MEXICO, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – Chile’s Court of Appeal on Friday arrested seven retired servicemen over their suspected involvement in the 1973 killing of folk singer Victor Jara, one of the highest-profile victims of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, Latin American media reported on Friday.
On September 12, 1973, after the military coup which overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, Jara, along with thousands of Chileans, was arrested and then held prisoner at the Estadio Chile.
The 40-year-old singer was tortured for four days in the stadium that now bears his name. On September 15 he was machine-gunned, with 34 bullet wounds later found on his body.
To date, Ret. Col. Mario Manríquez Bravo, the former chief of the Estadio Chile internment camp, is the only person convicted for the killing.
Jara’s relatives earlier called for the masterminds and immediate perpetrators of the killing to be held to account.
