Sergio Diez

Sergio Eduardo Diez Urzúa was a Chilean architect and politician.
He is commonly remembered for having denied that arrested people disappeared during Pinochet dictatorship.

Biography

Early life

His parents were Manuel Diez García – a congressman in 1941 to 1945 – and Yolanda Urzúa Ravanal. He graduated from the San Martín de Curicó Institute, belonging to the Congregation of the Marist Brothers, and then from the Faculty of Law of the Pontifical Catholic University, from which he graduated as a lawyer in 1948.

Political career

In 1948, he was general secretary of the Conservative Party and then a member of its executive board. Between 1950 and 1955 he was a professor of Roman law and civil law.
In 1957 he was a deputy for Talca. In 1961 he was re-elected as a deputy for the 1961-1965 legislative period.
Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly's Third Committee in 1975, he denied the Pinochet regime had any role in human rights violations; in 2004, he admitted he had been deceived by the state. He also served as Chile's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York from 1977 to 1982.
He was part of the Ortúzar Commission that helped draft the 1980 Constitution.