Carmelo Soria (

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, 5 November 1921 –

Santiago de Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital city, capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's Chilean Central Valley, central valley and is the center ...

, 16 July 1976) was a Spanish-

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

. A member of the CEPAL (

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) in the 1970s, he was assassinated by Chile's DINA agents as a part of

Operation Condor Operation Condor (; ) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America which fo ...

. Augusto Pinochet was later personally indicted over this case.Más de 300 querellas abiertas
'' El Periodico''

Life

Carmelo Soria was the nephew of the Spanish urban planner Arturo Soria y Mata.El 'caso Soria'
''

El País (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second-most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . is the most read newspaper in ...

'' He had three children with his wife Laura González Vera. After the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

(1936–39), Carmelo Soria, who was a member of the

Communist Party of Spain The Communist Party of Spain (; PCE) is a communist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is currently part of Sumar. Two of its politicians are Spanish government ministers: Yolanda Díaz (Minister of L ...

(PCE),Albert Vallejo
Chile indemniza a la familia de Soria 26 años después de su asesinato
'' El Mundo'', 24 December 2002

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

d himself to Chile, where he obtained double citizenship. He became a UN

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

in the 1960s. Between 1971 and 1973, during

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until Death of Salvador Allende, his death in 1973 Chilean coup d'état, 1973. As a ...

's rule, Soria temporarily abandoned his functions to become an advisor to the Popular Unity government. In September 1973, after Augusto Pinochet's coup, he re-joined the UN. He then used his

diplomatic immunity Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are recognized as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country.

status to protect opponents of Pinochet by granting them

political asylum The right of asylum, sometimes called right of political asylum (''asylum'' ), is a juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereignty, sovereign authority, such as a second country or ...

in various embassies, thus making him a target for the DINA secret police. On 14 July 1976, he was abducted and his corpse found two days later in a car sunk in the Canal del Carmen in the Pirámide sector of

. Soria was first detained in the Vía Naranja house in the sector of Lo Curro, shared by DINA agent Michael Townley and where Eugenio Berrios also worked. There, he was tortured and subjected to

sarin Sarin (NATO designation GB nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic organophosphorus compound.Villa Grimaldi. On 18 July 1976, notices of Carmelo Soria's death began to be announced on European radio stations, while it was censored in Chile.Account of Soria's death
by his widow, May 1977, Symposium on "''desaparecidos en el Cono Sur de América Latina''" On 4 August 1976, another member of Soria's family, Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue, the son of the ex-rector of the

University of Chile The University of Chile () is a public university, public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

and former

Minister of Education An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...

Pedro Godoy, also " disappeared". On 15 December 1976, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' published an article confirming that Soria's death had been caused by torture at the hands of the Chilean authorities, and not a car crash, as pretended by the latter. Despite requests from UN secretary-general

Kurt Waldheim Kurt Josef Waldheim (21 December 1918 – 14 June 2007) was an Austrian politician and diplomat. Waldheim was the Secretary-General of the United Nations#List of secretaries-general, secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 a ...

made in 1976, the Chilean justice apparatus refused to open new investigations on the case. The ''Washington Post'' informations were confirmed in 1992 by the testimony of DINA agent Michael Townley. Soria's assassination at the hands of the DINA was confirmed by the

Rettig Report The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report (), is a 1991 report by a commission designated by Chilean President Patricio Aylwin (from the '' Concertación'') detailing human rights abuses resulting i ...

at the beginning of the

Chilean transition to democracy The military regime in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet ended on 11 March 1990 and was replaced by a democratically elected government. The transition period lasted roughly two years, although some aspects of the process lasted significan ...

. Rechazan acuerdo entre Chile y la ONU que indemniza a la familia de Carmelo Soria
,

Senate of Chile The Senate of the Republic of Chile is the upper house of Chile's bicameral National Congress, as established in the current Constitution of Chile. Composition According to the present Constitution of Chile, the Senate is composed of forty ...

, 9 November 2005

Chilean transition and trials

In 1991, during the beginning of the

, the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos, already involved in the Letelier case, escaped to Uruguay in order to avoid testifying in both the Letelier case and the Soria case.Rechazan libertad para ex uniformados en caso Berríos
, ''

La Tercera (), formerly known as (), is a daily newspaper published in Santiago, Chile and owned by Copesa. It is s closest competitor. is part of Periódicos Asociados Latinoamericanos ( Latin American Newspaper Association), an organization of fourte ...

