Family of tortured priest seek arrest of Chilean ship

ECUADOR: Esmeralda, the beautiful four-masted sailing ship which the Chilean navy uses to train seamen, faces the prospect of…

ECUADOR: Esmeralda, the beautiful four-masted sailing ship which the Chilean navy uses to train seamen, faces the prospect of arrest when she is in US waters between May 6th and June 11th.

The ship has just left the Ecuadorean port of Guayaquil and is sailing towards the Panama Canal and the Caribbean.

Pat Bennetts, the sister of Miguel Woodward, an Anglo-Chilean priest who was tortured to death on board by Chilean sailors in Esmeralda's home port of Valparaiso, shortly after Gen Augusto Pinochet seized power from President Salvador Allende in September 1973. She and her husband Fred are seeking action against the vessel and its crew under the US Alien Torts Act.

They hope to replicate the action which led to the arrest and imprisonment of Gen Pinochet in London in 1998. The act allows US courts to hear cases against torturers worldwide.

READ MORE

The Bennetts, who recovered Fr Woodward's body only last month after decades of successful cover-up by the Chilean navy, are being backed by the Centre for Justice and Responsibility, a charity in San Francisco which seeks to prosecute torturers.

Naval officers always claimed that Fr Woodward, a priest who worked in Valparaiso's slums and made no secret of his support for the Allende government, was transferred to the Esmeralda on September 22nd, 1973, for medical attention. In fact he was met there by a "reception committee" who beat him mercilessly.

He was one of a number of opponents of the coup who were seriously tortured on the vessel's bridge. He was thrown overboard on to the quay when he was on the point of death. An ambulance arrived late and he died on the way to the naval hospital.

In 1999, the Esmeralda had to flee Valletta in Malta after its cadets were charged by the authorities with the attempted murder. The Maltese authorities filed an international arrest warrant against crew members involved in the brawl but they were never apprehended.