Chile 'Caravan of Death' general commits suicide

A former Chilean general and director of intelligence during Augusto Pinochet's rule has killed himself while on weekend release from prison.

Odlanier Mena, who was 87 years old, was serving a six-year jail term.

The crimes were allegedly part of the "Caravan of Death" - a military operation thought to have killed more than 100 opponents of the 1973 coup.

Chile 'Caravan of Death' general commits suicide

After finding hearing President Sabastian Pinera making announcement of his plans to close the jail that held Mena and was to be sent to Cordillera. Mena grew very upset, fearing the change.

Odlanier Mena, who was 87 years old, was serving a six-year jail term.

It affected him a lot that in Punta Peuco he would not have the medical attention he needed," Jorge Balmaceda told 24 Horas TV.

shooting himself faitly in the head saterday, a day before his return to jail

even though prisoners have access to the internet,TV, a tennis court, gardens and a barbecue area.

On Thursday, President Sebastian Pinera announced plans to close the jail where Mena was being held.

A lawyer representing Mena said his client had been worried about having to be moved from Cordillera to another military facility at Punta Peuco.

Critics say military prisoners should not be given different treatment to others serving prison terms.

President Pinera's decision to move the prisoners of Cordillera to Punta Peuco also follows a controversial interview by one of its 10 inmates, the notorious former head of Pinochet's intelligence agency, Manuel Contreras, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the 1973 coup.

Contreras told reporters there was no torture at the Villa Grimaldi, one of the secret police's main complexes, and that all of the dead during the Pinochet dictatorship were killed in armed confrontations with security forces.

More than 3,000 people died or disappeared in Chile between 1973 and 1990 and nearly 30,000 are believed to have been tortured.

I used to know someone that was in the Argentinian army when Pinochet was there.

He said the army would go into houses, round everybody and bring them to a military base. Children were sent to reeducation centers in a bus, and the parents would be brought into a plane that would fly in the direction of the sea and come back an hour later totally empty...

That said,it angers me a bit when I read about prisoners such as he that complain about their detention conditions... that are above a lot of free people's... And its bad enough he spent most of his life free, like Pinochet... Did I read he could even go home on week-end?

( speechless moment here )

I'm pretty sure the human race won't miss him. At all.

Just another example of blow-back from the ill conceived " project paperclip" after WW2. What I find most disturbing is that the main architects of this disaster are still around and doing what the do best.

www.subliminalnews.com...

AUGUSTO PINOCHET was a vile dictator who had learned the tactics of political suppression and civilian terror from the Master Race itself. In fact South America was influenced in many countries with two bit dictators after the war assisted by Nazi criminals etching out a living peddling what they know best. Their legacy still lives on in some to this day. It was and still is to this day the final struggle between National Socialism and Communism being played out under different political masks in many places, whether it is represented as a political party or a anti government insurgency. Right or left seems to be the lines drawn in most instances.

reply to post by hknudzkknexnt


"Weekend release" lol. That made me crack up.

Times must not be all that tough in those Chilean prisons.

-SAP-