Chile: Nine retired soldiers jailed over killing of folk singer Victor Jara

Nine former Chilean soldiers have been jailed for their role in the murder of folk singer Victor Jara during the 1973 coup.

Eight men have been found guilty of murder, while a ninth has been found guilty of accessory to murder.

Hugo Sánchez Marmonti, Raúl Jofré González, Edwin Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Bethke Wulf, Juan Jara Quintana, Hernán Chacón Soto and Patricio Vásquez Donoso were sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison.

Rolando Melo Silva, convicted of the lesser charge of accessory to murder, was sentenced to five years and a day in prison.

The sentences come two years after a jury in Florida found retired Chilean army officer Pedro Pablo Barrientos liable for the murder and awarded Victor Jara’s family $28 million in damages.

Mr Jara, then aged 40, was arrested the day after the 1973 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende and installed General Augusto Pinochet as a dictator.

He was held in Chile’s national stadium in Santiago with thousands of others, where he was interrogated, tortured and later killed.

As well as being a folk singer, Jara was a prominent Allende supporter and member of the Communist Party of Chile.