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Australia detains nanny over alleged Pinochet-era crimes
SYDNEY, Feb 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Australia has arrested a nanny living in
the country for more than three decades, officials said Wednesday, after
Chile requested her extradition on allegations of Pinochet-era kidnapping and
torture.
Adriana Rivas, a Chilean citizen, was previously arrested in Chile in 2007
during a return to the country, but escaped back to Australia in 2010 while
she was on bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
It is alleged she worked in dictator Augusto Pinochet’s feared intelligence
services, in the 1970s.
Rivas, who is in her 60’s, was detained on Tuesday, a spokesperson for
Australia’s attorney general office said, adding she “is wanted to face
prosecution in the Republic of Chile for aggravated kidnapping offences”.
US-backed Pinochet, who died in 2006, toppled a democratically elected
president and presided over thousands of murders, tortures and forced
disappearances as Latin America was ravaged by Cold War-fuelled violence.
Chile requested Rivas’ extradition in 2014 from Sydney, where she has been
working part time as a nanny and a cleaner in the city’s Bondi suburb.
In a 2013 interview with Australian broadcaster SBS, Rivas claimed she was
innocent, but defended the use of torture in Chile at the time.
“They had to break the people – it has happened all over the world, not
only in Chile,” she said.
More than 3,000 regime opponents and alleged collaborators were killed or
went missing during Pinochet’s rule, according to researchers at Chile’s
Diego Portales University. Nearly 40,000 were tortured.
Rivas was scheduled to appear in a Sydney court Wednesday.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1110 hrs