporarily abandoned his functions to become an advisor to the Popular Unity
Popular Unity
Unidad Popular was a coalition of left wing, socialist and communist political parties in Chile that stood behind the successful candidacy of Salvador Allende for the 1970 Chilean presidential election....
government. In September 1973, after Augusto Pinochet's coup, he re-joined the UN. He then used his diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host country's laws...
status to protect opponents of Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
by granting them political asylum in various embassies, thus making him a target for the DINA secret police.
On 14 July 1976, he was abducted
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
and his corpse found two days later in a car sunk in the Canal del Carmen in the Pirámide sector of Santiago de Chile. Soria was first detained in the Vía Naranja house in the sector of Lo Curro, shared by DINA agent Michael Townley
Michael Townley
Michael Vernon Townley is a US citizen currently living in the United States under terms of the federal witness protection program. A Central Intelligence Agency agent and operative of the Chilean secret police, DINA, Townley confessed, was convicted, and served 62 months in prison in the United...
and where Eugenio Berrios
Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos Sagredo was a Chilean biochemist who worked for the DINA intelligence agency.Berríos was charged with carrying outProyecto Andrea in which Pinochet ordered the production of sarin gas, a chemical weapon used by the DINA. Sarin gas leaves no trace and victims' deaths closely mimic...
also worked. There, he was tortured and, since he didn't speak, subjected to sarin gas (which had been re-invented by Berrios). Soria was then detained and tortured again in the Villa Grimaldi
Villa Grimaldi
Villa Grimaldi was a complex of buildings used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners by DINA, the Chilean secret police, during the government of Augusto Pinochet. The complex was located in Peñalolén, in the outskirts of Santiago, and was in operation from mid-1974 to mid-1978...
.
On 18 July 1976, notices of Carmelo Soria's death began to be announced on European radio stations, while it was censored in Chile.
On 4 August 1976, another member of Soria's family, Dr. Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue, the son of the ex-rector of the University of Chile and former Minister of Education Pedro Godoy, also "disappeared
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
".
On 15 December 1976, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
published an article confirming that Soria's death had been caused by torture at the hands of the Chilean authorities, and not as a car-crash as pretended by the latter. Despite requests from UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Josef Waldheim was an Austrian diplomat and politician. Waldheim was the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria, from 1986 to 1992...
made in 1976, the Chilean justice apparatus refused to open new investigations on the case. The Washington Posts informations were confirmed in 1992 by the testimony of DINA agent Michael Townley. Soria's assassination at the hands of the DINA was confirmed by the Rettig Report
Rettig Report
The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report, is a 1991 report by a commission designated by then President Patricio Aylwin encompassing human rights abuses resulting in death or disappearance that occurred in Chile during the years of military rule...
at the beginning of the Chilean transition to democracy
Chilean transition to democracy
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
.
Chilean transition and trials
In 1991, during the beginning of the Chilean transition to democracyChilean transition to democracy
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
, the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos Sagredo was a Chilean biochemist who worked for the DINA intelligence agency.Berríos was charged with carrying outProyecto Andrea in which Pinochet ordered the production of sarin gas, a chemical weapon used by the DINA. Sarin gas leaves no trace and victims' deaths closely mimic...
, already involved in the Letelier case
Letelier case
The Letelier case refers to the killing in Washington, D.C. of Orlando Letelier, a Chilean political figure and later United States-based activist, along with his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt...
, escaped to Uruguay in order to avoid testifying in both the Letelier case and the Soria case.
In 1994, Carmen Soria, the daughter of the assassinated diplomat, presented a complaint for "assassination" of her father. She then received anonymous calls informing her that the investigations would lead nowhere as the corpse had disappeared from the cemetery. Two years later, the Supreme Court of Chile
Supreme Court of Chile
The Supreme Court of Chile is the highest court in Chile. It also administrates the lower courts in the nation. It is located in the capital Santiago....
closed the case, applying the April 1978 Amnesty Law. This led Carmen Soria to present the following year a complaint against Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States .Along with the...
(CIDH), charging it with "denigration of justice." The CIDH thereafter requested Chile to open new investigations and to insure Carmelo Soria's family financial compensation for his murder.
Furthermore, Soria's widow deposed a complaint to the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...
