Ex-general says Chile's Pinochet was responsible for torture deaths

Retired General Joaquin Lagos, the military commander in Antofagasta province where the slayings occurred in September 1973, said on state-run TVN television, that the prisoners were brutally tortured before they were shot to death. Lagos has been accused by Pinochet, whose military regime ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, of responsibility for the incident, but the retired general said in the television interview that Pinochet and General Arellano Stark, the commander of the so-called "Caravan of Death", were behind the brutal murders.

"It was hard for me to look at them (the bodies) because I was so ashamed," Lagos said. "Their bodies were no longer those of humans. I wanted to put them back together. But that was impossible. Their eyes had been hacked out, their jaws shattered and legs broken before they were put to death with shots to the head." He said the bodies had been so mangled it would have been impossible to identify them.

Lagos said that he had warned Pinochet about the consequences. "Don't forget that sooner or later someone will accuse us, especially you as commander in chief of the military," Lagos said he told Pinochet. Pinochet, a right-wing general who overthrew then president Salvador Allende, a leftist, in 1973, has been accused of responsibility for about 3,000 during his regime.

The former military ruler denied on Tuesday at a hearing before examining magistrate, Juan Guzman, any responsibility for the executions or disappearances of any of his political opponents. He said he had ordered Stark only to accelerate the trials of his opponents. The responsibility for carrying out his orders, Pinochet said, rested with the various commanders of military garrisons.

Guzman has accused Pinochet of inciting and aiding the murders of 57 people and the kidnappings of 18 others. The examining magistrate is expected to decide within the next several days whether Pinochet should be tried in a court or if the process against him should be dropped for lack of evidence.

(la/dpa)