PInochet Stripped of Immunity

Breaking news: Chile’s Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision that stripped Pinochet of his immunity in a case involving Chile’s infamous Villa Grimaldi prison, paving the way for him to face dozens of charges of torture and kidnapping.

Here is Wikipedia’s description of Villa Grimaldi:

Villa Grimaldi was a complex of buildings used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners by DINA, the Chilean secret police, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The complex was located in Peñalolén, in the outskirts of Santiago, and was in operation from mid-1974 to mid-1978. About 5,000 detainees were brought to Villa Grimaldi during this time, at least 240 of whom were “disappeared” or killed by DINA.

[snip]

Operative teams had their quarters at Villa Grimaldi. They brought prisoners there for initial interrogation after arrest and devices specially designed for different forms of torture were kept there. Prisoners who were not subject to torture were also kept there, sometimes for long periods, awaiting possible new interrogations or a decision on their fate.

The current President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, and her mother were tortured at Villa Grimaldi in 1975 before they went into exile.