'', 12 January 2004 (mirrored by ''Memoria viva'') In 1994, Carmen Soria, the daughter of the assassinated diplomat, presented a complaint for "assassination" of her father. She then received anonymous calls informing her that the investigations would lead nowhere as the corpse had disappeared from the cemetery. On May 24 1995, the Supreme Court of Chile would convict both Guillermo Salinas Torres and Ríos San Martín for their roles in Soria's murder. Torres, a former army colonel, was deemed to be a principal perpetrator while Torres, a former sergeant, was deemed to be an accomplice. However, a federal judge vacated the convictions on June 4, 1996, applying the country's April 1978 Amnesty Law. On August 23, 1996, the Supreme Court of Chile affirmed the lower court ruling and closed the case.Caso Soria: nubarrones sobre Alvear
, ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...

'', 24 January 2004 (mirrored by ''Memoria viva'') This led Carmen Soria to present the following year a complaint against

before the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese language, Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des ...

(CIDH), charging it with "denigration of justice." The CIDH thereafter requested Chile to open new investigations and to insure Carmelo Soria's family financial compensation for his murder. Furthermore, Soria's widow deposed a complaint to the Spanish judge

Baltasar Garzón Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a Spanish former judge in Spain's central criminal court, the '' Audiencia Nacional'' responsible for investigation the most serious criminal cases, including terrorism, organised crime, crimes ...

. On 4 May 2001, Garzón ordered the provisional detention of former Chilean Minister of Defence Hernán Julio Brady Roche (1975–1978) on charges of

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

and

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

in relation to Soria's assassination, and requested his

extradition In an extradition, one Jurisdiction (area), jurisdiction delivers a person Suspect, accused or Conviction, convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforc ...

. Brady subsequently denied any knowledge concerning Soria's murder.Brady rechaza acusación de Garzón

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, 14 May 2001 However, the '' Audiencia Nacional'' (high court) archived the case on 31 May 2001, arguing that the Spanish justice was not entitled to pursue the Soria case, despite the universal jurisdiction principle, as it had refused a short time before to pursue

Arnaldo Otegi Arnaldo Otegi Mondragón (born 6 July 1958) is a politician from the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country who has been the General Secretary of Basque nationalist party EH Bildu since 2017. He was member of the Basque Parliament for bo ...

(leader of

Batasuna Batasuna (; ) was a Basque nationalist political party. Based mainly in Spain, it was banned in 2003, after a court ruling declared proven that the party was financing ETA with public money. The party is included in the "European Union list of ...

) for an alleged act of "apology of terrorism" committed in France. Archivan el caso del asesinato de Carmelo Soria en Chile por el precedente de Otegi
''

'', 31 May 2002 However, prosecution against Roche and numerous other defendants would get underway in Chile by May 2008. Roche later died in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

at the age of 92 in May 2011 while still being prosecuted. In May 2002, Soria's corpse was exhumed on orders of the magistrate Andrés Contreras, in order to verify his identity.Exhumados por orden judicial en Chile los restos del español Carmelo Soria
, ''

'' (mirrored by ''Memoria Viva'') 1 May 2002 Soria's family had presented a complaint two weeks before concerning "illegal inhumation", alleging that during the transfer of Soria's corpse in 1983, a substitution had been made in order to dispose of his corpse. However the corpse's identity was confirmed in July 2002.SML identificó y entregó restos de Carmelo Soria
, ''

El Mostrador El Mostrador is a Chilean online newspaper, founded on 1 March 2000. Its current president is Germán Olmedo Acedvedo and its director is Federico Joannon Errázuriz. History ''El Mostrador'' was launched on 1 March 2000 and is Chile's first excl ...

'', 27 July 2002 (mirrored by ''Memoria viva'') In January 2004, Chilean foreign minister Soledad Alvear signed an agreement with Carmen Soria which promised that a law would be voted concerning the funding of US$1.5 million to Soria's family in reparations of Carmelo Soria's death. Alvear then signed it again in March 2004 before the UN. In July 2007, the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

ratified this agreement with the UN, by 16 votes for against 14.Senado aprobó indemnización para familia de Carmelo Soria
''

Radio Cooperativa Radio Cooperativa is a radio station in Chile, based in Santiago. It is operated by ''Compañía Chilena de Comunicaciones S.A.''. The station is notable for opposing the Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 19 ...

