ITALY: Appeals to release Chilean dissident
BY SEAN HEALY
Chilean leftists and indigenous activists have called for international help to force the Italian government to free Jaime Yovanovic, who is being held awaiting extradition back to his native country, where he may face the death penalty.
Yovanovic is a former member of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) and has been accused by the Chilean military of involvement in the August 1983 assassination of General Augusto Pinochet's intelligence adviser, General Carol Urza.
He has been living in exile since 1984, when he was forced to seek asylum in the Vatican's embassy in Santiago after the military had summarily executed six members of MIR also accused of Urza's assassination.
Yovanovic was arrested by the Italian political police, DIGOS, acting on the orders of Interpol, in Assisi, Italy, on August 6. He had travelled from Brazil to participate in a world anti-imperialist meeting. At the end of the meeting, DIGOS agents arrested him as he attempted to board a train to Rome.
Two similar applications for the extradition of anti-dictatorship activists have been refused in other countries. Chilean attempts to gain custody of Patricio Ortiz and Claudio Molina where rejected by courts in Switzerland and Argentina respectively, on the grounds that Chile's military justice system had systematically breached human rights.
While Chile now has a democratically elected government, supporters fear that Yovanovic's life would be in serious jeopardy if placed in Chilean military custody. Under Chilean law, the charge he would face carries the death penalty.
In a statement, the International Coordinating Committee for Political Prisoners, the Anti-imperialist Political Committee and the Chilean Popular and Indigenous Network "ask all free people of this earth to not allow military courts to continue to persecute Chileans who dream of a democratic and just country. We need a lot of help and we hope that you will be a pillar of justice in our battle for the liberty of Jaime Yovanovic."
Letters calling for Yovanovic's release can be sent to the Ministry of the Interior, Palazzina Viminale piazzale del Viminale 00184 Roma, Italy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, piazzale Farnesina n.1 00194 Roma, Italy.