Although Orvieto's name was listed in several human rights reports on Chile our Homeland Security Dept. did not identify him as a potential torturer or deport him using a 5-year-old U.S. program designed for that very purpose.
Posted on Sat, Apr. 09, 2005
Torture suspect is arrested in Chile
A Miami-Dade resident was arrested in Chile on suspicion of participating in the torture of political prisoners under dictator Augusto Pinochet.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY AND ROBERT L. STEINBACK
achardy@herald.com
Vittorio Orvieto Teplinzky, who lives in Miami-Dade, was arrested in Chile for allegedly participating in the torture of political prisoners as an army doctor during the dictatorship of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, U.S. officials and rights activists said Friday.
U.S. officials said Orvieto, 65, has lived in South Florida since the late 1990s, when he arrived using an Egyptian passport. Orvieto became a permanent resident, said one official who requested anonymity.
A man at an address listed for Orvieto in the 13600 block of Northwest Ninth Lane said his father-in-law was not home.
''He is in his country,'' the man said, refusing to provide other details.
Orvieto was arrested Wednesday at Santiago's international airport, according to a statement from the Center for Justice & Accountability, a San Francisco-based human rights group that tracks foreign torture suspects living in the United States.
The center said Orvieto denied the torture allegations in a Chilean court -- but acknowledged having a relationship with the military head of a Chilean detention facility during the Pinochet era. He remains in custody.
Officials at the Chilean consulate in Miami and the Chilean Embassy in Washington could not be reached by telephone for comment Friday.
A statement from the San Francisco center said the organization played a role in bringing about Orvieto's arrest.
Almudena Bernabeu, an attorney with the center, said the organization contacted the Department of Homeland Security, which was ``pursuing an investigation.''
U.S. officials said they were aware of an international lookout for Orvieto and added Friday they were looking into the matter.
A federal source said Orvieto was arrested as he tried to clear passport control in Santiago after arriving from Miami. Chilean authorities detained him based on an arrest warrant issued by a Chilean judge that was filed with Interpol.
Orvieto's name has appeared in several human rights reports on Chile over the years, but his connection to Miami-Dade was not known previously.
He was not a target of a 5-year-old U.S. program to detect and deport foreign torture suspects.
The center said Orvieto is accused of involvement in the abduction, torture and presumed disappearance of a man at a detention facility in Chile in 1974, one year after Pinochet seized power in the overthrow of elected Marxist President Salvador Allende.
It also said Orvieto had been a Chilean army doctor who allegedly treated political prisoners ``to ensure that they did not die so that their torture could continue.''
The center has been involved in several high-profile court cases involving foreign torture suspects in the United States, including Chilean Armando Fernández Larios of Kendall and two former Salvadoran generals, José Guillermo García, 72, of Plantation, and Carlos Vides Casanova, 67, of Palm Coast.
A federal appeals court in Atlanta last month upheld a $4 million verdict against Fernández Larios, a former Chilean army officer who was found liable for the death of a political prisoner after Pinochet's 1973 coup.
The same court reversed a $54.6 million verdict against García and Vides Casanova for allegedly turning a blind eye to the torture of citizens during El Salvador's bloody civil war two decades ago.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11352205.htm