Chile sentences 35 dictatorship agents for disappearance

SANTIAGO, Chile – A judge in Chile has sentenced 35 former agents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s feared secret police for the kidnapping, detention and forced disappearance of a pregnant woman in 1976.

Reinalda Pereira was five months pregnant at the time. The 29-year-old was a medical technician and a member of the Communist Party who collaborated with dissidents resisting Pinochet’s 1976-1990 dictatorship.

Judge Miguel Vazquez on Wednesday sentenced Pedro Espinoza, Juan Hernan Morales and Ricardo Victor Lawrence to 10 years in prison. Other male and female agents were sentenced to seven years for involvement in the crime, while others were sentenced to four years for being complicit.

The judge determined that Pereira was kidnapped Dec. 15, 1976, and taken to a secret military barracks where she was beaten, tortured and disappeared.