A former German Nazi soldier turned Chilean sect leader was arrested Thursday on charges of pedophilia and committing torture during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Paul Schaefer, 83, was arrested in the community of Tortuguitas, a town 30km west of Buenos Aires along with six people described as his security team, Argentine police said.
Schaefer was the charismatic leader of a German enclave in southern Chile called Colonia Dignidad. He has been hiding since a warrant for multiple counts of pedophilia was issued in August 1996.
PHOTO: AP
Schaefer was convicted of the charges in November last year along with 22 other Dignidad members.
Argentine Police Commissioner Alejandro Dinisio said police that Schaefer carried no identification documents and refused to speak at the time of his arrest. He added that police had been on his trail for six months.
Argentine television reporters mobbed Schaefer as an agent pushed the elderly suspect on his wheelchair into a provincial police station. Officials said he could be transferred to Buenos Aires as early as yesterday.
Schaefer appeared on television handcuffed and smiling, and holding a bottle of soda.
A former corporal and medic in the Nazi army, Schaefer fled Germany to Chile in 1961 to avoid child sexual abuse charges.
He established the self-subsistent Colonia Dignidad, also called Villa Baviera, in the mountains near the city of Parral, some 350km south of Santiago along with other German immigrants.
Surrounded by barbed and electrified wire and protected by barricades, the community adhered to a strict discipline and remained cut off from the rest of Chilean life.
In 1996 a number of former residents testified that Schaefer systematically abused the colony's children, many of whom were taken from the parents at birth.
Chilean officials also want Schaefer in connection with torture during the 1973-1990 Pinochet dictatorship.
Investigators say that political prisoners, including former leftist leader Alvaro Vallejos Villagran -- arrested by Pinochet agents in May 1974 -- vanished after being sent to Colonia Dignidad.
A former member of Pinochet's secret police gave testimony stating that he knew Vallejos Villagran was taken alive to Dignidad.
Police also want to question Schaefer about the 1985 disappearance of Boris Weisfeiler, an American Jewish mathematics professor of Russian origin.
Investigators believe Weisfeiler was picked up by a military border patrol while he was backpacking in the region on suspicion of being a spy and dropped off at Dignidad.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland yesterday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy. The US delegation has begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), Xinhua News Agency said. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks was not made public. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim, but there is
The number of births in Taiwan fell to an all-time monthly low last month, while the population declined for the 16th consecutive month, Ministry of the Interior data released on Friday showed. The number of newborns totaled 8,684, which is 704 births fewer than in March and the lowest monthly figure on record, the ministry said. That is equivalent to roughly one baby born every five minutes and an annual crude birthrate of 4.52 per 1,000 people, the ministry added. Meanwhile, 17,205 deaths were recorded, resulting in a natural population decrease of 8,521, the data showed. More people are also leaving Taiwan, with net
RSS