Chile acts on judge’s finding

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 10

Chile acts on judge’s finding

NZPA-Reuter Santiago Chile’s military Government has ordered the arrest of 14 police officers accused by a judge of involvement in the murder of three Communists in March, and two of the force’s top generals have submitted their resignations.

The moves were announced yesterday after a two-hour meeting between President Augusto Pinochet, the military junta, senior

Cabinet Ministers, and the heads of security forces. A statement, read by the Government Secretary, General Francisco Cuadra, said that the 14 policemen had been dismissed from the service and taken into custody-

The deputy director of the para-military police, General Rodolfo Stange, and the third ranking officer, General Carlos Donoso, had offered their resignations to

the President. It did not say if they had been accepted. Judge Jose Canovas, appointed to investigate the murders when the bodies of the three men were found in a ditch with their throats cut, ruled that the case should be turned over to military courts because police were responsible. Opposition politicians and human rights groups had said from the outset that

only security forces could be responsible, pointing to the military precision of the abductions and the brazen use of force.

They expressed alarm too that some of the worst excesses seen in Chile in the years immediately after the 1973 military coup were reappearing. Senior police officers, including General Donoso, repeatedly denied that the police were involved.