. On 4 May 2001, Garzón ordered the provisional detention of former Chilean Minister of Defence Hernán Julio Brady Roche (1975–1978) on charges of genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
in relation to Soria's assassination, and requested his extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
. Brady subsequently denied any knowledge concerning Soria's murder. However, the Audiencia Nacional (high court) archived the case on 31 May 2001, arguing that the Spanish justice was not entitled to pursue the Soria case, despite the universal jurisdiction principle, as it had refused a short time before to pursue Arnaldo Otegi
Arnaldo Otegi
Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón is a Basque politician and spokesman for the outlawed Abertzale Basque separatist party Batasuna....
(leader of Batasuna
Batasuna
Batasuna was a Basque nationalist political party based mainly in Spain, where it was outlawed in 2003, after a court ruling declared proven that the party was financing ETA with public money. Batasuna is included in the "European Union list of terrorist persons and organizations" as a component...
) for an alleged act of "apology of terrorism" committed in France.
In May 2002, Soria's corpse was exhumed on orders of the magistrate Andrés Contreras, in order to verify his identity. Soria's family had presented a complaint two weeks before concerning "illegal inhumation", alleging that during the transfer of Soria's corpse in 1983, a substitution had been made in order to dispose of his corpse. However the corpse's identity was confirmed in July 2002.
In January 2004, Chilean foreign minister Soledad Alvear
Soledad Alvear
María Soledad Alvear Valenzuela , is a Chilean lawyer and Christian Democrat politician, who was a cabinet member of the Aylwin, Frei and Lagos administrations. She was president of the Christian Democrat Party from 2006-2008...
signed an agreement with Carmen Soria which promised that a law would be voted concerning the funding of US$ 1.5 million to Soria's family in reparations of Carmelo Soria's death. Alvear then signed it again in March 2004 before the UN. In July 2007, the Senate ratified this agreement with the UN, by 16 votes for against 14. It had beforehand refused this same agreement, in November 2005.
In October 2005, the family's lawyer, Alfonso Insunza, presented a request before the Chilean justice demanding that the General Eduardo Aldunate Herman, second-in-command of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
The United Nations Stabilisation Mission In Haiti , also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of the French translation, is a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti that has been in operation since 2004. The mission's military component is led by the Brazilian Army and the force commander is...
(MINUSTAH), be heard in the Soria case. According to former DINA agent Carlos Labarca Sanhueza's judicial testimony, General Herman was part of the Brigada Mulchén special DINA unit involved in Soria's assassination. The Brigada Mulchén, ultimately placed under the orders of Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
, was found responsible of Soria's assassination by a Chilean Court of Appeal in 1992. According to Carmen Soria, General Herman was also involved in Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos Sagredo was a Chilean biochemist who worked for the DINA intelligence agency.Berríos was charged with carrying outProyecto Andrea in which Pinochet ordered the production of sarin gas, a chemical weapon used by the DINA. Sarin gas leaves no trace and victims' deaths closely mimic...
' assassination at the beginnings of the 1990s.
In August 2006, the magistrate Alejandro Madrid, charged with the Soria case, stated that one of the key participant to Soria's assassination, the military officer José Remigio Ríos San Martín, had been detained in 1993 by BIE agents (Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército, military intelligence agency) in order to convince him to change his judicial testimony. In this statement, Ríos San Martín had accused the Brigadier Jaime Lepe, secretary-general of the Army and a close contact of Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
, and other DINA agents, of being responsible of Soria's death. According to the judge Madrid, the order to detain Ríos San Martín was directly issued by the Brigadier Jaime Lepe, whose promotion to General was blocked in 1997 by the former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
Eduardo Alfredo Juan Bernardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle is a Chilean politician and civil engineer who was President of Chile from 1994 to 2000. He is currently Senator for Los Ríos and was President of the Senate from 2006 to 2008. He attempted a comeback as the candidate of the ruling Concertación...
in 1997 following denounciations by Carmen Soria.
According to Ríos San Martín' testimony, the Brigada Mulchén was headed by the then Captain Guillermo Salinas Torre, who ordered Soria's kidnapping. The DINA then believed that Carmelo Soria was a member of the Chilean Communist Party. Ríos San Martín' testimony relaunched the Soria case by confirming previous statements made by Michael Townley at the end of 1992 concerning Soria's abduction.
See also
- Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trialAugusto Pinochet's arrest and trialGeneral Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón on 10 October 1998. He was arrested in London six days later and finally released by the British government in March 2000...