William Robert Beausire (born 1948) (also known Guillermo Roberto Beausire Alonso) was a British stockbroker with dual British and Chilean nationality, abducted while in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974, then taken to a torture centre in Chile and never seen since. He is among the list of people deemed

disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organi ...

under the Pinochet regime.

Biography

William Beausire was a British businessman who had a British father and a Chilean mother, and had dual nationality.Briton William Beausire 'returns' to haunt Pinochet
''BBC News'', 26 October 1998. Accessed online 30 June 2008. He and his sisters grew up in Chile. He was abducted in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Ezeiza airport by plain clothed agents of the Argentine security forces on 2 November 1974, as he was on his way to France. From there he was taken to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

to the offices of DINA, the Chilean secret police, in José Domingo Cañas Street,

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

, where his mother and sister Diana were being interrogated, and subsequently to the

Villa Grimaldi Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA’s (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet regime) many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during ...

torture centre. It is thought Beausire was a target for

DINA Dina ( ar, دينا, he, דִּינָה, also spelled Dinah, Dena, Deena) is a female given name. Women * Dina bint Abdul-Hamid (1929–2019), Queen consort of Jordan, first wife of King Hussein * Princess Dina Mired of Jordan (born 1965), Princ ...

because his sister Mary-Anne did oppose the regime, and was living with Andrés Pascal Allende, a revolutionary and leading member of the

MIR ''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...

, now in the underground opposition to the military regime and nephew of deposed Popular Unity Chilean president

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...

. It is thought Beausire was targeted in an attempt to find out where Mary-Anne and Andres Pascal were. Witnesses say that Beausire was given electric shocks, had sticks forced into his rectum and was hung in the air. On 17 May 1975 he was taken to another DINA centre in Irán Street, Santiago. The last anyone heard of William Beausire was on 2 July of that year, when witnesses reported seeing DINA officers taking him from a building in Irán Street, Santiago. His mother, Ines Beausire, and his sister Diana started a fruitless search for him. In June 1976 the UK Government referred the case to the United Nations. Beausire was 26 years old when he was arrested. In 1981, his case was highlighted when featured in the BBC TV ''Prisoners of Conscience'' series, with Beausire being played by

Richard Griffiths Richard Thomas Griffiths (31 July 1947 – 28 March 2013) was an English actor of film, television, and stage. For his performance in the stage play '' The History Boys'', Griffiths won a Tony Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Drama Desk ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beausire, William 1948 births Chilean people of British descent British people of Chilean descent People killed in Operation Condor English torture victims Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) Possibly living people

Biography

See also

References