The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases at the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, sentenced six retired military personnel for their responsibility in the repeated crime of qualified homicide against Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán.

These crimes were perpetrated in September 1973 at an underpass. According to a statement from the Judiciary, Minister Carroza sentenced Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz to 15 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the homicides of the victims, who were detained at various points in the current commune of Cerrillos and transported to the Feria Internacional de Santiago (FISA) facility, where personnel from the 18th Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja were stationed.

They were subsequently executed at the underpass located at Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla. Meanwhile, Luis Rodrigo Albornoz Costa must serve 7 years in prison for his responsibility as a perpetrator of the crimes; Sergio Eduardo Padilla Abarca and René Palominos Zúñiga were sentenced to 4 years in prison, with the benefit of intensive supervised release for the same period, as accomplices; and Eugenio Segundo Díaz Parada and Manuel Jesús Zúñiga Jofré were sentenced to 800 days in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, for their responsibility as accomplices. In the case of Prüssing Schwartz, the visiting minister suspended the execution of the corporal punishment imposed due to the mental incapacity affecting the convicted man, and he was released under bail for custody and treatment by his family. In this case, the court decreed the acquittal of defendants Rubén Santiago Pinilla Riquelme and Joaquín Arnoldo Penroz de la Barra, as their participation in the events was not proven. Regarding civil matters, the State and the convicted individuals were ordered to pay a total compensation of $240 million to the victims' families. The resolution established the following facts: "Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Patricio Millanao Caniuhuán were transported to the facilities of the Feria Internacional de Santiago (FISA), where part of the 18th Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja was stationed under the command of a lieutenant colonel. While all were in that facility, during the night of September 24, 1973, they were ordered to board a truck and were subsequently transported to the 'Lo Valledor' bridge, located at Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla, where an Army officer, accompanied by military personnel under his command, ordered them to descend into the underpass and ordered his subordinates to shoot them with their firearms. Upon being activated, these weapons caused them serious injuries and resulted in the loss of their lives at that very spot, while they were in a state of absolute defenselessness. Their bodies were abandoned at the site under military guard, awaiting the moment when another military patrol would remove them and take them to the Legal Medical Service."

Source: enestrado.com, August 25, 2020

Santiago Court increases sentences for former Army members for the crimes against three workers at the Lo Valledor bridge in 1973

The Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced five former members of the Army for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of qualified homicide against workers Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán, perpetrated between September 24 and 25, 1973, in the area of the Lo Valledor bridge in the current commune of Cerrillos.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 6.638-2020), the Ninth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza, Minister Paula Rodríguez Fondón, and acting lawyer Patricio Carvajal Ramírez—confirmed the first-instance sentence with the declaration that the sentence to be served by former Army officer Luis Rodrigo Albornoz Costa, as the perpetrator of the repeated crimes of qualified homicide, is increased to 15 years and one day in prison.

Meanwhile, former conscripted soldiers Sergio Eduardo Padilla Abarca and René Palominos Zúñiga must serve 10 years and one day of imprisonment, and Manuel Jesús Zúñiga Jofré and Eugenio Segundo Díaz Parada must serve 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the crimes.

Former Army General Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz, who was sentenced to 15 years and one day in the first-instance ruling, was acquitted due to "mental incapacity." In the first-instance sentence, issued in April 2020 by Minister Mario Carroza, former officer Albornoz Costa had been sentenced to 7 years in prison; Padilla Abarca and Palominos Zúñiga to four years in prison; and Zúñiga Jofré and Díaz Parada to 800-day prison terms.

Executions The murdered workers had been previously detained by military personnel and transported to the Feria Internacional de Santiago (FISA) facility, where troops belonging to the 18th Mountain Infantry Regiment Guardia Vieja, arriving from Los Andes, had established their base.

This military contingent was under the command of the then-Colonel Luis Prüssing Schwartz. The victim Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, 27 years old, married, a chemical engineer, a member of the Communist Party, and a former comptroller of the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas, was detained by the military on September 24, 1973, around 8:00 PM, while at his home located at Calle Alejandro Flores N° 6383, Villa Cerrillos, in the commune of Maipú.

Among those who apprehended him was an officer from the aforementioned Guardia Vieja Regiment, who indicated that the detainee would be taken to the military facilities installed at the FISA. A detention center for political prisoners existed at that location.

Furthermore, Servando Antonio González Maureira, 28 years old, President of the Workers' Union of the company Rayón Said Industriales Químicos S.A. and a sympathizer of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 24, 1973, during a raid carried out by the same military personnel who detained Nicholls Rivera.

Finally, Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán, 24 years old, an operator at the Yarur Chemical Plant and a member of the Communist Youth, was detained by the same military personnel on the night of September 23, 1973, during a raid on the plant located in the Cerrillos sector.

On the night of September 24, 1973, the three detained workers were loaded onto a military truck by the uniformed men. Immediately thereafter, they were transported to the 'Lo Valledor' Bridge, located at Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla, where they were made to descend and were led to the underpass.

The officer in charge of the execution operation ordered his subordinates to "shoot the detainees with their firearms, causing their immediate death." The victims' bodies were abandoned at the same location, awaiting another military patrol to remove them and take them to the Legal Medical Service.

On the morning of September 25, relatives of Servando González Maureira, who were searching for their detained family member, saw the lifeless body of Servando along with the other two murdered workers while passing by the Lo Valledor bridge.

The bodies were under military guard, awaiting the arrival of the Legal Medical Service (SML). The decision of the Ninth Chamber of the Court of Appeals to increase the sentences is based on the rejection of the mitigating factors of "due obedience" and "substantial collaboration in clarifying the facts," which had been taken into consideration by Minister Carroza in his ruling.

In this regard, the Court's resolution states: "That, unlike the reasoning of the Investigating Minister, the mitigating factor of Article 211 of the Code of Military Justice cannot be accepted. Indeed, for due obedience to be established, it requires: a) that it be an order from a superior; b) that the order be related to Service; and c) if the order notoriously tends toward the perpetration of a crime, this must be represented by the subordinate, and in such an event, the superior must insist." The resolution adds: "From the above, it follows that whoever invokes the exemption must have acted in an 'act of service,' that is to say, those that refer to or have a relationship with the function that corresponds to each uniformed officer by virtue of belonging to the Armed Institutions. Consequently, these do not refer to the apprehension of supporters or social leaders affiliated with the deposed regime, much less murdering them or causing them to disappear, which is why the accused could not have acted in an act of service proper to their status as military personnel." For the appellate court: "Moreover, such a modification must be rejected, since it is not possible to accept that a subordinate simply admits to carrying out a superior's order when that order consists of committing a crime, especially one of the magnitude of those in this case; to ignore this circumstance would imply that the perpetrator acts with full awareness of the unlawful nature of their actions, which leads to an evident contradiction." "On the other hand," it continues, "in the event that the subordinate considers the superior's order illegal, they have the right not to comply with it, in accordance with Article 335 of the Code of Military Justice, unless the order is insisted upon, and only from that moment can their refusal be considered protected by the legal system, thus validating their conduct as an exemption or mitigating factor, as appropriate. None of this was proven in this regard, so the mitigating factor invoked by these defenses cannot be accepted."

Source: resumen.cl, July 4, 2022