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Double life term for Pinochet secret police chief
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean judge on Monday added two life terms to the jail time of Augusto Pinochet's secret police chief for the murder of a former army chief and his wife in Argentina, the toughest penalty for dictatorship-era abuses to date.
Manuel Contreras, the former head of operations at the infamous DINA intelligence service, which ran torture centers where hundreds of people were killed, has already been sentenced to over 200 years jail for a series of other crimes.
Magistrate Alejandro Solis sentenced Contreras, 79, for the murder of former Chilean Army Commander Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofia Cuthbert, in a car bomb attack in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, in 1974.
He also sentenced 8 former DINA agents to jail terms of varying lengths.
Contreras' lawyer could not be reached for comment.
"This sentence is justice for all that our parents lived through," Angelica Prats, one of the murdered couple's daughters, told reporters at the courts.
Her sister Cecilia lamented the fact that Pinochet, who died in 2006, never faced a full trial for crimes during his 1973-1990 dictatorship, when about 3,000 people were killed and another 28,000 tortured -- most of them suspected leftists.
President Michelle Bachelet and her mother were among those tortured.
About 200,000 people fled into exile during the Pinochet years.
"The country is clear he (Pinochet) was among the group of people who attacked our father," Cecilia Prats said.
Rights groups and the relatives of the dictatorship's victims say Chile's wheels of justice are turning too slowly, and have accused the armed forces of shielding their own.
Only about 24 security officials have been convicted of crimes, nearly two decades after the dictatorship ended, while nearly 500 are under investigation.
In May, 98 former soldiers and secret police from Pinochet's rule were swept up in the biggest single mass arrest for abuses during the period.
"It is not easy to investigate human rights violations," Justice Minister Carlos Maldonado.
"In a case like this, a horrendous crime against a former army commander in chief and his wife, a terrorist attack in another country, it is great to be able to move forward for truth and justice."
(With reporting by Bianca Frigiani, Writing by Simon Gardner)
