OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 29 (OneWorld) - A major U.S.-based human rights group has strongly deplored the conviction for criminal defamation of a former political prisoner who claims that she was sexually abused by the former Chilean police chief while she detained by the Army after the bloody 1973 military coup d'etat against President Salvador Allende Gossens.

In a statement released Wednesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that the conviction of Odette Alegria raised serious freedom of expression concerns and urged that the Chilean government consider amending its criminal defamation laws in accordance with international standards.

"This case exemplifies the Chilean justice system's continuing lack of respect for free expression principles and suggests its inability to fully confront the abuses of the period after the military coup," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, HRW's Americas director here as well as an attorney in Chile. "The Chilean justice system failed dramatically in this case."

His statement came amid continuing international controversy over the 1973 coup d'etat that initiated Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship over Chile.

Torture victims and surviving family members of some of the more than 3,000 people who were "disappeared" or summarily executed by the regime have filed dozens of cases against former officials in recent years as courts and prosecutors have shown a willingness to pursue perpetrators of some of the worst abuses.

On the day after Alegria's conviction Monday, some three dozen human rights demonstrators protested the presence of the Chilean tall ship Esmeralda in San Diego's harbor. The ship, a training vessel for the Chilean Navy, was used to imprison and torture some 112 political prisoners in the aftermath of the coup.

In 1986, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution that urged New York City to withdraw its invitation to take part in the centennial celebrations of the Statue of Liberty in light of its "notorious" past the history of which was recounted by the protesters in San Diego.

"The organizers of this protest demand that the Chilean government officially apologize to the victims' families and that those responsible for the crimes committed aboard the Esmeralda be brought to justice," Nick Stamon of Amnesty International told the 'San Diego Union-Tribune' at the protest.

Alegria, a political activist at the time, was herself was detained and interrogated at the Army's Artillery School in November, 1973, or two months after the coup. Chile's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which produced a voluminous report on abuses committed by the military regime in the 1990s, reported that almost all detainees at the School were held incommunicado and tortured.

Alegria did not alleged that she was subject to sexual abuse by a number of her captors while she was in detention at the School where Chile's criminal investigations police were also reported to have taken part in interrogations. In a television interview last year, Alegria alleged that Nelson Mery, who served as head of Chile's criminal investigations police from 1992 until 2003 when he was suspended after the interview, had taken part in the abuse.

Mery, who was indeed stationed as a junior detective at the Artillery School in 1973, subsequently filed a criminal defamation case against Alegria.

Under Chilean law, the burden of proof in criminal defamation cases is on the defendant rather than on the plaintiff. Thus, in order to escape a guilty verdict, Alegria had to prove that the abuse took place.

Alegria did present evidence to that effect. One corroborating witness, Lidia Carrasco, told the court that when Alegria returned from her interrogation at the School, "she was in a really bad state, like she was feeling very dirty and she would take long showers." She also testified that Alegria had told her about the abuse, including Mery's attempts to force her to have oral sex with him on three occasions while she was sitting alone in a corridor awaiting interrogation.

A second witness told the court that he had seen Alegria sitting alone in the corridor outside Mery's office on several occasions during her detention, although several other witnesses presented by the plaintiff insisted that they had never been left alone while they were held in the School.

A well-known psychiatrist who had counseled Alegria in 1990 and 1992 also testified that she was extremely distressed on her second visit, having just learned from the newspapers that Mery had been appointed as director of Chile's criminal investigations police.

In spite of this testimony, however, Judge Lamberto Cisternas of the Santiago Appeals Court found that Alegria had failed to prove that her allegations were true because the "testimonies given are few and are only hearsay - as well as being imprecise - while there are others that contradict them and uphold the conduct of the litigant."

Finding her guilty of the libel, Cisternas gave Alegria a two-month suspended sentence, fined her US$1,000 and ordered her to pay approximately $3,350 in damages.

HRW said the judgement raised serious concerns about freedom of expression and noted that a joint declaration by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media, and the Organization, and the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Express of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 2000 called for "the plaintiff (to) bear the burden of proving the falsity of any statements of fact on matters of public concern" in criminal defamation cases.

Similarly, the OAS's Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, which was approved by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2000, also specified that in defamation cases the plaintiff should have to prove that the defendant "had the specific intent to inflict harm, was fully aware that the false news was disseminated, or acted with gross negligence in efforts to determine the truth or falsity of such news."

"Because of the clear public interest in this case, the plaintiff should have had to prove that the disputed allegations were false, and were made with malicious intent or with full knowledge of their falsity," Vivanco said. "Unfortunately, the judge put the burden of proof on Odette Alegria, paid insufficient attention to corroborating testimony, and failed even to consider her motivation in making public her complaint."

Mery and other officers who were stationed at the Artillery School in 1973 have been under investigation by another court in a case filed against them for torture and other abuses last August.