'', 18 July 2007 It had beforehand refused this same agreement, in November 2005. In October 2005, the family's lawyer, Alfonso Insunza, presented a request before the Chilean justice demanding that the General Eduardo Aldunate Herman, second-in-command of the

United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (), also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of its French name, was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti from 2004 to 2017. It was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police, supported by int ...

(MINUSTAH), be heard in the Soria case. According to former DINA agent Carlos Labarca Sanhueza's judicial testimony, General Herman was part of the '' Brigada Mulchén'' special DINA unit involved in Soria's assassination.Familia de Carmelo Soria pidió que se interrogue a militar a cargo de tropas en Haití
''

'', 11 October 2005 The ''Brigada Mulchén'', ultimately placed under the orders of

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...

, was found responsible of Soria's assassination by a Chilean

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

in 1992. Carmen Soria alleged that General Herman was also involved in Eugenio Berríos' assassination at the beginnings of the 1990s as well. In August 2006, the magistrate Alejandro Madrid, charged with the Soria case, stated that one of the key participant to Soria's assassination, the military officer José Remigio Ríos San Martín, had been detained in 1993 by BIE agents ('' Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército'', military intelligence agency) in order to convince him to change his judicial testimony. In this statement, Ríos San Martín had accused the Brigadier Jaime Lepe, secretary-general of the Army and a close contact of

, and other DINA agents, of being responsible of Soria's death.Jorge Molina Sanhueza
El último secreto del crimen de Soria abre la puerta para condenar a brigadier (R) Lepe
, ''

'', 21 August 2006 According to the judge Madrid, the order to detain Ríos San Martín was directly issued by the Brigadier Jaime Lepe, whose promotion to General was blocked in 1997 by the former President

Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle Eduardo Alfredo Juan Bernardo Frei Ruiz–Tagle (; born 24 June 1942) is a Chilean politician and civil engineering, civil engineer who served as president of Chile from 1994 to 2000. He was also a Senate of Chile, Senator, fulfilling the role of ...

in 1997 following denunciations by Carmen Soria. Martin and a co-defendant were previously convicted in 1995, only to then have their convictions dropped the next year due to the country's amnesty law. According to Ríos San Martín' testimony, the ''Brigada Mulchén'' was headed by the then Captain Guillermo Salinas Torre, who ordered Soria's kidnapping. The DINA then believed that Carmelo Soria was a member of the Chilean Communist Party. Ríos San Martín' testimony relaunched the Soria case by confirming previous statements made by Michael Townley at the end of 1992 concerning Soria's abduction. At behest of one of Soria's relatives, Spanish High Court Judge Pablo Ruz began prosecution proceedings against seven agents of DINA, six Chileans and one US citizen, for genocide and murder charges. It was determined that the crime of genocide may have occurred because the murder of Soria was perpetrated as part of the ‘process of systematic repression and elimination of opponents of the military regime’ undertaken by Pinochet. Ruz argued that Chile's 1978 Amnesty Law was an "obstacle making the effective prosecution of the crime where it took place impossible." In 2009, Spain started prosecution for some of Soria's accused murders. International arrest warrants would be issued for all seven of the genocide and murder suspects in October 2012. All had been members of Mulchen Brigade. However, all of the seven genocide and murder suspects undergoing prosecution under Spanish jurisdiction- Juan Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, José Remigio Ríos San Martín, Jaime Lepe Orellana, Guillermo Humberto Salinas Torres, Pablo Blemar Labbe, Patricio Quilhot and Michael Townley- were not extradited from Chile and remained fugitives. In May 2016, the Chilean Supreme Court asked for the extradition of American Michael Townley, Cuban Virgilio Paz, and Chilean Armando Fernandez Larios for their alleged roles the murder of Soria. In August 2023, the Supreme Court of Chile affirmed convictions for six former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate and two Army officers for Soria's murder. Among those convicted included Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann. This ruling was regarded as the Supreme Court of Chile's "final conviction" with regards to Soria's murder.

Life

Chilean transition and trials

References

See also