Case File No. 63.534- Qualified homicides of Luis Raúl Cotal Álvarez and Ricardo Gustavo Rioseco Montoya (excerpt)

A.26

. Juan Bautista Abarca Briones, in an extrajudicial statement dated June 28, 2016, appearing on pages 2,577 to 2,578 (Volume VIII), regarding the victims Luis Raúl Cotal Álvarez and Ricardo Gustavo Rioseco Montoya, states that indeed, on a day in October 1973, it was his duty to perform class service, which consisted of transporting squadron personnel where they were needed.

At approximately eleven o'clock at night, an alert of an attack on the barracks was given, for which he gathered all permanent staff and proceeded to wake all conscripts, an order issued by Commander Sotomayor.

After this, it was his duty to form the conscripts in the courtyard, where the emergency personnel remained, and the remaining conscripts were moved to their barracks. On his way back to the guard post, he heard approximately ten gunshots, which caused him to quicken his pace.

Upon arriving, he noticed two Land Rover vehicles entering, driven by Corporal Juan Sánchez and conscript soldier José Aguilera Oñate, in addition to officers Bunster, Carrasco, and Cartoni, observing that blood was running from the rear door of the second vehicle.

Following what was previously stated, he asked the guard corporal, José Ferreira, what had happened, and he replied that they had shot two subjects who had not obeyed the order to halt. Minutes later, the vehicles arrived again and the same drivers proceeded to wash them outside the guard post; he asked them about the dead persons, and they replied that they had been left at the firing range.

The following day, the death of the young men was discussed throughout the regiment, where he learned their names, Cotal and Rioseco, whom he knew. Among the people who participated in the described events, apart from those already mentioned, were Corporal Bitterlich, Balboa, and Sarabia.

Notwithstanding the above, it was commented that the young men had been buried at the regiment's firing range and subsequently buried at the firing range outside the unit next to the river, near the Arcadia bridge.

F.- That subsequently, the entire contingent returned to their previous posts, with Juan Abarca Briones, the non-commissioned officer who was on duty that night, observing the entry into the unit of military vehicles, with several officers on board who were performing active duties at the barracks that night.

Furthermore, said vehicles were driven by two people, one of them the conscript Jorge Washington Aguilera Oñate (deceased, according to page 6,575, Volume XVIII), who worked as a driver in that unit and who, after entering the Regiment, proceeded to wash the vehicles that were bloodstained, asking them about what had happened without receiving an answer. (page 189)

Source: Judiciary