Chilean authorities arrested the former mayor of an upscale suburb of Santiago in connection with an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed during the murdering reign of dictator Augusto Pinochet. 

A judge ordered former Colonel Cristian Labbe’s arrest and decided to prosecute him for being a member of Pinochet’s notorious DINA secret police, and the disappearance and execution of 13 people at the San Antonio concentration camp on Chile’s coast in 1973 and 1974.  Thousands were killed and tortured during Pinochet’s reign, mostly Leftists and other perceived enemies of the dictatorship.

“His defense says, he says, he didn’t torture anyone directly.  But what has been undoubtedly established is that while people were being tortured, he walked around the place acting as a consultant to those tortures,” said Interior Ministry Attorney Rodrigo Lledo.

After Democracy was restored in Chile, Labbe became a polarizing figure in Chilean politics with his outspoken support of the Pinochet dictatorship and visits to the exiled despot in London.  Labbe was mayor of Providencia, an affluent business and residential district in Santiago, for 16-years until being voted out of office in a contentious election in 2012.  Pinochet died in 2006 at the age of 91, having never faced a full trial for the crimes committed under his rule.