Accused Pinochet agent turned Bondi nanny Adriana Rivas to be extradited to Chile | Sydney

A former Sydney nanny and cleaner accused by Chile of being a torturer and kidnapper for Augusto Pinochet’s 1970s military dictatorship will be extradited to Chile to stand trial over kidnapping allegations after losing a seven-year fight to stay in Australia.

Adriana Elcira Rivas, now in her 70s, is accused of participating in the disappearances of seven people, including a woman who was five months pregnant, in 1976 while working for Pinochet’s secret police force.

Rivas immigrated to Australia in 1978 and worked as a nanny in Bondi before being arrested by New South Wales police in 2019 at the request of the Chilean government.

He has been detained for seven years after resisting attempts to extradite him to the South American country to stand trial on seven counts of aggravated kidnapping.

He denies the allegations and has argued that his extradition to Chile should be blocked because it would result in him being tried for crimes against humanity.

But Judge Michael Lee told the federal court in Sydney on Tuesday that the claim that the offenses were misidentified was “misunderstood”.

“The materials do not suggest that the crime for which extradition is sought is anything other than the crimes specified in the request, namely aggravated kidnapping,” he said.

The judge ruled that Rivas’s claim that the government failed to take into account the expiration of time to prosecute kidnapping crimes was similarly flawed.

“The applicant has failed to show that the minister’s decision was affected by jurisdictional error,” Lee said.

Chile’s ambassador and consul general sat in the public gallery as the verdict was announced.

Families of Chileans who disappeared or were killed during the Pinochet period filled the courtroom during the two-day hearing, but could not enter the courtroom for the verdict.

Tens of thousands of Chileans came to Australia after the dictator violently overthrew the country’s elected socialist government in a coup in 1973.

Before the end of his reign in 1990, approximately 40,000 people were killed, tortured or imprisoned for political reasons.

Rivas is accused of playing a role in the national intelligence directorate brigade that physically and psychologically tortured Communist party members who opposed the Pinochet regime.

Adriana Navarro, who represents the families, said earlier that more than 1,100 Chileans were still missing.

“We have a very good idea of ​​what happened to them, and we think Ms. Rivas could have done the same,” Navarro said outside court during the hearing.