Overview
- Chilean police found and detained retired army colonel Nelson Haase Mazzei in a rural parcel in Puyehue, Los Lagos region, in an operation reported on Sunday.
- Ministra en visita Paola Plaza ordered Mazzei to enter prison immediately to serve a 25-year sentence the Supreme Court confirmed in 2023.
- Mazzei had been the only convicted ex-military officer still at large after the court upheld convictions for seven men for the 1973 kidnappings, torture and killings of Víctor Jara and Littré Quiroga Carvajal.
- Judicial records and witness testimony presented at trial include accounts that Mazzei participated in physical abuse of Jara, with a witness saying he boasted of striking Jara's hands and throwing a guitar.
- The arrest closes a decades-long pursuit of accountability for abuses after the 1973 coup, and it means all living, traceable officers from the 2023 verdict will now face their court-ordered terms in custody.