Highlights
- The full bench of the Federal Court ruled against Rivas' appeal in less than a week.
- The Pinochet-era agent is wanted in Chile for the disappearance of seven regime dissidents in the 1970s.
- Rivas' defence filed 17 grounds of appeal and requested the removal of a previous order from Federal Justice Wendy Abraham, confirming that Rivas is extraditable.
The full bench of the Federal Court unanimously rejected the appeal of the former Pinochet-era secret police agent, Adriana Rivas, who was seeking to halt her extradition to Chile, where she is wanted for the disappearance of seven regime dissidents in the 1970s.
Justice Stewart Anderson told the online hearing on Wednesday Rivas was "eligible for surrender", following six days of deliberations.
This is the second appeal that has been rejected by the Federal Court. Previous attempts related to this case had taken weeks to months of consideration before a decision was handed down.
This latest rejection came after the full bench of the Federal Court of the extradition of Rivas to Chile on Thursday last week.
Rivas presented 17 grounds for appeal, requesting the elimination of a previous order from Federal Justice Wendy Abraham, who in June .
A group of Chileans who watched the proceeding online from outside the Federal Court building in Sydney's CBD expressed joy and relief after hearing the decision.
Rivas, 68, has been behind bars since her arrest in Sydney in 2019.
Adriana Rivas during an interview with SBS Spanish reporter Florencia Melgar in 2013. Source: SBS Spanish
She is accused in Chile of having worked as part of the Laurato Brigade, an 'elite squadron' that operated at the Simón Bolívar barracks, considered an extermination and torture facility during the dictatorship.
Among the seven disappeared people linked to her case were a pregnant woman and Víctor Díaz, Secretary-General of the Communist Party in Chile, who disappeared in 1976.
Rivas denies all the charges against her. Her defence claims that although she worked at the barracks under the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) Director, Manuel Contreras, General Pinochet's second in charge, she was unaware of the activities that took place in those facilities.
If confirmed, the charges laid against Rivas in Chile are considered crimes against humanity.
The arguments against her extradition
Last Thursday, Rivas' barrister, Frank Santisi, had told the court that Australian magistrates had not considered that the Amnesty Law, enacted in Chile during the Pinochet regime in 1978 to shield those suspected of committing human rights violations, is still valid and applicable.
"It exists in Chile and there is no act in Parliament to remove it," Santisi argued.
He added that Chile's extradition request was 'politically motivated', and hence "Australia has the right not to act in the extradition request".
The grounds of this argument were rejected by Justice Mortimer who said the claim "would throw the extradition law into chaos", while Justice Bromwich told Santisi that line of argument was "a dead-end for you".
In the past, Rivas' defence has also claimed that the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) "was a government office created by the law of that time", which would be comparable to Australian intelligence agencies, such as ASIS and ASIO and, as such, it can't be considered an illegal organisation.
"It was the law created by the Junta", Santisi said.
The Australian Attorney-General representative, Trent Glover, rejected Santisi's claims and stated that there were no errors in the presentation of the extradition request and that "the crime of aggravated kidnapping existed at the time of Rivas' alleged conduct".
Justice Bromwich replied that “if the allegation would constitute an offence in Australia, that’s enough. That’s a matter for the courts in Chile”.
Sydney-based Lawyer Adriana Navarro, who represents families of Chilean victims in Australia, told SBS Spanish that Rivas' guilt or innocence "would be determined in Chile in the process followed by the courts there".
In a statement on Thursday, the families said they were "deeply grateful" for the work completed in this process by the legal team of the Department of the Attorney General of Australia and the Australian courts.
What are the next steps?
As a last resort, Rivas could still take the matter to the High Court of Australia.
However, there is no automatic right to have an appeal heard by the High Court and parties wishing to appeal must persuade the court in a preliminary hearing that there are special reasons for it to be heard.
High Court decisions on appeals are final.
One of the conditions to be able to appeal to the High Court is that the appellant must agree to pay the defendant costs of the process regardless of the outcome.
In the final phase of the process, it will be the Australian Attorney-General, Michaelia Cash, who will issue the final extradition order.
A previous extradition process, the case of Dragan Vasiljković, a former Serbian paramilitary leader who was extradited to Croatia in 2015, took nine years to process after his arrest in Perth.
It is unknown how much Rivas knew about the crimes for which she is accused and to what extent she was involved. If she is extradited, those facts will have to be determined by the Chilean courts.
Rivas denies all the charges against her.
The Rivas Case Timeline
1973 - 1977: Adriana Rivas was working for the National Intelligence Directorate of Chile, DINA. During that period she was secretary to Alejandro Burgos, assistant to Manuel Contreras, second in charge to General Pinochet.
1978: Rivas leaves Chile to start a new life in Australia through a conjugal visa.
2007: Rivas is arrested in Chile during a visit to her family, and is accused of the aggravated kidnapping of Víctor Díaz, Fernando Ortiz, Fernando Navarro, Lincoyán Berrios, Horacio Cepeda, Héctor Veliz and Reinalda Pereira.
2010: She escapes Chile illegally while on parole and returns to Australia to settle in a low-income apartment block in the Bondi neighbourhood.
2013: Rivas grants an interview to SBS Spanish journalist, Florencia Melgar, in which she explains how she escaped from Chile across the border with Argentina, and where she defended the use of torture. Interpol issues an international arrest warrant against Rivas.
2014: The Supreme Court of Justice of Chile requests her extradition.
February 2019: Rivas is arrested in Sydney.
June 2019: Magistrate Margaret Quinn of the local New South Wales Court rejects Rivas' first request to grant her bail.
November 2019: Federal Court Judge Wendy Abraham rejects Rivas' appeal requesting release, and keeps her in behind bars.
April 2020: Rivas files a third request for bail in the local court of New South Wales, claiming health issues and the risk of contracting COVID-19 in prison.
May 2020: Magistrate Robert Williams, of the Local Court of New South Wales, denies bail. This third refusal meant Rivas had to front her extradition hearings while in prison.
June 2020: Rivas' extradition hearing is held at the local New South Wales Court with Judge Philip Stewart.
October 2020: After four months of deliberation, Judge Stewart gives the green light for Rivas to be surrendered to Chile.
December 2020: Rivas appeals to the Federal Court of Australia calling for the annulment of Judge Stewart's ruling and her release.
April 2021: The hearing is held in the Federal Court, in which Rivas presents her case against extradition.
June 2021: After almost two months of deliberations, Judge Wendy Abraham of the Federal Court of New South Wales rejects the appeal by which Rivas tried to avoid her extradition.
July 2021: Rivas presents a second appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court of Australia, hoping to throw out Judge Abraham's ruling.
November 18, 2021: The hearing is held in the Federal Court of Australia in a plenary session, made up of three judges, on Rivas' appeal.
November 24, 2021: After six days of deliberations, the full bench of the Federal Court rejects Rivas' appeal and supports Judge Abraham's ruling to be handed over to the Chilean justice system.
