Rivas’ request also seeks to prevent ministers from taking further steps “directly, or through their agents, officers or delegates, to hand over Ms. Adriana Rivas to the Republic of Chile.”

Dennis Miralis, the attorney leading the case, did not respond to requests for comment.

Rivas had already failed to have his extradition overturned by the Federal Court in 2021. His legal team unsuccessfully argued then, as well as in lower courts, that his prosecution was “political” in nature.

Chilean documents, made public by lower courts, contain disturbing allegations that those arrested by the DINA were interrogated in “dungeons” using electrified metal bunk beds.

The victims were gassed, as part of experiments, and injected with unknown substances before being suffocated and anonymized using a blowtorch on the face and hands.

“Then the bodies were placed in bags, attached with cables to a piece of railroad girder, and then thrown into the ocean by Air Force helicopters,” states a file written by the Chilean authorities.

In May 2022 – three years after his arrest – it appears the final nail has been hammered into his case after the High Court rejected his challenge. Rivas had failed to submit the necessary documents and had effectively “abandoned” his case, the court concluded.

The nanny arrived in Australia in 1978, just a few years after allegedly joining the DINA intelligence service, and lived an obscure life until Chile began prosecuting the dictator’s former agents.

She was arrested while visiting Chile in 2006, but released on bail and reportedly fled to Australia in 2010.

She remained off the radar until 2014, when, in an interview with multicultural channel SBS, she appeared to justify the use of torture to “break people” – particularly “communists”.

“It was necessary, just like the Nazis used it, and like in the United States, everyone does it,” SBS quoted Rivas as saying. “It’s the only way to break people because psychologically there is no method.”

Rivas was allegedly involved in the kidnapping of Fernando Ortiz, Fernando Navarro, Lincoyán Berrios, Horacio Cepeda, Héctor Veliz, Reinalda Pereira and Communist Party Secretary Víctor Díaz.

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