A retired officer of the Chilean Army was sentenced this Saturday to 10 years and one day in prison for human rights crimes committed in 1973, which resulted in the murder of a young student in Valdivia during the military dictatorship.

A retired Army officer was sentenced to ten years and one day in prison, having been found guilty of the homicide of a student in Valdivia in 1973. In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence against the former officer Marco Augusto Aguirre Mendiboure.

He is responsible for the consummated homicide of Víctor Carreño Zúñiga, which occurred on October 5, 1973, in the regional capital. Thus, the country's highest court dismissed the claims made by the convicted man's defense.

Specifically, it rejected an appeal that argued that the initial sentence contained legal flaws and errors. This confirmed the ruling of the minister in charge of human rights cases, Álvaro Mesa. The authority established that a patrol composed of Aguirre Mendiboure, officer Héctor Kraemer Pinochet, and five other conscripts arrived at the victim's home and forced him into a pickup truck.

The investigation confirmed that he was taken to the Las Marías airport in Valdivia, where he was forced to exit the vehicle. Following this, the now-convicted man fired several shots that led to his death. In addition to this, the resolution ordered the state to pay a sum of 415 million pesos to the victim's family as compensation for the crime committed by the retired officer.

Source: biobiochile.cl, October 16, 2021

Military personnel sentenced for homicide at "Villa Laminadora" in 1973

Furthermore, the State of Chile was ordered to pay a total compensation of 800 million pesos to the victim's children. The minister in charge of extraordinary human rights violation cases, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, sentenced retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Marco Augusto Aguirre Mendiboure and Heraldo Celedonio Grandón Stuardo, who was a conscript soldier at the time of the events, to 12 years of effective prison time for their responsibility in the consummated crime of simple homicide of a worker at a lumber company.

The crime was perpetrated in October 1973 in Valdivia. In the ruling, the visiting minister sentenced Aguirre Mendiboure and Grandón Stuardo to 12 years of effective prison time, along with the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from professional practice for the duration of the sentences, as authors of the crime of simple homicide of Domingo Pérez San Martín.

In the resolution, Minister Mesa Latorre established the following facts: “A. On October 28, 1973, during the night and while a curfew was in effect, a military patrol with several conscript soldiers, including Heraldo Celedonio Grandón Stuardo, led by Army Captain Marco Aguirre Mendiboure, arrived at the home of Mr.

Domingo Pérez San Martín, 39 years old, a widower since September 28, 1973, and caretaker of the land where houses were to be built for the members of the ‘Laminadora de Maderas’ company union in the city of Valdivia.

B. These military personnel ordered Mr. San Martín to leave his home, and then repeatedly assaulted him using their fists and rifle butts. Immediately afterward, they left without assisting the victim or reporting the incident to the authorities.

C. The severely wounded man entered his house in an agonizing state, where he was received by his children, aged 6, 10, 11, and 13, who managed to take him to the hospital the following day. D. Despite medical assistance, Mr.

Domingo Pérez San Martín passed away a few hours later, at 11:30 a.m. on October 29, 1973, at the John Kennedy Hospital in Valdivia, due to encephalic compression caused by an extra-pleural traumatic hematoma and complicated thoracic trauma, resulting from multiple injuries; the four minors were left orphaned, having lost their mother only a month prior.

E. The aforementioned acts were not carried out in the fulfillment of a duty, a prior legal order, or in self-defense, and therefore lack any justification.” In the civil aspect, the State of Chile was ordered to pay a total compensation of $800,000,000 (eight hundred million pesos) for moral damages to the victim's children.

Source: diariofutrono.cl, October 15, 2020

Retired Army officer sentenced to 10 years in prison for homicide

The Temuco Court of Appeals sentenced retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Marco Augusto Aguirre Mendiboure to 10 years and one day in prison for homicide. The Court designated him as the author of the crime of qualified homicide of Víctor Carreño Zúñiga, committed on October 5, 1973, at the Las Marías airfield in Valdivia.

