Harmutt Hopp, second-in-command at Colonia Dignidad, confessed to Chilean investigators Monday that Álvaro Vallejos, a left-wing leader “disappeared” by the Pinochet military regime in 1974, was in fact brought to the colony, a charge that colony leaders have long denied. Colonia Dignidad was a right-wing paramilitary compound occupied by German immigrants who belonged to has long been suspected of collaborating with the former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet during the 17-year rule of his military regime.
Hopp was detained by Chilean investigators in May on charges of human rights violations following the March arrest of former colony leader Paul Schäfer, outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Schäfer was wanted on charges of serial child molestation (ST, August 29).
Since Hopp’s arrest, police have found an extraordinary amount of sophisticated military weaponry buried on the property as well as over 30,000 individual intelligence profiles, compiled by the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), the secret police blamed for thousands of tortures and disappearances during the military regime.
Last week, Jorge Zepeda, the lead investigator in the case, announced plans to move forward with the excavation of three more sites on the property believed to contain the bodies of 30 political prisoners thought to have been executed at the Colonia Dignidad compound during the dictatorship.
Hopp’s confession marks the first time that any of the former colony leaders have implicated their former leader in crimes that took place at the colony compound. According to Cecilia Pastén, a judicial functionary present at the hearing, Hopp also confessed that members of the Colony knowingly participated in the buried weapons scandal, a charge he previously denied.
Chilean officials are also beginning investigations into colony bank accounts held by Schäfer and the colony in various banks on the Caribbean Islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis. However, strict secrecy laws regarding banking procedures may make the investigation impossible.
In related news, Ewald Frank, Colonia Dignidad’s German evangelical preacher, was deported from Chile on Tuesday after trying to enter the country to take part in a wedding of two colony members. Chile’s Ministry of the Interior deemed Frank a public nuisance and evoked the Law of Foreign Visitors to send him back to Germany.
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