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The former Chilean judge Juan Guzman Tapia, internationally recognized for being the first magistrate to prosecute former dictator Augusto Pinochet for their crimes against human rights, died at the age of 81, as confirmed by his family.
Guzmán (San Salvador, 1939) was appointed in 1998 titular judge to investigate several complaints against Pinochet – then a designated senator and for life – for homicide, in the context of the case “Caravan of Death”, which occurred after the coup of September 11, 1973.
On October 16 of that same year, Pinochet was arrested in a clinic in London, United Kingdom, by virtue of an arrest warrant issued by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who sought to put him on trial for the murders of several citizens of the Iberian country that occurred during the dictatorship, which began a judicial process that would only end after the death of the former dictator in 2006.
Between 1999 and 2004, Guzmán led numerous exhumations of the remains of disappeared detainees, as a result of which he created the figure of “permanent kidnapping.”
In 2000, the judge achieved the lawlessness of Pinochet in the framework of 19 crimes of permanent kidnapping for the case “Caravan of Death” to which another 57 cases of homicide were added and this one was prosecuted. Although it was finally uncontrolled, the process was dismissed for reasons of senile dementia in 2002. The dismissal was revoked in 2004, the prosecution was suspended in 2005.
That same year, Pinochet was again tried by Judge Guzmán, this time for the case “Operation Colombo”.
“COURAGEOUS JUDGE, WITH COURAGE AND COMMITMENT TO HR”
The human rights lawyer and deputy Carmen Hertz (PC) reacted and stated that “the death of Minister Juan Guzmán is a hard blow for the Human Rights movement“.
“The minister was the prime minister who prosecuted the genocidal Pinochet, made possible the violation of Pinochet for the crimes of the Caravan of Death, led several exhumations in order to find the whereabouts of the detainees disappeared by the civic-military dictatorship” , he remembered.
“He was a brave judge, of great commitment to the cause of Human Rights, he was a judge with courage and who never gave in to the pressures that the establishment made in a frantic way to stop the lawlessness and prosecution of Pinochet“, valued.
a great pain for the death of Minister Juan Guzmán, a brave and dignified magistrate who made possible the first violation of the genocidal Pinochet x crimes of the Caravan of Death and his prosecution as the author, He never accepted pressure from the establishment and the powers that be, Honor and Glory
– Carmen Hertz Deputy #Approve (@carmen_hertz) January 22, 2021
Guzmán retired in 2005 and that same year he published his memoirs “At the end of the world. The memories of the judge of Pinochet” (On the edge of the world: Memoirs of the judge who tried Pinochet).
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