General in Solitary as Chile Debates Imprisoning Pinochet’s Henchmen : South America: Brig. Gen. Pedro Espinoza is the first military man incarcerated for torturing or killing civilians at behest of ex-dictator. He is the only inmate in a new $2.7-million prison that costs $21,000 a month.

Brig. Gen. Pedro Espinoza is Chile’s most expensive prisoner.

The first military man jailed for torturing or killing civilians under Gen. Augusto Pinochet is the only inmate in a new prison built to hold the former dictator’s henchmen.

The prison, part of Chile’s painful struggle to mete out justice to its former oppressors, has inflamed the smoldering tensions between soldiers and a deeply scarred civilian society.

Pinochet gave up power in 1990 but remained head of the army. He asked for the new prison, apparently to spare his men the humiliation of being jailed with common criminals.

But even before construction began among the fields and trees of this rural area about 25 miles north of Santiago, the prison was under attack by both ends of the political spectrum.

Anti-Pinochet politicians didn’t want special treatment for soldiers. A minister resigned from President Eduardo Frei’s Cabinet in protest, but later agreed to return.

Military officers complained too. They don’t want their comrades in arms punished at all. About 300 officers jolted Frei’s government earlier this summer by staging a rally outside the prison in support of Espinoza.

The $2.7-million building has 9-foot-high walls, TV surveillance, weapon- and bomb-detectors, a staff of 61 and room for 100 inmates. Keeping the prison running just to hold Espinoza costs $21,000 a month, compared with less than $800 for inmates in Chile’s other, more populous, prisons.

Espinoza, chief of operations in Pinochet’s secret police, arrived June 20 to begin serving a six-year sentence for the 1976 murder of dissident Orlando Letelier. He and his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt, were killed when his car exploded on a Washington street.

About 3,000 people were killed for political reasons after Pinochet overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973. Letelier, a former ambassador to Washington, was among more than 1 million Chileans driven into exile.

Espinoza’s boss, retired Gen. Manuel Contreras, also was convicted in the Letelier assassination and was sentenced to seven years, but has avoided prison because of poor health.

Another 17 military men and one civilian convicted of murder and other crimes committed during Pinochet’s regime are being held at military bases and police stations while courts consider their appeals.

A furor erupted in January when Frei revealed plans to build the Punta de Peuco prison. Critics complained that it would provide five-star living for murderers.

Frei quieted the complaints by agreeing to use the facility for “any convict whose public notoriety would make it dangerous for him to be jailed with common criminals.”

The government hasn’t said what other convicts might be sent to the prison.

Espinoza is allowed visitors three times a week, and has provided a list of 22 people who can see him, including family, friends and his lawyer, according to Claudio Martinez, Chile’s director of corrections.

Friends and his lawyer say Espinoza rises at 7 a.m. and spends his time reading, writing his memoirs and watching TV in his 10-by-10-foot cell.

“It may sound odd, but it’s a rather pleasant place. It’s nice to be inside,” said Rodrigo Eitel, a young, right-wing politician who often visits Espinoza. “The windows were made in a way that you don’t see any bars.”

But Punta de Peuco is still a prison, and army officers have made plain their anger that Espinoza is behind bars, whether they’re visible or not.

At the July 21 rally, officers in civilian clothes gathered outside the prison, waved Chilean flags and sang the national anthem.

“No prison has enough dignity for an officer of the Chilean army,” said one demonstrator, who wouldn’t give his name but said he was a colonel.

Frei publicly expressed unease about the military show of solidarity with a convicted criminal. His defense minister complained to Pinochet, and newspapers say the general told his men not to do it again.

“If it happens again, we certainly would be in trouble,” Frei said.

The prison’s neighbors don’t like it, either.

“The area where the prison was built was targeted for residential development,” said Pedro Pizarro, municipal secretary of Til Til, the county where Punta de Peuco is located. “Now no one wants to live near a prison or buy land there.”

“The prison brought a bad reputation to Til Til,” he said. “Everybody talks about the prison, and no one pays attention to our efforts to attract new industries to create jobs.”

But some see it differently.

A woman who identified herself as Mrs. Catalina is making some extra pesos by selling bread to reporters. And peasants who live nearby said they heard the government plans to pave their dusty road.