 |
| Relatives of disappeared prisoners asking for the whereabouts of their missed family members |
The news came the week after German prosecutors dropped their case against the sect's former doctor Hartmut Hopp, 74, citing a lack of evidence that he was complicit in the sexual abuse of children.
The sect was founded in 1961 by Paul Schaefer, a former Wehrmacht soldier, lay preacher and convicted paedophile, who abused, drugged and indoctrinated residents and kept them as virtual slaves.
His group had close ties to the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and would torture and 'disappear' regime critics.
Eligible for the payments will be some 240 German and Chilean survivors, including about 80 who now live in Germany, from a fund valued at an initial 3.5 million euros until 2024.
Some will also receive pension-style payments.
A long-time campaigner for the victims, German Greens lawmaker Renate Kuenast, labelled the payments largely 'symbolic' but 'acceptable'.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights however charged that Germany's foreign ministry was 'dodging its legal responsibility to compensate the victims' more fully, adding that 'many Chilean victims were left out'. (more...)
No comments:
Post a Comment