The ruling states that “it is inherent to the crime of qualified homicide committed against the person of Víctor Carreño Zúñiga, since it could be committed precisely due to the capacity held by the convicted Marco Antonio Aguirre Mendiboure, who on October 5, 1973, the date of the commission of the illicit act, was serving as a Second Lieutenant in the Membrillar Regiment of the city of Valdivia.” Furthermore, the resolution adds that “the patrol that the accused Aguirre Mendiboure was part of participated in the detention, without a judicial order, and the subsequent homicide of the victim, whose death was caused precisely by multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by third parties, with a large-caliber weapon and at close range, as can be inferred from the third consideration of the ruling on appeal, having established the participation of the accused in said homicide.”

Source: radioagricultura.cl, November 21, 2018

Supreme Court confirms conviction of retired Army officer and conscript for homicide in Valdivia in 1973

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court rejected the appeals filed against the sentence that convicted a retired Army officer and a former conscript soldier for their responsibility in the consummated crime of simple homicide of Domingo Pérez San Martín.

The illicit act was perpetrated in October 1973 in the city of Valdivia. The Supreme Court rejected the appeals filed against the sentence that convicted a retired Army officer and a former conscript soldier for their responsibility in the consummated crime of simple homicide of Domingo Pérez San Martín.

The illicit act was perpetrated in October 1973 in the city of Valdivia. In a unanimous ruling (case file 65.463-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and lawyers (i) Diego Munita and Pía Tavolari—ruled out any error in the challenged sentence, issued by the Temuco Court of Appeals, which confirmed the first-instance ruling that sentenced the captain at the time of the events, Marco Augusto Aguirre Mendiboure, and the then-conscript soldier Heraldo Celedonio Grandón Stuardo to 12 years in prison as authors of the crime. “Regarding the substantive appeals of the convicted Grandón Stuardo and Aguirre Mendiboure, as can be inferred from reading the appeals, especially their petitions, these contain subsidiary requests, since, in the first place, they request the acquittal of the appellants due to the lack of sufficient evidence to prove their status as authors of the crime of simple homicide of Domingo Pérez San Martín and, then, in the event that such allegation is dismissed, they request that the imposed sentences be reduced due to the existence of mitigating circumstances,” the ruling maintains. The resolution adds that: “In this regard, it should be noted that the repeated jurisprudence of this Court has declared the invocation of a ground for appeal as a subsidiary measure to be improper, in the event that another is not accepted, since the formal requirements of an appeal in the merits, which is of strict law, are not compatible with the conditional formulation of grounds that could serve as its basis (see Repertory of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Vol. III, p. 187, thirteen rulings in this sense).” “The foregoing is because the requirement that the grounds for appeal must be certain and determined is not satisfied when they are filed as subsidiaries of one another, since in such conditions it would not be the appellant who clearly indicates the law infringed, but rather the Court of Cassation that would have to choose between them which one has been violated. (Repertory, cit., p. 188),” the ruling adds. For the Criminal Chamber: “(…) in view of the reasoning above, it is not possible to admit the legal infringements alleged by the defenses of the convicted Grandón Stuardo and Aguirre Mendiboure and, consequently, their appeals must be rejected in all their parts.” In the base sentence, the minister in charge of extraordinary human rights violation cases of the Temuco Court of Appeals, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, established the following facts: “ A. On October 28, 1973, during the night and while a curfew was in effect, a military patrol with several conscript soldiers, including Heraldo Celedonio Grandón Stuardo, led by Army Captain Marco Aguirre Mendiboure, arrived at the home of Mr. Domingo Pérez San Martín, 39 years old, a widower since September 28, 1973, and caretaker of the land where houses were to be built for the members of the ‘Laminadora de Maderas’ company union in the city of Valdivia. B. These military personnel ordered Mr. San Martín to leave his home, and then repeatedly assaulted him using their fists and rifle butts. Immediately afterward, they left without assisting the victim or reporting the incident to the authorities. C. The severely wounded man entered his house in an agonizing state, where he was received by his children, aged 6, 10, 11, and 13, who managed to take him to the hospital the following day. D. Despite medical assistance, Mr. Domingo Pérez San Martín passed away a few hours later, at 11:30 a.m. on October 29, 1973, at the John Kennedy Hospital in Valdivia, due to encephalic compression caused by an extra-pleural traumatic hematoma and complicated thoracic trauma, resulting from multiple injuries; the four minors were left orphaned, having lost their mother only a month prior. E. The aforementioned acts were not carried out in the fulfillment of a duty, a prior legal order, or in self-defense, and therefore lack any justification. ”

Source: pjud.cl, March 11, 2024