, in September 1973. He further declared, among other relevant facts, that Jaime Araya Palominos was murdered in the riding arena (picadero) of that regiment, supposedly by a precise shot from an unidentified conscript soldier—a ruse generally concocted by murderers of the same ilk to evade criminal responsibility.

He also revealed that "Capulo" was illegally buried in the Los Ángeles cemetery, as he had personally inquired at the hospital in that city regarding his autopsy and was told that it had not been performed, a fact that fully concurs with the statement made by Magali Tunineti in this same case a few days ago.

Confronted in these judicial proceedings with Osvaldo Rojas, a former political prisoner in that same military unit, he denied knowing him, despite Rojas reminding him that he had saved his life when, while being led to the riding arena to be executed by firing squad alongside his comrade Luis Ángel Cornejo Fernández , Abarzúa Cáceres had pulled him aside at the very entrance of the riding arena.

Cornejo remains forcibly disappeared to this day. The case regarding the kidnapping and homicide of Jaime Araya Palominos and Oscar Wenten , two dear militants of the MIR from Los Ángeles and Santa Bárbara respectively, has made it possible to uncover the network of murderers and torturers who, within the current Regimiento Reforzado de Infantería Nº 17 de Los Ángeles , sowed terror in that city and its surroundings, in a close symbiosis of rebellious military personnel and militants of Patria y Libertad.

The search for truth vindicates the memory of our forgotten militants, after three decades. Fraternal greetings, Nelson González Bustos former militant and former political prisoner of the MIR

Source: Email to Memoriaviva, February 19, 2007

The subject apprehended had an arrest warrant issued in 2003 by Joaquín Billard, judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals. The Investigative Police (Policía de Investigaciones) arrested Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres in Los Ángeles, a former member of Patria y Libertad who was wanted for the disappearance of Juan Heredia, a supporter of the Unidad Popular (UP) in the city of the Eighth Region.

Heredia was detained by Carabineros officers on September 16, 1973, and has been missing since that date. Civil police inspector Ricardo Iturra stated that Abarzúa had an outstanding arrest warrant for two years, accused of the crime of kidnapping. "He was arrested for the crime of kidnapping, an order from Minister Joaquín Billard Acuña of the Court of Appeals.

He had an arrest warrant since 2003," said Iturra. Abarzúa Cáceres will be placed at the disposal of the courts, as indicated by Inspector Iturra. Patria y Libertad was a paramilitary group founded on April 1, 1971, with the objective of fighting against the postulates of the UP and socialism, which considered the coup d'état as one of the solutions to the political crisis being experienced at the time.

Source: radiocooperativa.cl, October 8, 2005

Former Patria y Libertad member sentenced for crime against student leader

FIVE YEARS AND ONE DAY IN PRISON

Former Patria y Libertad member sentenced for crime against student leader The resolution was announced by the special judge for Human Rights cases, Carlos Aldana, who is investigating the accused's participation in other cases related to crimes against humanity committed during the Military Government.

Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres, better known as "El Pato Abarzúa," will spend five years and one day in prison after the Special Minister for Human Rights cases, Carlos Aldana, notified him of his punishment for the crimes of kidnapping and disappearance of Juan de Dios Sepúlveda González ("Calula"), committed during the Military Regime.

The sentenced man, a former member of the Patria y Libertad group, is also being prosecuted, in addition to the crimes against the student leader and militant of the Socialist Youth of Los Ángeles, for other cases related to human rights violations perpetrated after the democratic breakdown of 1973.

Mauricio Aedo, of the Bío Bío branch of the Agrupación Memoria Viva, said that during the Unidad Popular government, "Pato Abarzúa" infiltrated the ranks of the secondary student movement after enrolling as an evening student and established himself as a prominent student activist, even becoming a leader of the Student Councils.

To the surprise of many classmates, on September 11, 1973, he appeared leading a group of civilians from Patria y Libertad and detained left-wing militants. Later, according to the testimony of countless witnesses, he participated as an interrogator and torturer inside the Los Ángeles Regiment.

There, according to the statements, he was "working in a suit and tie, with a short submachine gun hanging from his shoulder and with command over the conscripts and troops of that military unit, despite being a civilian." In any case, it was not the cruel interrogations and torture to which he allegedly subjected countless political prisoners that led to his arrest.

Until 2003, Abarzúa Cáceres "appeared as a respectable and prosperous merchant, but on that date, his activity as a drug trafficker was discovered, which forced him to go underground to evade the action of justice. He lived for two years in absolute clandestinity, moving between the farms surrounding the provincial capital, until the police managed to capture him on October 8, 2005," recalls Aedo.

