Former Nazi Paul Schaefer, who founded a secretive German cult in Southern Chile in the 1960s and was later convicted of sexually abusing children, died of heart failure in a prison hospital today, officials said. He was 88.
Chile's courts began investigating Schaefer on sex abuse charges in 1997. He fled to Argentina where he hid until he was found in 2005. He was returned to Chile and sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing 25 children.
Courts also investigated Schaefer for keeping a huge cache of illegal weapons and helping former right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet's secret police kidnap and torture political prisoners.
For decades, the residents of Villa Baviera, initially called Colonia Dignidad, submitted to the authoritarian whims of Schaefer, who banned almost all contact with the outside world at the commune 210 miles south of Santiago, the capital.
Under his rules, men and women lived separately, intimate contact was controlled and children were split from their parents.
In 2006, former members of the cult issued a public apology and asked for forgiveness for 40 years of sex and human rights abuses in their community, saying they were brainwashed by Schaefer, who many viewed as God.
Reuters