Chilean police have captured Nelson Haase, a retired army colonel who had been on the run since 2023 after being convicted of the kidnapping and murder of folk singer Victor Jara under the Pinochet dictatorship. Jara, a prominent protest singer who supported ousted socialist president Salvador Allende, was tortured and shot 44 times just five days after the 1973 coup, making his case one of the most notorious symbols of the regime's repression, in which thousands were tortured, killed or disappeared over 17 years.

Haase was one of eight officers found guilty of Jara's murder in 2018, with Chile's Supreme Court finalising his sentence in August 2023 at 15 years for murder and 10 for kidnapping, but he failed to turn himself in and vanished for nearly three years. He was located by police on Saturday in Puyehue, some 950km south of Santiago. Of the other convicted officers, one died by suicide when police attempted his arrest, five remain in prison, and a further figure, Pedro Barrientos, was extradited from the US in 2023 after a Florida jury found him liable for Jara's death.