Ex-nanny loses Chilean extradition appeal

A former Sydney nanny accused of committing crimes against humanity in Pinochet-era Chile has failed to overturn her extradition to South America at the Federal Court.

Adriana Rivas speaking to SBS News in 2014. Picture: SBS News

A former Sydney nanny accused of committing crimes against ­humanity in Pinochet-era Chile has failed to overturn her extradition to South America over ­alleged kidnapping offences dating back to the early 1970s, with the Federal Court dismissing her appeal on Wednesday morning.

Adriana Rivas, 68, has been charged with seven counts of ­aggravated kidnapping after Chilean authorities allege she worked as an agent for the secret police unit the National Intelligence ­Directorate during Augusto Pinochet’s reign as military dictator.

The Chilean government ­alleges Ms Rivas was a member of the brutal special operations unit, the Lautaro Brigade, and worked under the alias “La Chani” throughout 1974 when she ­engaged in the “physical and psychological torture” of political dissidents, including a woman who was five months pregnant, at the notorious Simon Bolivar ­“extermination centre” on the outskirts of Santiago.

In a virtual hearing on Wednesday, judge Stuart Anderson said the court had rejected Ms Rivas’s appeal and found that the former Bondi nanny remained extraditable to Chile on seven counts of kidnapping.

Last week, three judges of the NSW Federal Court heard the ­appeal presented by Ms Rivas’s lawyer, Frank Santisi, who argued Chile’s extradition request should be dismissed because it would ­violate the South American country’s amnesty laws.

Mr Santisi further claimed the material presented by the Chilean government in the extradition ­request was “insufficient” and could not prove that Ms Rivas was “officially present when these people were arrested” or that the NID was a criminal organisation.

The identity card of Adriana Rivas as a young woman.

But judges Debra Mortime and Robert Bromwich rejected the ­argument, describing it as a “dead-end” for the defence that “would throw the extradition law into chaos”.

Trent Glover, who represented the Attorney-General’s Department, maintained there were “no errors” in the Chilean extradition request and “the crime of aggravated kidnapping existed at the time of Rivas’ s alleged conduct”.

In 2014, Chile’s Supreme Court endorsed an extradition application for Ms Rivas, and in 2018 an extradition request was received by the then attorney-general, Christian Porter.

In April, Mr Santisi told the Federal Court Ms Rivas “may have engaged in guard duties at the front gate and that’s it”, adding while it “sounds very much like a Nuremberg defence, it’s not”.