The former agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and right-hand woman of Manuel Contreras, Adriana Rivas, will finally be extradited to Chile, after Australian justice rejected her last legal attempt to avoid this outcome on Tuesday. The 72-year-old woman is accused by Chilean authorities of participating in the kidnapping, interrogation, and disappearance of seven people during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. According to BioBioChile, after the Australian government authorized Rivas' extradition, her defense sought to challenge the decision, arguing that the alleged acts should be considered crimes against humanity rather than aggravated kidnappings, thus questioning the validity of the extradition process.
However, Judge Michael Lee rejected this and stated that "the charges were correctly configured," ending a legal battle that lasted seven years. Adriana Rivas has lived in Australia for 30 years, where she worked as a nanny and domestic worker, until she returned to Chile in 2006, where she was arrested. The woman escaped and returned to Australia three years later.
Finally, in 2019, she was detained by authorities in that country. It is worth noting that Rivas is attributed with participation in the aggravated kidnappings of seven people: Víctor Díaz, deputy secretary of the Communist Party, Fernando Navarro, Lincoyán Berríos, Horacio Cepeda, Juan Fernando Ortiz, Héctor Véliz, and Reinalda Pereira, who was pregnant at the time of her detention. The lawyer for the victims' families, Adriana Navarro, described the Australian court's decision as historic.
"The families have expressed their gratitude for the prompt issuance of the ruling, stating that this puts an end to a long and complex extradition process that extended over many years. They emphasize that this result is the fruit of years of constant effort," she told the EFE news agency.