Ex-Pinochet General Faces Extradition After Arrest

Authorities have arrested a top officer from former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s secret police and are considering whether to extradite him to Italy to serve an 18-year prison term for the shooting of a Chilean politician 25 years ago.

Retired Gen. Eduardo Iturriaga was being detained by a local regiment, Chief Justice Hernan Alvarez said after questioning him for several hours Tuesday. Iturriaga has been in custody for four days, local media reported.

More interrogations are planned before Alvarez makes a first ruling on Italy’s extradition request. The full Supreme Court is to make the final ruling.

Iturriaga was convicted in absentia in Italy for the 1975 shooting of former Chilean Vice President Bernardo Leighton and his wife, Ana, in Rome. Both were seriously wounded but eventually recovered. Leighton died in 1995.

Italy requested Iturriaga’s extradition last year, after a judge sentenced him to 18 years in jail for the attack, which was tracked by investigators to Pinochet’s feared security service, DINA. Iturriaga was the head of the agency’s foreign operations at the time.

Retired Gen. Manuel Contreras, a former DINA director, was sentenced to 20 years in the case. He is serving a seven-year sentence in Chile for the 1976 assassination in Washington of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, a prominent Pinochet foe.

That case was closed in Chile after Contreras and his second in command, Gen. Pedro Espinoza, were sentenced to seven- and six-year terms, respectively. But the case remains open in the United States, which was authorized by the Chilean Supreme Court this week to interrogate 46 former officials in the Pinochet regime.

According to Italian investigators, the attack on Leighton was carried out by Italian right-wing radicals working for DINA.

Pinochet returned home earlier this month to a military welcome after 16 months’ detention in London. He was released after a panel of judges said he was too ill to stand trial for human rights violations during his 1973-90 rule. Four countries were seeking his extradition.