ALLEGED RESPONSIBILITY

His criminal record includes charges for other crimes related to human rights violations. Among the most representative is the case for the kidnapping and disappearance of Juan Heredia Olivares, a militant of the Communist Youth.

This case is being handled by Minister Joaquín Billard, Judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals. On February 19, Abarzúa testified before the same minister, Carlos Aldana, on which occasion he admitted to having participated in the kidnapping of Jaime Araya Palominos ("Capulo"), a university leader at the University of Concepción, Los Ángeles branch, and also a leader of the MIR in September 1973.

The accused confessed that Jaime Araya Palominos was murdered in the riding arena of the Los Ángeles regiment, the facility to which he had been taken after being captured. Confronted in these judicial proceedings with Osvaldo Rojas, a former political prisoner in that same military unit, "he denied knowing him, despite Rojas reminding him that he himself had saved him from death when he was being led to the riding arena to be executed by firing squad alongside his comrade Luis Ángel Ariel Cornejo Fernández.

According to Rojas's words, Abarzúa Cáceres pulled him aside at the entrance to the riding arena where they executed Cornejo Fernández, an Accounting student and president of the Student Federation of the University of Concepción, who was a militant in the Communist Youth and whose body remains forcibly disappeared to this day," emphasizes Aedo.

According to what was expressed by the spokesperson for Memoria Viva in Bío Bío, "the case for the kidnapping and homicide of Jaime Araya Palominos and Oscar Wenten, two young and beloved militants of the MIR, from Los Ángeles and Santa Bárbara, respectively, has made it possible to uncover the network of murderers and torturers who, within the current Regimiento Reforzado de Infantería Nº 17 de Los Ángeles, sowed terror in that city and its surroundings, in a close symbiosis of rebellious military personnel and militants of Patria y Libertad." According to information gathered by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation and the organization Memoria Viva, Regiment Nº 17 was the main detention center for opponents of the Military Regime in the area. The Rettig Report notes the background: "Between September 12 and October 5, 1973, twelve detainees who were being held disappeared."

Source: diariolatribuna.cl, July 26, 2007

Concepción Court confirms ruling for qualified kidnapping of university student in 1973.

The appellate court confirmed the sentence that condemned retired Army General Patricio Martínez Moena and merchant Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres to 5 years and one day in prison, as co-perpetrators of the crime.

In a split decision, the Concepción Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that condemned a retired Army general and a civilian for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Luis Ángel Ariel Cornejo Fernández, an illicit act perpetrated in Los Ángeles in September 1973.

Thus, the appellate court confirmed the sentence that condemned retired Army General Patricio Martínez Moena and merchant Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres to effective sentences of 5 years and one day in prison, as co-perpetrators of the crime.

Furthermore, the method of serving the sentence imposed on the former military officer by visiting minister Carlos Aldana was ratified; he ordered, in accordance with the provisions of Article 164 of the Organic Code of Courts, the unification of the sanction with the 20-year prison sentence he is serving for his responsibility in the so-called "Endesa Episode" for 14 qualified kidnappings and 7 qualified homicides.

In the civil aspect, the appellate court rejected the claim for compensation for moral damages filed by the victim's relatives. During the investigation stage, Minister Aldana managed to establish that around 4:30 PM on September 18, 1973, a patrol composed of military and police officers detained several people at 170 Saavedra Street, Los Ángeles, among whom was Luis Ángel Ariel Cornejo Fernández, a communist militant, without a legal, administrative, or judicial warrant.

The victim was taken to the Los Ángeles Police Station and, subsequently, to the Reinforced Regiment of that city, remaining at the disposal of the military intelligence unit and subjected to illegal coercion.

In the first days of October 1973, inside the regiment, Cornejo Fernández was taken out of the tent where he was with detainee Osvaldo Gustavo Rojas Ortiz and taken to the sector called the Picadero, a place intended for interrogation under torture of political detainees, where a civilian attached to the aforementioned intelligence service moved detainees Rojas and Cornejo, assigning the former to the horse stables (or naves) sector while Cornejo Fernández entered the Picadero, with all traces of him being lost from that moment on, with no news of his whereabouts or certain destination to this day. The decision, in the civil aspect, was adopted with the dissenting vote of Minister Matilde Esquerré, who states that in the scenario in which the crime was proven, with the intervention of State agents protected by a cloak of impunity forged with state resources, it brings with it not only the impossibility of declaring the statute of limitations on the criminal action arising from them but also the unfeasibility of proclaiming the extinction—due to the passage of time—of the eventual exercise of civil indemnity actions derived from the crimes that have been proven.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl; March 21, 2018

Supreme Court rules out res judicata and condemns retired military officer as an accomplice to qualified kidnapping in Los Ángeles

In the sentence (docket 82.310-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and acting lawyer Diego Munita—condemned Walter Klug Rivera to 3 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as an accomplice to the illicit act.

