VILLA BAVIERA (Reuters) -Chile plans to expropriate a settlement founded by a German cult leader where torture took place during former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s military regime as the government takes another step to shine a light on a dark period of the past.

The enclave, originally called Colonia Dignidad and renamed Villa Baviera, was founded in 1961 by Paul Schafer, a former Nazi medic turned evangelical preacher who kept the isolated community under tight control and was later jailed for sexually abusing children.

During Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorship, Colonia Dignidad also bore witness to another kind of abuse: the torture of political prisoners by military forces in a secret prison at the site.

Schafer collaborated with Pinochet’s secret police and in exchange was shielded

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