A judge in Chile has ordered the arrest of nine former military officers accused in the disappearance of a French priest during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.
Judge Mario Carroza ordered the former air force officers held in the case of missing leftist cleric Etienne Pesle de Menil, who went missing in 1973, during the early days of the Pinochet regime.
The priest, an activist on land reform issues in Chile, is presumed to have been killed by the Pinochet regime which took the life of thousands during its 1973-1990 reign.
A French court in December 2010 convicted 10 Chilean officers in absentia for the torture and disappearances of Pesle de Menil and three other French nationals, but Chile's court system refused to extradite the men.
The 10 Chilean officers were sentenced in France to prison terms ranging from 15 years to life on charges that included kidnapping, arbitrary detention, torture and barbarous acts.
In addition to the charges relating to Pesle de Menil, the men were convicted by the French justice system in the disappearances of Alphonse Chanreau, a leader of Chile's Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR); Jean-Yves Claudet-Fernandez, a MIR member; and George Klein, an advisor to leftist president Salvador Allende, who was deposed and killed in the coup that brought Pinochet to power.
More than 3200 people were killed or "disappeared" during the 1973-1990 Pinochet dictatorship, and 28,000 were subjected to torture.
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