Italy, Falkenberg arrested: former Nazi torturer of Pinochet on the run among pensioners in Forte dei Marmi

He was hiding among a group of elderly German tourists when the agents of the police station of Forte dei Marmi stopped him after 16 years on the run. The 76-year-old Reinhard Doring Falkenberg was accused of having been the jailer and torturer of opponents of the Pinochet regime.

In the seventies, Falkenberg was one of the leaders of the "Colonia Dignidad", an enclave of Nazis who fled Germany and took refuge in Chile. The colony which during the Pinochet regime was transformed into a detention center for Chilean opponents who were arrested, murdered and then made to disappear.

The man arrested in Forte dei Marmi fled Chile in 2005 precisely to escape the trial on the horrors of the "Colonia Dignidad", founded in 1961 by a former Wehrmacht nurse, Paul Schaefer along with other former Nazi hierarchs who fled to South America. Probably Falkenberg was convinced that he had escaped justice forever, so much so that he was traveling with his identity document and had delivered it without problems to the Italian hotel. The alarm started when the police station of Forte dei Marmi inserted the cards of the guests staying at the tourist reception facilities into the terminal and discovered that the 76-year-old was wanted in Chile.

The Falkenberg case will now go to the Court of Appeal of Florence which will have to decide on the extradition requested by Chile. The Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia has asked the judges of Florence to keep the custody of Doring Falkenberg.
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