The Supreme Court rejected a cassation appeal against the sentence that condemned a retired Army officer for his responsibility as an accomplice to the qualified kidnapping of Luis Cornejo Fernández, an illicit act committed starting on September 18, 1973, in the city of Los Ángeles.

In the sentence (docket 82.310-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and acting lawyer Diego Munita—condemned Walter Klug Rivera to 3 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as an accomplice to the illicit act.

In the ruling, the highest court rules out a violation of res judicata by condemning other military personnel as authors of the illicit act. "That, for its part, the ruling issued on December 27, 2016, condemned Patricio Gustavo Martínez Morena and Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres as authors of the same crime, so that, although it is the same illicit act, it does not refer to the same active subjects nor the same type of participation," the ruling states.

It adds: "That, as can be seen, from the sentence that motivates the res judicata argued in this case, it is not possible to conclude the double identity required by such an institution, because while agreeing that the facts are the same, the defendants are different, just as they are attributed different responsibility, so the accused had not been judged." Furthermore, it is considered: "That, there is no discussion regarding the fact that the State can react only once for an illicit act with the object of applying a criminal sanction to those responsible, which implies for the accused the guarantee that they cannot be subjected to double judgment for the same events, a situation that in this case is not evidenced, because there is only one pronouncement regarding the responsibility of two different people, Martínez Morena and Abarzúa Cáceres, regarding the qualified kidnapping of Luis Ángel Ariel Cornejo Fernández." "That, consequently, as the double identity that the criminal process requires for there to be res judicata is not configured, the first cause argued in the cassation appeal in the form deduced will be dismissed," the ruling asserts. The highest court also ruled out the lack of participation of the condemned man in the crime. "That, the cassation remedy deduced in favor of Klug Rivera is based, in the first place, on the cause of article 546 N° 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, invoking as regulatory norms of the evidence infringed articles 456 bis, 485, and 488 N°s 1 and 4 of the same code, because, in summary, what makes the attribution of responsibility as an accomplice possible is the establishment of two facts: first, that the accused is located in the sector of the tents belonging to the SIM, before and after the interrogations, and that he transported the detainees to those interrogations, which are not proven, so it was not based on real and proven facts. As exposed in the second and third motives of the appealed sentence, in relation to the thirteenth consideration of the ruling of the a quo, preserved on appeal, the sentencer collects as elements that serve as a basis for the presumptions the statements of the accused himself as well as various statements of witnesses who point out, giving reasons for their statements, that Klug Rivera was the head of the detention camp, was in charge of their custody, and his functions were assimilated to those of a prison warden, with the victim Cornejo Fernández being detained in that center and disappearing from said facility. Such elements were considered by the sentence as indications or presumptions, as authorized by article 464 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which fulfill the only extremes of N°s 1 and 2 of article 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that can be reviewed by this Court as regulatory norms of the evidence, according to its uniform and stable jurisprudence, since they are multiple and are based on real and proven facts based on the statements of witnesses and the accused himself. If those presumptions built on those testimonies fulfill being direct, so that they lead logically and naturally to the fact that is deduced from them, as demanded by N° 4 of the aforementioned article 488 to allow concluding that Klug Rivera participated as an accomplice to the kidnapping of the victim in the case, these correspond to questions that this Court cannot answer, since, as has been repeatedly explained, this is reserved solely for the well-founded and reasoned assessment and weighing of the judges of the instances." In the investigation, the visiting minister of the Court of Appeals of Concepción, Carlos Aldana, established: "That, around 4:30 PM on September 18, 1973, a patrol composed of military and Carabineros detained Luis Ángel Ariel Cornejo Fernández, a communist militant, along with other people, at 170 Saavedra Street, Los Ángeles, without a legal, administrative, or judicial warrant, being taken to the Carabineros Police Station of Los Ángeles in charge of Commissioner Aroldo Guillermo Solari Sanhueza and then to the Reinforced Regiment of the same city, where he remained detained and held in the rooms conditioned for that purpose, in the facilities intended for the horse stables of the Regiment, at the disposal of the Intelligence Service of that Military Unit, where he was interrogated under illegal coercion, without being subjected to any trial. In the first days of October 1973, inside the Regiment, he was taken out of the tent where he was with detainee Osvaldo Gustavo Rojas Ortiz and taken to the sector called 'the picadero,' a place where a civilian attached to the aforementioned Intelligence Service, who transported the detainees to the place, ordered that Rojas Ortiz be taken to the Cavalry sector, while Cornejo Fernández was entered into the picadero, with all traces of him being lost from then on, with no news of his whereabouts or destination."

Source: Judiciary, April 17, 2023