Bondi nanny Adriana Rivas denies involvement in Chilean torture chamber
Court documents have revealed harrowing claims made against a Bondi nanny accused of being an “active member” of the Chilean secret police.
Police & Courts
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Bound dossiers, given to a Sydney court considering an extradition request for a Bondi nanny, have detailed gruesome claims about the fate of innocent Chileans who were allegedly kidnapped and tortured with sarin gas and electrified beds before they were disfigured with welding torches and thrown from helicopters.
Adriana Rivas was arrested at her Bondi public housing unit in February last year at the request of the Chilean government who accuse her of the aggravated kidnapping of seven people while working in the Chilean secret police.
Far from being a grandmotherly member of the city’s beachside suburbs, Chile claims she was an integral cog in the machine that disappeared the political enemies of a brutal dictator in the 1970s.
Rivas denies their allegations and has launched numerous legal bids to halt her extradition to Chile.
In late October her campaign for freedom was dealt a blow after Magistrate Peter Stewart ruled Rivas was eligible to be sent back to her homeland to face their justice system.
It wasn’t until the following month the court released the magistrate’s full reasons for his ruling.
Magistrate Stewart’s ruling heavily referenced two string-bound bundles of intelligence reports by Chilean authorities that had been stamped by the embassy in Australia and provided to the court.
The dossiers, quoted in the ruling, claim Rivas is a former member of Lautaro Brigade, a feared unit of Chile’s disbanded secret police — the DINA.
In the mid-1970s the shadowy DINA helped dictator Augusto Pinochet maintain his grip on power by suppressing enemies in the communist movement.
The DINA operated secretly and outside the law, one dossier said, and their true size, structure and operations were not unveiled for years.
“Amongst the meanest instruments used by that systematic policy is the creation of specialised repression groups that implemented underground detention centres which later became places where the most hideous acts of horror, torture and genocide took place,” the dossier reads.
Rivas is named in the documents as a member of the brigade who joined in 1974 after taking “a course in intelligence”.
The central allegation, the magistrate said, is that Rivas was an “member, agent or operative” for the Lautaro Brigade meaning she was “security personnel” in the Chilean Navy.
She was allegedly known by the alias “La Chani”.
The brigade relocated to its infamous 8800 Simón Bolívar Headquarters in the Chilean capital of Santiago in 1975.
The dossiers paint a picture of an unremarkable one story house with three bedrooms, a gymnasium and two dressing rooms with a small farm and greenhouse.
But according to the dossiers 8800 Simon Bolivar was, in reality, designed to detain members of the Chilean Communist Party and subject them to physical and psychological torture to gather information about their comrades.
The detainees were held in the gym and cafeteria, interrogated and tortured in “dungeons” — the dressing rooms next to the gym — with electrified metal bunk beds, the dossiers read.
Sarin gas experiments, under the direction of doctors, were undertaken on the prisoners.
Once the interrogations were over the prisoners were injected with unknown substances and suffocated with plastic bags.
“Dead bodies were burnt their fingerprints and face with a welding torch; this was done inside the empty swimming pool,” the dossier reads.
“Then, the bodies were put inside sacks, tied-up with cables to a piece of railway beam and then thrown into the ocean by Air Force helicopters.”
It’s alleged each member of the brigade — male and female — without exception participated in the “operational duties” of the torture house.
Rivas herself is also named in the dossiers as “an active” member who was “involved in an operative group carrying out detentions, acts of torture, homicides and disappearances”.
She denies it, the documents state, arguing she only did secretarial work at the headquarters.
A Chilean government document before the court says the female members of the brigade were disguised as secretaries “but were all operational agents”.
Rivas’ barrister, Frank Santisi, said the court could not be satisfied Rivas was part of DINA or that she had committed a crime in Chile and said the allegations against her were vague.
Mr Santisi said the people were not illegally kidnapped but legally arrested by government operatives.
The magistrate rejected that argument and said he was satisfied Rivas was involved in DINA and knew what the group was doing in 8800 Simon Bolivar.
Rivas’ legal team have also argued she was effectively pardoned by Chile’s higher courts — but Magistrate Stewart said that did not appear to be the case. Rather, he said, those courts consider the allegations “crimes against humanity”.
Magistrate Stewart found Rivas is eligible for extradition on October 29 to Chile but she launched a judicial review in the Federal Court.
Documents from the Federal Court show Rivas’ legal team want the magistrate’s decision overturned, Rivas to be released and her legal costs paid.
Her lawyers say it was not open for Magistrate Stewart to make conclusions on Rivas’ potential criminal behaviour based on the information before him and he should not have ignored the “historical factors” at the time of the alleged kidnappings.
Mr Santisi said Rivas would pursue all her rights under the law and treaty to fight the outcome
FAMILIES CLAIM JUSTICE IS CLOSER
The families of the seven Chileans, allegedly killed in the secret DINA torture chamber, celebrated a court’s decision to extradite the Bondi nanny allegedly linked to the house of horrors.
Adriana Navarro, a Sydney lawyer representing the families of the vanished communists, said survivors are lauding the extradition of Adriana Rivas which is now on hold pending a Federal Court challenge.
“This is the first extradition judgment between Chile and Australia, and a landmark in the prosecution of historical human rights violations,” she said in a statement after the decision.
Rivas has repeatedly denied allegations she was linked to the abduction of seven left-wing Chileans in the mid-1970s.
Each of the seven families penned emotional tributes to Australia’s justice system in translated letters provided to The Daily Telegraph by Ms Navarro.
The niece of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza said many in the family had died without knowing what happened to the 29-year-old mother-to-be.
“Memory is an ongoing task and the new generations will continue their search for justice,” she wrote.
“We neither forgive nor forget, for justice always, nothing else, nothing less.”
The daughters of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier said it was a “significant step” toward attaining justice.
“Australia has sent a signal to the world,” they wrote.
“Human rights must be respected and crimes against humanity must be prosecuted; criminals musts face justice and account for their actions. This decision is an act of justice for our parents.”
The extradition of Rivas, who is now in her late 60s, will remain on hold until the Federal Court undertakes a judicial review of the October 29 decision of the Local Court.
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