by HMKGrey » Wed May 24, 2006 11:23 pm
<br>From BBC:<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> Chilean colony sex abuser jailed</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>The former leader of a controversial German colony in southern Chile has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for sexually abusing 25 children there.<br><br>Paul Schaefer, 84, a former Nazi who established the colony in 1961, was ordered to pay $1.5m in compensation.<br><br>Most of the commune's residents are believed to have been held there against their will.<br><br>Colony leaders have been accused of working with the secret police during the Pinochet military regime.<br><br>Schaefer denies separate charges of allowing the secret police to use the enclave as a centre for torturing left-wing dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.<br><br>'State within a state'<br><br>Schaefer fled Chile in 1997 and was convicted of sex crimes in absentia. He was found hiding in Argentina in March 2005 and sent back for a fresh trial.<br><br>The state took over the Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony) last year.<br><br>Schaefer was sentenced at a court in Parral, in a mountainous region 350km (215 miles) south of the capital Santiago.<br><br>In all 18 people have been indicted over human rights abuses committed at the enclave during the military rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.<br><br>A Chilean congressional report has said that Colonia Dignidad operated as a "state within a state" during the Pinochet regime, thanks to Schaefer's close ties to the country's ruling elite.<br><br>Former members have spoken about the conditions at the enclave, claiming Schaefer forced children to live separately from their parents.<br><br>They said he banned contact with the outside world.<br><br>Some former members have asked the Chilean public for forgiveness, saying Schaefer brainwashed them.<br><br>In an open letter last December, ex-members said those who angered Schaefer "were the subject of atrocious punishments, even including torture".<br><br>"They were given high doses of tranquilisers, were submitted to electric shocks and were isolated for long periods, even years."<br> <p></p><i></i>
