Key facts
- Nelson Haase, convicted of the murder of folk singer Victor Jara, has been captured in Chile.
- Haase was sentenced to 25 years in prison in August 2023 for his role in Jara's death during the Pinochet dictatorship.
- Victor Jara was tortured and killed in 1973, days after the military coup.
- Haase evaded authorities for nearly three years before being apprehended in southern Chile.
- Victor Jara was a supporter of ousted socialist president Salvador Allende and known for his protest songs.
Chilean police have captured Nelson Haase Mazzei, a retired colonel convicted of the 1973 murder of folk singer and activist Victor Jara. Haase had been a fugitive since August 2023, when he and six other retired soldiers were sentenced in absentia to varying jail terms for the killings of Jara and Littré Quiroga, director of prisons under President Salvador Allende.
Haase Mazzei was apprehended on Saturday in Puyehue, in the rural south of the country, and a judge ordered his immediate imprisonment. The Víctor Jara Foundation, established by Jara's widow, British dancer Joan Jara, acknowledged the news but stated that it is difficult to view this as justice half a century after the murders.
Víctor Jara was arrested on September 11, 1973, the day of the US-backed coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. He was held at a stadium in Santiago along with thousands of others, where he was tortured before being murdered in the changing rooms four days later. His body was found with 44 bullet wounds and 56 broken bones. Haase Mazzei, who joined the army's Tejas Verde brigade in 1972 and later served in Pinochet's secret police, received a 25-year sentence.
Another Tejas Verde officer sentenced for the killing was Pedro Barrientos, who was deported from the US to Chile in December 2023. A former soldier testified that Barrientos would boast about killing Victor Jara. Hernán Chacón, 86, another individual sentenced for the murder, died by suicide when police arrived to arrest him. Haase Mazzei's defense has requested his transfer to a prison designed for human rights criminals of the Pinochet era.