The
MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Thu, Oct. 16, 2003
CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
Jury finds ex-Chilean officer liable in 1973 slaying
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@herald.com
For 30 years, the family of Winston Cabello has worked to
ensure that he did not become another forgotten victim of one of
Cabello, a Chilean government official, was one of 13 political prisoners killed a month after Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew Marxist President Salvador Allende.
On Wednesday, a federal jury in
The eight jurors found Armando Fernández Larios -- a former Chilean military officer who
lives in
The award marked the first time a
Family members acknowledged that it is unlikely they will ever collect much of the $3 million in compensatory damages or $1 million in punitive damages, but said financial gain was never their intent.
They said they wanted to share their victory with relatives of the 3,200 people who were killed or disappeared during Pinochet's 17-year rule.
''This is but one step, but it's a step in the right
direction to help us recover dignity in
Fernández Larios declined to talk to reporters, but his attorney, Steven Davis, said his client was ''very disappointed'' and planned to appeal. He also said Fernández Larios did not have money to pay the award.
Human rights activists closely monitored Fernández Larios's civil trial because it was the first time a federal jury in the United States weighed claims of atrocities allegedly committed by the Chilean military following the Sept. 11, 1973, coup.
HUMANITY
Besides crimes against humanity, the jury also found Fernández Larios liable for extrajudicial or unauthorized killing; cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment or treatment; and conspiracy.
Cabello's siblings filed suit
against Fernández Larios under the Alien Tort Claims
Act of 1789, which allows foreigners to sue in
None of the witnesses in the trial said they saw Fernández Larios kill Cabello. Fernández Larios also denied having anything to do with the murder.
But Cabello's relatives said Fernández Larios should be held responsible because he was part of a military unit that combed the countryside, ordering the killing of Allende government members or supporters.
Cabello and the 12 men were killed in the northern Chilean
town of
A former aide to Gen. Sergio Arrellano Stark, the unit's leader, said he saw Fernández Larios execute prisoners in other Chilean communities.
Another witness said he saw Fernández Larios beat and kick a prisoner, and a third witness said he saw Fernández Larios carrying a chain with a spiked ball at one end and asking about prisoners.
Fernández Larios denied executing or mistreating prisoners. He said he never saw prisoners during his travels with Arellano Stark on what came to be known as the Caravan of Death.
He said he learned only in conversations with other unit members that political prisoners had been killed.
REFUSED COMMENT
Jurors refused to comment as they left the courthouse.Late Wednesday, juror Cynthia Pawley-Martin said in a telephone interview that the jury found Fernández Larios liable because evidence showed that ``at a minimum, he participated in a conspiracy.''
Fernández Larios moved to Miami in 1988 after serving five months of a seven-year sentence for his role in the 1976 car-bomb assassination of former Allende Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his U.S. assistant, Ronni Moffitt, in Washington, D.C.
Winston Cabello had a been a provincial planning director for Allende in Copiapó when Allende was overthrown.
He was detained one day after the coup, but remained optimistic until the end that he would be freed.
''He told me he was going to be released,'' said Silva, who
remarried and who traveled from
While Cabello agreed with Allende's policies, his relatives said he was not a militant.
''He was low-key and kind of quiet, but people relied on his judgement,'' said Patricio Barrueto, Zita Cabello's husband.
Susan, now a journalism student, was 1 when Winston Cabello was killed.
She stood on the steps of the federal courthouse in