Former Chilean officer Pedro Barrientos, convicted of the torture and murder of singer Victor Jara, will be extradited from the United States to Chile.
The ex-lieutenant of the Armed Forces will arrive on Friday morning at Santiago Airport, escorted by agents of the Police of Investigations (PDI) on a flight from Miami, where he is currently held by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
He will then be transported by helicopter to the Peñalolen Military Police Battalion, where he will be detained as a suspect. “Judge Guillermo de la Barra will arrive in Peñalolen to notify him of the charges and explain what comes next in the case. He will not interrogate him,” reported the EFE agency.
Barrientos, who was one of the officers involved in the repression of civilians at the National Stadium in the days following the coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973, was arrested on October 5th in Deltona by members of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
He was arrested based on a U.S. court ruling holding him responsible for the torture and extrajudicial killing of Victor Jara.
On July 14, months before his arrest, a judge had stripped him of U.S. citizenship for “intentionally concealing material facts related to his military service in his immigration applications.”
Barrientos illegally acquired citizenship because he lacked good moral character, committing illegal acts, giving false testimony, and participating in extrajudicial executions.
In 2016, a federal court jury in Orlando held him responsible for the torture and murder of Victor Jara in a lawsuit filed by the singer’s wife Joan Jara and her daughters. The jury ordered Barrientos to pay a multimillion-dollar compensation for damages to the Jara family.
In July 1990, the former military man entered the United States with a visitor visa and married a U.S. citizen seven years later. During immigration procedures, Barrientos denied any association with politics or the military. He also denied involvement in any genocide or murder based on race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, or political opinion.
Invoking the 1991 Torture Victims Protection Act, the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) filed a civil lawsuit against Barriendos in 2013. Since then, the Jara family, especially his recently deceased widow, has been pushing for his extradition to Chile.
