Juan Salvador Guzmán Tapia (born April 22, 1939) is a retired Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an judge who gained international recognition for being the first judge to prosecute former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet

Augusto Pinochet

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...

 on human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 charges, after Pinochet's return to Chile following more than a year of house arrest in London, in England.

Guzmán was born into a Chilean diplomatic family in San Salvador

San Salvador

The city of San Salvador the capital and largest city of El Salvador, which has been designated a Gamma World City. Its complete name is La Ciudad de Gran San Salvador...

, El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

. His father was Juan Guzmán Cruchaga

Juan Guzmán Cruchaga

Juan Guzmán Cruchaga was a Chilean poet and diplomat. He won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1962. Was of Basque descent.-References:...

. Is of Basque

Basque people

The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...

 descent. He studied Law at the University of Chile and did postgraduate studies in Paris. He began his judicial career in 1970 and was a member of the Santiago Appeals Court.

Guzmán retired in 2005. In a memoir published later that year, he revealed that he had come under political pressure to drop the case against Pinochet http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4696617.stm.

In 2008, Guzmán voiced his support of Cuba in defense against hostility towards and blockade of Cuba by the United States. http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/septiembre/mier24/defended.html

In May, 2010, Judge Guzmán was awarded an Honorary Degree, honoris causa, by Haverford College, in Pennsylvania, USA, for his steady and courageous defense of human rights, even in the most adverse circumstances.

Prosecution of Augusto Pinochet

On 12 January 1998, human rights lawyers in Chile submitted the first of more than 70 lawsuits against General Pinochet. Guzmán was appointed to take charge of the investigation. Arrested in London in October 1998 under orders of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón

Baltasar Garzón

Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...

, Pinochet was finally deemed unfit for trial and returned home in March 2000.

In June 1999, Guzmán ordered the arrest of five retired military officers — including a general — for their part in a military squad whose exploits became known in Chile as the Caravan of Death

Caravan of Death

The Caravan of Death was a Chilean Army death squad that, following the Chilean coup of 1973, flew by helicopters from south to north of Chile between September 30 and October 22, 1973. During this foray, members of the squad ordered or personally carried out the execution of at least 75...

. The members of this squad are accused of killing more than 70 opponents of the military government in October 1973, shortly after a coup d'état on September 11 that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

.

Guzmán secured the arrests of the accused by applying a used interpretation of the 1978 auto-amnesty law. He argued that since many of the bodies of the military squad's victims were still missing, it could be argued legally that these people are still kidnapped. Therefore, Guzmán argued, the crime is continuing and neither the auto-amnesty law nor the statute of limitations can be applied until the bodies are found: permanent sequestration crime was created by this jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

, thus permitting prosecution for the forced disappearance

Forced disappearance

In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...

s.

In November 1999, Guzmán sent to Pinochet in London a list of 75 questions, which the General refused to answer. On 3 March 2000, Pinochet returned to Chile. Three days later, Guzmán entered a request for Pinochet's parliamentary immunity to be lifted.

Answering to this request, the Supreme Court of Chile

Supreme Court of Chile

The Supreme Court of Chile is the highest court in Chile. It also administrates the lower courts in the nation. It is located in the capital Santiago....

 stripped Pinochet's immunity in August 2000, and later declared him fit to stand trial.

In December 2000, Guzmán formally charged Pinochet for kidnapping during his 1973–1990 dictatorship, and questioned him for two hours in January 2001 after doctors said he was fit to undergo interrogation. That same month, Guzmán placed the general under house arrest.

In July 2001, the charges were suspended and later dropped on health grounds. In May 2004, the Court stripped Pinochet again of his immunity from prosecution over fresh charges concerning Operation Condor

Operation Condor

Operation Condor , was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America...

. In September 2005, the Court acceded to Juan Guzmán's request to strip Pinochet of his immunity concerning Operation Colombo

Operation Colombo

Operation Colombo was an operation undertaken by the DINA in 1975. The operation involved the disappearance of political dissidents. At least 119 people are alleged to have been abducted and later killed by state forces in the secret operation...

.

A feature-length documentary about Juan Guzmán's attempts to bring Pinochet to justice for human rights crimes was completed in 2008. The film, entitled "The Judge and the General

The Judge and the General

The Judge and the General is a 2008 feature-length documentary film about Juan Guzmán's attempts to bring Augusto Pinochet to justice for human rights crimes.-Plot:...

", was produced by West Wind Productions, a tax-exempt film production company located in San Francisco, California. More information about "The Judge and the General" can be found at http://www.westwindproductions.org.

External links

• Les Arènes home page - translated by Google
• BBC news 14 December, 2004
• Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards
• Reina Frescó, Entrevista a Juan Guzmán Tapia, Clarín
  Clarín (newspaper)
  Clarín is the largest newspaper in Argentina, published by the Grupo Clarín media group. It was founded by Roberto Noble on 28 August 1945. It is politically centrist but popularly understood to oppose the Kirchner government...
  
  , 10 February 2007
• "The Judge and the General" http://www.westwindproductions.org