Villa Grimaldi
Encyclopedia
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
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...
of political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s by DINA, the 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 secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, during the government 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...
. The complex was located in Peñalolén
Peñalolén
Peñalolén is a Chilean commune in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region. It was founded on November 15, 1984.-Demographics:...
, in the outskirts of Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
, and was in operation from mid-1974 to mid-1978. About 5,000 detainees were brought to Villa Grimaldi during this time, at least 240 of whom were "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...
" or killed by DINA.
The property originally belonged to a wealthy family, whose daughter was arrested by the Army shortly after the coup of 1973. The family surrendered the land to the Army in return for the release of their daughter.
Villa Grimaldi is an extensive plot of land and its buildings, now demolished, were enlarged to accommodate the center’s additional functions. Apparently, the first prisoners arrived in mid-1974 although their volume did not become more regular until later that year. Around the summer of 1975, Villa Grimaldi became the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade(BIM)'s center of operations, in charge of internal repression in Santiago.
Operative teams had their quarters at Villa Grimaldi. They brought prisoners there for initial interrogation after arrest and devices specially designed for different forms of torture were kept there. Victims included Carlos Lorca
Carlos Lorca
Carlos Enrique Lorca Tobar , was a Chilean physician, president of the Students' Federation and then deputy for Valdivia province and leader of the Socialist Party of Chile....
, the British physician Sheila Cassidy
Sheila Cassidy
Dr. Sheila Cassidy is an English doctor, known for her work in the hospice movement, as a writer and as someone who, by publicising her own history as a torture survivor, drew attention to human rights abuse in Chile in the 1970s.-Early life:Cassidy grew up in Sydney, and attended the Our Lady of...
, the MAPU
Mapu
Mapu may refer to:*The Popular Unitary Action Movement or MAPU , a small leftist political party in Chile*The Horse stance, a martial arts position, is known as Mapu in the Chinese language...
leader Juan Maino
Juan Maino
Juan Bosco Maino Canales was a photographer, political activist, and opponent of Augusto Pinochet's regime in Chile. He was a leader in MAPU...
, the CEPAL diplomat Carmelo Soria
Carmelo Soria
Carmelo Soria was a Spanish-Chilean United Nations diplomat. A member of the CEPAL in the 1970s, he was assassinated by Chile's DINA agents as a part of Operation Condor...
, and the ex President of Chile
President of Chile
The President of the Republic of Chile is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible of the government and state administration...
, Michelle Bachelet
Michelle Bachelet
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Social Democrat politician who was President of Chile from 11 March 2006 to 11 March 2010. She was the first woman president of her country...
, who was tortured with her mother. Prisoners who were not subject to torture were also kept there, sometimes for long periods, awaiting possible new interrogations or a decision on their fate.
As the number of prisoners increased, new structures were built to hold them. The conditions of these apparently differed depending on the state of the arrested individual and the effects the DINA wanted to produce in him or her. The Rettig Commission visited this site and, although the main buildings were demolished, the following description of Villa Grimaldi could be confirmed through studying the distribution of ruins and foundations:
Villa Grimaldi's buildings (particularly its Main House, a construction from mid 19th century) were destroyed during the last days of the military dictatorship, presumably to destroy evidence of the crimes that were committed there. The location is now the site of the Villa Grimaldi Park for Peace, a National Monument
National Monuments of Chile
The National Monuments of Chile , also abbreviated MN, are the constructions, elements and places that form part of the country's cultural heritage, and they are protected by law...
dedicated to human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and the memory of the victims of DINA. Some structures from the detention center remain, such as a swimming pool, and parts of the original wall that surrounded the site; some have been re-created (notably the watchtower and some representative detention cells). As of 2006 there were plans to build a museum on the site.
On September 9, 2006, General 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...
(now deceased) was stripped of his immunity by the Supreme Court
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....
. Judge Alejandro Madrid was thus able to indict him for the kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
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...
at Villa Grimaldi. He was put under house arrest at his suburban Santiago mansion on October 31, 2006. After that, all charges were dismissed by a superior court.