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Spanish Judge Orders Arrest of Former Chilean Defense Minister
Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon issued an international arrest warrant for former Chilean Minister of Defense Hernan Julio Brady last weekend for suspected participation in the murder of Spanish UN official Carmelo Soria, the judicial department said Monday.
In the warrant, Judge Garzon said evidence exists that retired General. Brady, the minister of defense during the reign of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, was implicated in the abduction and killing of the Spanish U.N. diplomat in 1976.
In a document made public by the National Court (Supreme Court) Monday, the judge said he has appended the Roche indictment to the National Court's "desaprecidos," or missing persons cases, which involve more than 100 Argentine and Chilean military officials indicted for the disappearance of leftists and dissidents during the military regimes of Argentina (1976-1983) and Chile (1973-1990).
Carmelo Soria, who worked in Chile as an official of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America since the end of the Spanish Civil War, was kidnapped by Chilean secret police agents on July 14, 1976, and his body, with signs of torture, was found two days later in a canal in the city of Santiago.
Soria's family has waged a legal battle for years to clear up the circumstances of the murder, a process filed in 1996 with the Chilean Supreme Court.
Some reports say Hernan Brady currently lives in Germany.
In 1998, Judge Garzon attempted to extradite former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet after he received medical treatment in London.
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