ARGENTINA: INTERPOL AGENTS PRESENT DETAILS OF ARREST OF GERMAN CITIZEN P[AUL SCHAEFER ONE OF CHILE'S MOST SOUGHT AFTER FUGITIVES

Record ID: 448961

  • Title: ARGENTINA: INTERPOL AGENTS PRESENT DETAILS OF ARREST OF GERMAN CITIZEN P[AUL SCHAEFER ONE OF CHILE'S MOST SOUGHT AFTER FUGITIVES
  • Date: 12th March 2005
  • Summary: (EU) BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (MARCH 10, 2005)(REUTERS) 1. SLV EXTERIORS OF INTERPOL POLICE OFFICE; PAUL SCHAEFER BEING MOVED IN A WHEELCHAIR FROM INTERPOL OFFICE TO A CAR (11 SHOTS) 0.55 2. (SOUNDBITE)(Spanish) LAWYER FOR THE VICTIMS OF COLONIA DIGNIDAD, HERNAN FERNANDES SAYING: "We hope that it is the Chilean justice system that will imprison Paul Schaefer because most of his victims are in Chile. The most serious acts were committed in Chile and without doubt the German government, and the French, the German and French authorities will yield the right to the Chilean victims so that this criminal may be tried and condemned to serve in Chilean prisons." 1.23 3. SLV EXTERIOR OF POLICE DEPARTMENT 1.26 3. SLV EXTERIOR OF POLICE DEPARTMENT 4. MV INTERPOL AGENTS AT NEWS CONFERENCE 1.36 5. (SOUNDBITE)(Spanish) COMMISSIONER LUIS FUENZALIDA SAYING: "There are two possibilities. The judicial work necessary to extradite him and the administrative work to expel him. Obviously, the expulsion is the most expeditious taking into account the Schaefer's documentation." 1.51 6. SLV PRESS SURROUNDING INTERPOL OFFICERS; MV INTERPOL COMMISSIONER FUENZALIDA SHOWING FINGER PRINTS AND PICTURES OF PAUL SCHAEFER (5 SHOTS) 2.12 (EU) BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (MARCH 10, 2005)(REUTERS) 7. MV A SMILING AND RELAXED LOOKING SCHAEFER BEING MOVED TO INTERPOL AFTER BEING DETAINED 2.34 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 27th March 2005 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Reuters ID: LVABWZU5KI3OBJU6LTH5J3RS1XLB
  • Story Text: Interpol agents present details of the arrest of
    German citizen Paul Schaefer, one of Chile's most sought
    after fugitives.

    Interpol agents held a news conference in Buenos
    Aires Friday (March 11) where they presented details of
    Thursday's (March 10, 2005) arrest of German citizen, Paul
    Schaefer, the fugitive religious sect leader who has been
    convicted in Chile of sexually abusing 26 children.

    Schaefer, 84, who moved to Chile with a group of German
    families and established the Colonia Dignidad religious
    cult and farming commune in 1961, is also wanted in Germany
    on abuse charges.

    "There are two possibilities. The judicial work
    necessary to extradite him and the administrative work to
    expel him. Obviously, the expulsion is the most expeditious
    taking into account the Schaefer's documentation," said
    Luis Fuenzalida the Interpol Commissioner.

    Schaefer, on the run for eight years, also faces
    charges in Chile of helping the secret police kidnap a
    political prisoner during Chile's 1973-90 military
    dictatorship.

    Up until very recently Schaefer's followers defended
    him as a God-like guru despite his growing legal problems.

    But last year his spell over his followers began to
    fade and members of the once secretive cult broke a
    four-decade silence and spoke with Reuters to denounce
    widespread physical abuse inside the sect.

    "We hope that it is the Chilean justice system that
    will imprison Paul Schaefer because most of his victims are
    in Chile," said Hernan Fernandes the lawyer who represents
    the Chilean victims.

    A Chilean court charged Schaefer in 1996 with the sexual abuse of
    more than two dozen Chilean children who
    went to the free school and clinic at Colonia Dignidad. He
    disappeared in 1997.

    Late last year a Chilean judge convicted and sentenced
    him in absentia on the sex abuse charges. Cult members
    convicted of covering up Schaefer's crimes have appealed
    their sentences.

    Schaefer is also accused of involvement in the
    disappearance of a political prisoner during the Augusto
    Pinochet dictatorship. His cult was accused of
    collaborating with the military regime's secret police and
    has fought several tax evasion cases.

    Schaefer and three companions were arrested 25 miles
    (40 km) from Buenos Aires in an elegant residential area.

    Investigative reporters from Chile's Channel 13 television
    station said they discovered Schaefer had bought several
    properties in Argentina.

    Defectors from the cult have long accused Schaefer of
    living well on profits from the cult's farming and
    construction activities as sect members worked like slaves,
    for no pay.

    In Schaefer's hermetic enclave, a 55-square-mile (140
    square km) farm behind a perimeter fence a four-hour drive
    south of Santiago, sect leaders were allowed to come and go
    but most members lived in isolation for decades.

    The sect segregated men and women and split children
    from their parents.

    Restrictions on intimacy were so tough that for decades
    no children were born to members who blindly followed
    Schaefer, a charismatic World War Two German army nurse who
    preached that harsh discipline would draw them closer to
    the supreme being.

    About 280 sect members, many of them elderly Germans
    who speak no Spanish, still live at Villa Baviera.

    LATAM/JRC



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