ORLANDO (CN) — A Florida jury on Monday found Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez, a former officer in the army of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, responsible for the torture and killing of iconic folk singer Victor Jara during a brutal, U.S.-backed military coup in 1973.
Barrientos is liable to the plaintiffs — Jara's 88-year-old widow and two daughters — for civil damages of $28 million, the jury found.
The ruling is among the first to hold an officer in Pinochet's army legally responsible for acts committed in service of the violent coup that unseated socialist president Salvador Allende and resulted in the torture and execution of thousands of perceived political opponents.
"Today, there is some justice for Victor's death, and for the thousands of families in Chile who have sought truth," Joan Jara, who attended the trial, said in public statement. "I hope that the verdict today continues the healing."
The landmark ruling is particularly meaningful for Chile's political left, which still reveres Jara's songs on poverty and social justice and brandishes banners and flags depicting the face of the beloved singer-songwriter, poet and theater director.
Musicians like Bob Dylan, U2, and Bruce Springsteen — who have all called Jara an inspiration — will likely be pleased with the ruling, but greatest triumph belongs to Joan Jara, the musician's widow.
She last saw her late husband on Sept. 11, 1973, the day the Chilean military turned on its own people and attacked the university where Jara worked as a teacher. Along with thousands of students, university employees and political activists, Jara was taken to Chile Stadium, where members of the military interrogated, beat and tortured them.
According to court testimony, Jara was sent through a gauntlet in which soldiers kicked and pistol-whipped detainees, then they broke his wrists and hands so he could no longer play the guitar. Eventually Jara was separated from the pack, according to soldier José Paredes, who testified in an earlier proceeding that Barrientos shot Jara in the head at point-blank range during a game of roulette, then gave orders to subordinates to fire on Jara's body more than 40 times. Military members dumped his lifeless form on a street by a cemetery.
Joan Jara eventually found her husband's body at the morgue, at which point "my life was cut in two," she told the courtroom.
In the morgue she cried silently, afraid that audible grief might raise suspicions, and tried to clean the dirt off Jara's face with her tears. She fled with her daughters to England and filed a criminal lawsuit in Chile soon after, beginning a long journey toward justice.
Over the years, Jara's criminal case has been open and shut and reopened before a slew of judges. In 2004, Chile Stadium was renamed Victor Jara Stadium, and in 2009, his body was exhumed as part of the investigation then ceremoniously reburied. Soldiers have sporadically come forward about what they witnessed.
In 2012, the investigation that began in 1978 finally resulted charges against Barrientos and seven other men implicated in Jara's death. The Chilean government has called for Barrientos' extradition, but the U.S. government is still processing the request, and the trial has yet to move forward.
