Share: The Middlebury Institute community mourns the loss of Honorary Degree recipient and friend of the Institute, Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia who died on January 22, 2021 at the age of 81. (Credit: By Institute for Policy Studies - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99175788 ) The Middlebury Institute community mourns the loss of Honorary Degree recipient and friend of the Institute, Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, who first prosecuted former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for killings and human rights offenses.
Judge Guzmán died on January 22 at the age of 81. His courageous efforts to uncover the true extent of crimes committed by the Pinochet regime and to pursue justice in the face of great odds was recounted in the award-winning documentary, “The Judge and the General,” as was his own personal reckoning with previous support for the regime.