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Karl Schembri
The Home Affairs Ministry has contradicted statements made by the Chilean Navy, which has claimed an arrest warrant issued in the US against an officer wanted for the attempted murder of a Maltese national was dropped by Malta.
A spokesman for minister Tonio Borg said the claims made officially by the Chilean Navy following the release of its wanted Lieutenant Hernán Sepúlveda Mery were “absolutely untrue” and that the man, together with another naval officer, was still wanted by Malta for the attempted murder of Joseph Spiteri in 1999.
The lieutenant and son of a Navy captain was arrested in Miami on 5 October as he was returning to Chile after his honeymoon in Disney World, upon a request from the Maltese government demanding his extradition.
But last Tuesday the Miami court decreed that there was not enough evidence to warrant his extradition to Malta in what is deemed by the international press as “a rare dismissal of an international extradition request”.
Sepúlveda Mery did not deny that he was in the brawl, which left Spiteri with a punctured liver, but denied having anything to do with the stabbing of the bouncer.
The Chilean Navy however stated in a press release circulated to the national media there that Malta had withdrawn its charges – a claim strongly rebutted by the Maltese government and by the Attorney General’s office.
In fact, Senior Council to the Republic Donatella Frendo Dimech told MaltaToday that the Chileans’ claim was false.
“Malta never withdrew the extradition request, nor the charges against the sailors,” Frendo Dimech said.
Despite this, in Chile, the navy’s version has made headlines with the freed suspect reiterating the establishment’s official version that Malta inexplicably dropped its charges against him.
Interviewed by the influential daily El Mercurio de Valparaiso, Sepúlveda Mery said he was “surprised” that Malta had withdrawn its charges of attempted murder, causing serious injuries and of holding an illegal weapon.
“The case is now closed and I hope this is the end of it,” he said.
While the chances of getting the lieutenant arrested again for extradition are now more remote than ever, Malta still insists he is a fugitive of justice together with Cristián Delgado Ramírez – then a cadet at the time of the incident.
Spiteri was outside the Empire nightclub in Paceville on the night of 4 August, 1999, when he tried to stop a brawl in the street and was stabbed three times in his chest by Chilean cadets.
The Chileans who were in Malta on board the training ship Esmeralda had fled the scene immediately after knifing Spiteri, returning to their sailing ship in the Grand Harbour on which they enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
Now six years later, the military establishment and the officer’s family reacted with great surprise to the news of the lieutenant’s arrest in Miami, with Admiral Rodolfo Codina expressing his hope that “an extrajudicial agreement” would be reached to avoid the extradition.
After his release, Adm. Codina said: “I’m very happy because this is just what I maintained and still say, that there were no reasons to charge him. Were it otherwise he would not be in the Navy. We just needed patience along the process and Malta helped us by withdrawing its charges.”
Haunted by her dark past
Even in her own country, the Esmeralda carries within it the ghosts of its gory past.
Chile’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Amnesty International have documented evidence that the Esmeralda, a four-masted sailing vessel, was used to torture prisoners following the US-backed September 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, who deposed and assassinated the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende.
President Allende had set out to revamp Chilean society by implementing a Marxist-Leninist programme, which included nationalisation of all basic industries, banks, communications and redistribution of wealth.
A crisis which developed in 1973 because of skyrocketing prices, food shortages and strikes was further aggravated by the United States, which worked to undermine the Allende government.
The climax came on September 11, 1973, when the military forces seized power, with General Pinochet becoming military dictator of the country. Pinochet suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress, imposed strict censorship and banned all political parties.
The Esmeralda was used by the navy in 1973 and 1974 as a floating prison for political prisoners and women, most of whom were communists or declared socialists.
Dubbed by human rights activists as “the Ship of Torture”, the Esmeralda attracts demonstrations in most of its ports of call internationally in protest against its bloody history. At the time, thousands were arrested; many were executed, tortured or exiled while still others languished in prison or simply disappeared as part of General Pinochet’s campaign of terror against leftist elements in the country.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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