MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina grants political asylum to former Chilean guerrilla

Apablaza Gierra is accused of killing a Senator and kidnapping the son of the owner of El Mercurio in 1991

Argentina granted political asylum Thursday to a former Chilean guerrilla fighter charged in his country with assassinating a senator and kidnapping a businessman, whose extradition was repeatedly requested by the government of Sebastian Piñera. The decision has the potential to sour bilateral relations.

Chile's government wants to extradite Galvarino Apablaza Guerra to face trial for the murder of right-wing Senator Jaime Guzman and the kidnapping of businessman Christian Edwards del Rio, son of the owner of El Mercurio newspaper, both incidents in 1991 when democracy had returned to Chile.

Prior to the announcement, the Chilean government exerted pressure on Argentina’s National Refugees’ Committee, CONARE, arguing that “there is no political crime or weakness of the Chilean rule of law”. The statements were made by Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Alfredo Moreno.

According to CONARE sources the decision was “unanimous”.

The former member of the FPMR Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic insists he is the victim of political persecution in Chile. He agreed to not leave the country and present himself before the judge weekly.

Argentina's Supreme Court had approved a Chilean request for Apablaza's extradition and Chilean President Sebastian Piñera had urged his Argentine counterpart, Cristina Kirchner to follow through on the extradition.

“I think a person who has committed such a grave crime, that cost the life of a senator, and that was committed in Chile, should be tried in Chilean courts,” Piñera said.

But Mrs. Kirchner rebuffed the pressure and said the last word would go to Argentina's national refugee commission, which is part of the interior ministry and includes a member of the United Nations refugee commission on its board.

Argentina's human rights groups also lobbied against the extradition because Apablaza would be tried under Chile's dictatorship-era anti-terrorism law, which allows for secret witnesses, pre-trial detention, military courts and other legal mechanisms they said would violate his rights to a fair trial.

But some Chileans accused Argentina of tarnishing its human rights legacy by defending a man accused of assassinating a sitting senator during a democratic government. Both crimes occurred in 1991, after the end of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Apablaza, who requested asylum in Argentina in 2004, was an ideological leader of a branch of Chile's Communist Party that took up arms against Pinochet. With democracy restored to Chile, Apablaza's faction refused to put down its weapons.