German Nazi sect member held in Italy during holiday

A German citizen has been taken into custody in Italy pending an extradition hearing to decide if he should be extradited to Chile for crimes he allegedly committed as a member of the notorious Colonia Dignidad sect.

Colonia Dignidad was founded in the early 1960s by German child abuser Paul Schaefer, who ran an orphanage and children's home in Germany before setting up a militant proto-Nazi cult in the foothills of the Chilean Andes.

Schaefer forced members of the cult to work without pay for decades, split up families and regularly tortured and sexually abused children in the sect. However, due to his good relationship with Chile's military dictator Augusto Pinochet, who even visited the sect in person, Colonia Dignidad's crimes were ignored until Pinochet was forced from power in 1990. Schaefer was sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2006, and died in prison in 2010.

The arrest made in the Italian town of Forte dei Marmi last week concerns an associate of Schaefer who has long been sought by Chile, and for whom it has issued an international arrest warrant.

On Thursday, an appeal court in Florence denied a bail request, deeming the suspect a flight risk, according to reports.

The suspect's lawyers, the public prosecutor's office and the appeal court could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

The suspect is reportedly 75 years old, has been living in Germany for many years now and was visiting Tuscany on holiday with his wife. His lawyer told the ANSA news agency that the suspect had been unaware of the warrant, and that, had he known, he would not have travelled abroad.

The court must now rule on whether to extradite the suspect to Chile, where he was sentenced in absentia for depriving people of their liberty in 2005.

The man fled Chile after an investigation was launched into the disappearance of three people connected to Colonia Dignidad, according to Chilean media reports.