Pedro Barrientos, 74, moved to Florida in 1990, the same year that Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year-long reign – during which tens of thousands of people, particularly left-wing activists, were held as political prisoners, tortured or disappeared – came to an end.

Chilean prosecutors say Barrientos was in charge of what is now known as the Victor Jara Stadium, where thousands of people rounded up during the 1973 coup, including the singer, were held and tortured.

In 2016, a jury in a civil case brought against Barrientos in Florida held him liable for Jara’s torture and extrajudicial killing and ordered him to pay $28 million in damages to Jara’s surviving family members.

Earlier this year, Barrientos was stripped of his US citizenship after a federal court found that he had lied about his military service on his application for naturalisation, making him liable for deportation to Chile.

He was expelled from the US on Friday and taken into custody on his arrival in Chile, The New York Times reports.

A number of retired Chilean soldiers were convicted in 2018 in connection with Jara’s murder.