Colonia Dignidad: Chile's Nazi colony

[Jan Klimkowski]

Chile confirms sentence against ex-Nazi soldier

Updated: 15/May/2009 07:45

SANTIAGO (AFP)---The Chilean Supreme Court has confirmed a sentence of three years and one day for Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi corporal and founder of a mysterious German enclave in Chile, for torturing settlers.
According to court documents, Schaefer, 84, ordered that psychotropic medication be administered and electric shocks be applied to eight members of the enclave in order to prevent them between 1980 and 1990 from speaking out about the Colonia Dignidad enclave.
The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court on Wednesday confirmed the sentence that came from a divided ruling in 2008 overseen by Judge Jorge Zepeda, who has investigated alleged crimes committed at the enclave.
Schaefer faces four other sentences he is serving since being sent to a Chilean prison after his capture in Argentina in March 2005.
He has namely been sentenced to 20 years for sexually abusing more than 20 children at the enclave, located in a moutainous area in southern Chile.
The other sentences include three years and one day for the murder of a former agent who served under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 regime.
He has also been charged in connection with the alleged use of Colonia Dignidad by Chilean military agents to torture political prisoners, and with ilegally storing and using firearms in the enclave. Schaefer denies the charges.
Schaefer has been accused of collaborating in human rights abuses during Pinochet's regime.
He established the self-sufficient German colony in 1961 after fleeing Germany to escape child abuse charges. About 300 Germans and descendants still live in the colony 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Santiago.

http://www.ejpress.org/article/36536