By Fabian Cambero
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A Chilean court on Tuesday ratified a three-year prison sentence handed to Cristian Labbe, a former aide to dictator Augusto Pinochet, for torturing a detainee in 1973.
Labbe, 71, a far-right politician who served as mayor of a Santiago suburb until 2012, was convicted in September of torturing 26-year-old student Harry Cohen in a town in southern Chile in the early days of military rule.
The Temuco Court of Appeals in the south of the country rejected an appeal by Labbe against his conviction, and ordered the state to pay compensation of about $35,000 to the victim.
Labbe was among a number of former members of Pinochet’s notorious DINA secret police who were prosecuted under a drive during the presidency of Michelle Bachelet to bring more of those accused of human rights abuses during the dictatorship to trial.
During Pinochet’s 1973-1990 rule, some 3,000 people died or were disappeared, while 28,000 were victims of torture, including Bachelet.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing by Aislinn Laing; Editing by Peter Cooney)
