Victor Jara, who was killed in the first few days of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Photograph: ReutersIt was the atrocity which symbolised Chile's descent into dictatorship: soldiers used rifle butts to smash the hands of Victor Jara, a political activist and folk singer, so he could not play guitar. Then they shot him 44 times. Yesterday, almost 36 years later, justice caught up with one of killers. José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a former conscript in Augusto Pinochet's army, was charged with murder. The burly 54-year-old was tracked down in San Sebastian, a spa town outside the capital Santiago, where he was working as a waiter and gardener.
Activists who have campaigned for the case to be reopened welcomed the announcement but urged authorities to focus on arresting commanding officers. "There are other people responsible – those who ordered the torture and the execution," said Joan Turner Jara, the singer's English-born widow. Jara, a political songwriter and poet and high-profile supporter of socialist President Salvador Allende, was among thousands swept up in the aftermath of Pinochet's CIA-backed coup in September 1973. The author of El cigarrito and Manifiesto was herded into Santiago's football stadium which was used as a mass jail. Guardian UK>>
