Santiago – Retired general Hernán Chacón, convicted along with other soldiers for the murder half a century ago of emblematic singer-songwriter Víctor Jara during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, committed suicide yesterday at the age of 85, shortly before being taken to jail, reported the Prosecutor’s Office
When the police went to look for him to comply with the order of the Supreme Court, Chacón “took a firearm, firing a shot that caused his death at the same home,” prosecutor Claudio Suazo told the press.
The brigadier general was sentenced on Monday by the Supreme Court along with other former members of the army to terms of up to 25 years in prison, for the kidnapping and murder of Jara, which occurred shortly after the installation of the Pinochet dictatorship, on the 11th of September 1973.
According to the unappealable ruling, Chacón participated in the selection and interrogation of the 5,000 prisoners who were transferred to the Estadio-Chile after the bloody coup against the socialist Salvador Allende and installed the Pinochet dictatorship, which lasted for 17 years. and left 3,200 victims, between dead and missing.
A member of the Communist Party, Jara was arrested inside the State Technical University, where he worked as a professor, and taken to the stadium where he was tortured for several days.
He was 40 years old when he was riddled with 44 bullets.
Author of songs such as “I remember you Amanda”, “The right to live in peace” or “Manifesto”, Jara is considered a symbol of the so-called New Chilean Song, a musical and social movement from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1960s. 70.
Within the same case, the judges sentenced the seven ex-soldiers also for the murder and kidnapping of former prison director Littré Quiroga.
His body, also showing signs of torture, was found next to that of Víctor Jara on a piece of land near a railway, on the outskirts of Santiago.
Source: Ambito
