Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi corporal, established the colony in 1961
Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi army corporal who founded a cult-like community in Chile, has died in jail.
Schaefer, who was 88, was serving a 20-year sentence for sexually abusing children at the Colonia Dignidad, some during Chile's military dictatorship.
The former Baptist preacher established the colony in southern Chile in 1961, after fleeing Germany to escape separate child abuse charges.
He had close ties to Chile's elite during Gen Augusto Pinochet's rule.
Schaefer denied allowing Chile's secret police to use the enclave as a centre for torturing left-wing dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.
'State within state'
While under Schaefer's control, most of the commune's residents are believed to have been held there against their will.
Colonia Dignidad was taken over by the Chilean government in 2005
He had fled Chile in 1997 and was convicted of sex crimes in absentia. He was found hiding in Argentina in March 2005 and sent back for a fresh trial.
A Chilean congressional report has said that Colonia Dignidad - which means Dignity Colony - operated as a "state within a state" during the Pinochet regime, thanks to Schaefer's close ties to the country's ruling elite.
Chile's government took over the 13,000-hectare (32,000-acre) colony in 2005.
Former members said Schaefer forced children to live separately from their parents, banning contact with the outside world.
Archive photo of .
 died at 88 from cardiac-respiratory arrest on early Saturday morning in a Chilean prison hospital. Schäfer was the founder and former leader of , an enclave used for torturing and exterminating political prisoners during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Hr was convicted for sexually abusing 26 children for years, and retained thousands of people under his own tyrannical regime, that worked as an aside territory in the country, where people spoke the .

Jorge Zepeda, magistrate who investigated the crimes made in Colonia Dignidad, reported that Schäfer was unconscious when he died. He was to stay in prison for 33 years. Hernán Fernández, one of the lawyers against Colonia Dignidad, said that Schäfer's death should help to accelerate the judiciary processes. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said, "Paul Schäfer will be judged by the divine justice."

Schäfer was born in 1921, in , Germany. He was a non-commissioned  officer, who moved to Chile after the , evading accusations of sexual abuse of minors. He established an organization in a rural area of Chile, in favour of the poor people, located 400 kilometers south of Santiago, to the border of Argentina. He named this place Villa Babiera.

He began his rule of this area in 1961; he established a private tyrannical regime, where almost 300 Germans worked for decades without pay. Men and women were segregated, and people who tried to escape were killed. Adults and children considered it an "honour" for Schäfer to chose to have sex with them.

When Pinochet's regime ended, Schäfer escaped from Chile in 1996 to avoid being imprisoned, after he came under investigation for human rights violations and abuse to minors. He was detained in Argentina, and then extradited back to Chile in 2005. Since then he was imprisoned. Colonia Dignidad still exists, though without the power they had before, less secluded and with new leaders.