Pablo Rodríguez Grez

Pablo Rodríguez Grez (20 December 1937, Santiago de Chile) is a Chilean lawyer and politician. He became famous during Allende's presidency (1970-73) by fouding the far-right paramilitary organization Fatherland and Liberty ("Patria y Libertad"), involved in sabotage operations and assassinations aimed at overthrowing Salvador Allende. Starting in 2000, he was in charge of the legal team defending Augusto Pinochet.

Biography

Pablo Rodríguez received his lawyer diploma at the University of Chile in 1962.

Following the "Tanquetazo" in June 1973, a failed coup against Allende, Pablo Rodríguez and three others members of Fatherland and Liberty requested protection to the embassy of Ecuador because of their participation in the attempted coup. He lived two months in Quito before clandestinely returning to Chile, from Argentina, a short time before the 11 September 1973 coup.

Following Augusto Pinochet's coup, Rodríguez dissolved Fatherland and Liberty and supported the new regime in judicial matters, although distancing himself from its economic policies. A staunch anti-Communist, Rodríguez was a proponent of corporatism.

He was named professor of civil law at the University of Chile in 1978.

In 1983, following the relative political opening of the minister Sergio Onofre Jarpa, Rodríguez and other former members of Fatherland and Liberty founded the short-lived "Movimiento de Acción Nacional" (MAN).

1990s

He was then a pre-candidate to the presidency between 1988 and 1989, at the beginning of the transition to democracy.

His possible nomination as Dean of the University of Chile in 1997 was blocked by a student mobilization against him, due to his political affiliations. Following this professional setback, Rodríguez, along with others conservative professors, left the University of Chile. He is now dean of the Faculty of Law in the private "Universidad del Desarrollo".

Following Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998 and the initiating of judicial procedures against the former dictator, Rodríguez became in charge of the legal team defending Pinochet, and remained so until his death in 2006.

See also

*Fatherland and Liberty
*Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial