Despite the secrecy surrounding the main individuals accused in the disappearance of the former CCU comptroller, Jaime Aldoney, the pieces are slowly beginning to fit together, providing the first names of former Navy personnel who inflicted the torture that ended the detainee's life in 1973.

From the United States, special investigating judge Gabriela Corti received information from an eyewitness to the torments suffered by Aldoney, and will soon provide further data to the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police.

The testimony indicates that on September 13, 1973, the former comptroller—who had been at El Belloto for one day—was violently beaten by former Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar, alias "el colorín" (the redhead).

After this day of aggression, the trail of the detainee, brother of the former intendant of the V Region, was lost forever. The significance of this statement could even mean that Judge Corti, or members of her court, will travel to the U.S. to obtain all the information held by the witness from the primary source.

Source: Primera Linea, Monday, December 10, 2011

Five former Navy officers to be prosecuted

In a matter of days, or perhaps only hours, special investigating judge Gabriela Corti is expected to decree the prosecution of four former Navy officers as responsible for the "aggravated kidnapping" of the former CCU comptroller, Limache councilman, civil engineer, and journalist Jaime Aldoney Vargas, brother of the former intendant of Valparaíso, Gabriel Aldoney.

The indictments were requested on October 25 by lawyer and parliamentarian Juan Bustos, one of the plaintiffs in this case, and are based on a large amount of evidence that establishes full conviction of responsibility for the kidnapping on the part of the now-retired Navy officers Ernesto Huber von Hapen, Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Manuel Bush López, and Pedro Pablo Arancibia.

In his request, lawyer Bustos asks to prosecute the five retired officers for violation of Article 274 of the Penal Code; that is, for the aggravated kidnapping of Jaime Aldoney, an event recorded on September 12, 1973, in Limache and El Belloto, in the commune of Quilpué.

Aldoney was detained by the Carabineros of Limache at the CCU plant on September 12, 1973, the day after the military coup. He was tortured at the local police station and then sent to the El Belloto Naval Air Base, where he was also subjected to torment by Navy personnel who have been fully identified.

At the naval facility, he was seen by numerous detained witnesses and Navy personnel who have testified to having seen him severely injured, in a practically moribund state. Witnesses and sources close to the case have maintained to this news site that on September 14, 1973, Aldoney was not only in grave condition due to the effects of the torture, but also suffering from pneumonitis, the result of his long exposure to the elements without shelter.

Under such circumstances, and with a medical report declaring him terminal, he was loaded onto a small plane (some claim it was a helicopter) while he was still alive. He would have ceased to exist during the journey from Quilpué to the coast, off the coast of Concón, where he would have been thrown into the sea.

Source: Piensachile.com, November 22, 2002

Five retired Navy officers prosecuted for emblematic case in the Fifth Region

After a year of investigation, special investigating judge Gabriela Corti yesterday prosecuted five retired Navy officers and one civilian as alleged perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of engineer Jaime Aldoney (PS), who has been forcibly disappeared since September 12, 1973.

The case is emblematic for human rights groups in the Fifth Region, as it is one of the few crimes in which Navy personnel are linked to its execution. It also impacts the Navy because, unlike the Army and the Air Force, it had only a couple of retired officers prosecuted for human rights violations, related to actions of the Joint Command.

Those charged yesterday are retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen, retired Lieutenants Sergio Iván Mendoza Rojas, Patricio Maximiliano Villalobos Lobos, Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar, and Jaime Ondargarín Romero, and former Corporal Manuel Bush López, a current official of the Quilpué Municipality.

The former uniformed officers were transported yesterday under the custody of Navy officials and in a vehicle belonging to that institution to the Limache Criminal Court, where they were notified by the magistrate of the indictment.

The deputies and plaintiff lawyers, Laura Soto (PPD) and Juan Bustos (PS), and the victim's brother Gabriel Aldoney, director of the Valparaíso Port Company, also attended the site, criticizing the Navy for providing "institutional support" to the accused and calling on it to collaborate in the case. "We ask that it be the Navy that, in a real gesture toward the country, recognizes the truth and finally tells the family where Jaime Aldoney's remains are," stated Laura Soto.

The military branch did not wish to comment on the matter yesterday. However, the commander-in-chief, Miguel Angel Vergara—who is in Korea—noted last September regarding the eventual prosecution of the officers that "if it is concluded that they must be convicted, we regret it, but justice must be served." Support from Senator Arancibia The former commander-in-chief of the Navy, UDI Senator Jorge Arancibia, stated yesterday that the retired officers "as long as they are not found guilty, will have my sympathy, my backing, and my support if necessary." The parliamentarian noted that Rear Admiral Huber "is a friend of mine; I feel a double sentiment seeing a person of that stature in that situation; I trust that justice will manage to clear up the doubts." Arancibia added that when he was in the Navy, he did everything possible to find more information about Aldoney, but without success. Jaime Aldoney was a journalism student and CCU comptroller when he was detained by Carabineros in 1973. According to testimonies from the time, from the Limache police station he was taken by Navy personnel to the El Belloto naval air base—which was under Huber's command—where he was tortured and his trail was lost. Witnesses claim to have seen his corpse on September 26 at the morgue of the Hospital Deforme in Valparaíso. In search of his remains, Judge Corti carried out fruitless excavations in Colliguay last year.

Source: La Tercera, June 12, 2003

Freedom granted to four prosecuted in Aldoney case

The First Chamber of the Court of Appeals, in a unanimous ruling, granted provisional release to four of the six people prosecuted for the disappearance of the former CCU comptroller in the Fifth Region, Jaime Aldoney Vargas.

Those benefiting from the judicial resolution are retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen; retired Navy Captains Sergio Mendoza and Patricio Villalobos; and retired Petty Officer Manuel Buch López.

Meanwhile, civilian Jaime Undargarín and retired Navy Captain Pedro Pablo Arancibia Soler remain in detention. Jaime Aldoney, a socialist militant and civil engineer, was detained on September 12, 1973, in Limache and transferred to the El Belloto naval air base by Navy personnel. There he was subjected to torture and his trail was lost.

Source: El Mostrador, August 25, 2003

Courts reduce sentences in Jaime Aldoney and Father Alsina cases

Lawyer and deputy (PS) Juan Bustos announced that he will appeal the ruling of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals in the case of Jaime Aldoney, whose body was thrown into the sea in 1973, after visiting judge Julio Miranda sentenced four retired Navy officers to four years of supervised release, gave suspended sentences to two others involved, and acquitted two other individuals.

Bustos described the sentences as insufficient: "they must be for major imprisonment, as this is a very serious crime." Among those sentenced are Sergio Iván Mendoza Rojas, Patricio Maximiliano Villalobos Lobos, Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar, and Jaime Urdangarín Romero, as well as retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Hubert von Appen and Petty Officer Manuel Bush López, who received sentences ranging from 72 days to four years of imprisonment, which they will be able to serve in a suspended manner.

Jaime Aldoney was a journalism student, civil engineer, Limache councilman, and comptroller of the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas (CCU) when he was detained by Carabineros in 1973. According to testimonies from the time, from the Limache police station he was taken by Navy personnel to the El Belloto naval air base—which was under Huber's command—where he was tortured and his trail was lost.

Partial prescription in Alsina case The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction against Donato López Almarza for the homicide of the Spanish priest Joan Alsina Hurtos, which occurred on September 16, 1973, at the Puente Bulnes in Santiago.

In a split decision, magistrates Alberto Chaigneau, Rubén Ballesteros, Hugo Dolmestch, and the participating lawyers Fernando Castro and Domingo Hernández sentenced López Almarza to three years and one day, granting the convicted man the benefit of supervised release.

The sentence applies the "partial prescription" (media prescripción) provided for in Article 103 of the Penal Code to reduce the second-instance sentence that had sentenced López Almarza to 5 years and one day of imprisonment, without any type of benefits. Magistrate Ballesteros was in favor of applying the prescription in favor of the convicted man.

Source: La Nacion, November 29, 2007

Court releases authors of crime against former councilman Jaime Aldoney

The Valparaíso Court of Appeals applied such low sentences that the seven convicted individuals will serve them in freedom. The Third Chamber of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals did not apply international criminal law, which declares crimes against humanity to be non-amnestiable and imprescriptible, and released the seven kidnappers of socialist councilman Jaime Aldoney Vargas, whose body was presumably thrown into the sea by the same Navy officers who were released.

Magistrates Manuel Silva Ibáñez and Gonzalo Morales (majority vote) applied the legal criterion of "partial prescription" and imposed sentences of three years and 541 days against the six retired Navy captains—Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Pedro Arancibia Solar, Jaime Urdangarín Romero, Germán Valdivia Keller, Guillermo Vidal Hurtado, and Sergio Mendoza Rojas—and retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber von Appen.

Since the sentences are less than five years and one day, all those sentenced will serve them in freedom. Partial prescription is a "reconciliation" formula, installed two years ago by the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which allows for low sentences to be applied to those who committed crimes during the dictatorship.

The sentence was considered "serious and regrettable" by the lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, Karina Fernández, a plaintiff in the case: "a type of prescription was applied to human rights violators that allows them to remain free, in a sentence absolutely contradictory to the principles of international law." The lawyer told La Nación that "the Navy did not collaborate in the investigation, which makes it even more unjust," and added that "we will file an appeal for cassation before the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court." Jaime Aldoney, former comptroller of the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas in Limache and brother of the former intendant of Valparaíso, Gabriel Aldoney, was detained after the 1973 military coup and tortured at the El Belloto naval air base, from where he disappeared.

Source: La Nación, June 10, 2009

Supreme Court convicts 6 Navy members in Aldoney case

The Supreme Court issued a final judgment in the investigation into the aggravated kidnapping of Jaime Aldoney Vargas, a journalist and former Limache councilman, who was executed starting September 12, 1973, from the El Belloto naval air base.

In a split decision, the ministers of the Second Chamber, Nibaldo Segura, Jaime Rodríguez, Rubén Ballesteros, Hugo Dolmestch, and Carlos Künsemüller, determined the sentences, accepting the investigation carried out by the minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda Lillo.

The conviction was issued with the dissenting vote of ministers Segura and Ballesteros, who were in favor of accepting the grounds for the statute of limitations on criminal action. The ruling acquitted two of the eight accused in the case due to a lack of participation in the events: retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen and retired officer Manuel Buch López.

Five of the other accused were sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment with the benefit of supervised release. They are Navy Captains Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Pedro Arancibia Solar, Jaime Urdangarín Romero, and Germán Valdivia Keller.

Captain Guillermo Vidal Hurtado was sentenced to the same term as an accessory, while retired Captain Sergio Mendoza Rojas received only 4 years, also with supervised release. In the civil aspect, it was determined that the convicted individuals Valdivia Keller, Arancibia Solar, Urdangarín Romero, and Mendoza Rojas must pay joint compensation of $30,000,000 to Gabriel and Iván Aldoney Vargas, brothers of the victim.

Likewise, the claim against the Chilean State was dismissed, accepting the grounds of absolute incompetence of the court. In the civil aspect, the decision to accept the exception in favor of the Chilean State was adopted with the dissenting vote of ministers Dolmestch and Künsemüller.

Rebellion August 22, 2001 This is how the Chilean Navy killed during the dictatorship Four retired Navy officers accused in the disappearance of Jaime Aldoney. Retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen has provided two contradictory versions to deflect charges.

Plaintiffs have requested that the former commander of the Navy, Jorge Arancibia, testify before the judge investigating his disappearance. The case threatens to uncover the human rights violations committed by the Navy.

El Belloto was a well-known camp for political prisoners opposed to the dictatorship that began operating on September 1, 1973. Detainees passed through it who suffered illegal coercion, torture, rape, and mock executions.

Practically all the detainees from the Fifth Region were there. In that concentration camp, torture was common, with the most frequent being the application of electric current and the "submarine" (submerging the head in water, feces, or urine).

The prisoners' stay did not last more than ten days. Subsequently, they were transferred to the ships Maipo, Lebú, or Esmeralda, which took them to the Pisagua concentration camp. Where a supermarket and a fast-food restaurant stand today, the facilities of the El Belloto concentration camp once operated under the orders of Navy personnel.

It was in this place that witnesses last saw the former comptroller of the Compañía Cervecería Unidas (CCU), Jaime Aldoney. His body has still not been found. Aldoney, a civil engineer, PS militant, and brother of the former intendant of the Fifth Region, Gabriel Aldoney, was detained on September 12, 1973, for being a former councilman and CCU comptroller.

His trail was lost on September 14, 1973, when he was 30 years old. During the early hours of September 11, 1973, Radio Limache was bombed. Fearing for his safety, Aldoney decided to accompany the workers who were at the CCU factory.

The next day, they began to organize the company to hand it over to the Armed Forces. Contingents of the Navy, Carabineros, and civilian militants of Patria y Libertad arrived at the site and detained Aldoney and ten other workers.

Among them were the union president, Oscar Henríquez Villanueva, and workers José Cabezas and Humberto Rodríguez. They were taken to the Limache Carabineros police station. According to witnesses, Aldoney was beaten by officers at this location.

Among the torturers identified are Commander Bezoain, Detective Salvo, and Corporal Becerra. They were seconded by the terrorists of Patria y Libertad. That same night, he was taken along with other detainees to the El Belloto Naval Air Base.

None of the accused have appeared before the courts. Only the testimonies of the detainees provide evidence. These are conclusive. One of them points out that "some of the aggressors were even our neighbors." The sailors interrogated the political prisoners about weapons from a Russian ship that never existed.

They hold, among others, former Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar ("El Colorín"), who also participated in the torture that cost Aldoney his life, responsible for the torture. The testimonies continue.

Sergio Clark Lillo was detained with Aldoney. He declares that he first met him at the Limache police station and "while I remained in that place, I heard gunshots and the noise of planes and helicopters flying over the police station." He adds that later the prisoners, who had already been tortured, were transferred to El Belloto. "We were placed in the landing strip area, lying on the ground face down with our hands on the back of our necks.

I remember Aldoney. The treatment we received on that occasion was very harsh, because the sailors asked us for our identities amidst beatings, rifle-butt strikes, and jumping on the bodies of the detainees." "A mock execution was performed on me and another detainee, forcing us beforehand to dig a hole that simulated being the place of our burial, only to then hear the sound of shots," says Clark.

Regarding Aldoney—he indicates in the sworn statement dated November 7, 1989—"he was taken from the place on September 13, but I did not see who was taking him; I only know that his condition was precarious, everyone believed he was dying."

THE LIES OF A MURDERER

Sergio Clark, Carlos Aguilar, Waldo Ortega, Pedro Arellano, Enrique Villanueva, José Cabezas, and Humberto Rodríguez are some of those who testified—through sworn statements—that Aldoney was in a "deteriorated state of health, on the verge of death." Everyone agrees that his last day at El Belloto was September 13.

But retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen, who was in charge of that concentration camp, has contradicted them not with one, but with two false versions. Thus, when appearing before the special investigating judge of the case, Gabriela Corti, Von Appen indicated that on that same day the detainee escaped from the facility, evading the Navy's security measures.

That statement contradicts what the same officer told María Isabel Bazignam, Jaime Aldoney's wife, in October 1973. Indeed, it is recorded in the spouse's sworn statement that she interviewed Von Appen, and the rear admiral told her that "her husband was detained by mistake and had been released on September 13." In both fraudulent versions, the question remains the same: how could a detainee who was subjected to torture for two days escape from a prison camp without an investigation being ordered?

According to the versions of retired Rear Admiral Von Appen, the detainee "fled" on September 13. The strange thing is that the military institution never carried out a search operation, nor did it conduct an internal investigation, and in the institution's records, nothing is said about an incident in which a detainee escaped.

It is even stranger for one of the key witnesses in the case who saw Aldoney on September 12 "with severe wounds all over his body." They had just subjected him to a torture session that included the traditional "submarine" and he had serious dislocations in his body; "he could not move, he could not even stay in one position.

How was he going to escape from a place where security was the norm?" There is no answer to Von Appen's fallacious claims in the process being instructed in Valparaíso for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against 4 Navy officers and Augusto Pinochet.

Instead, for one of the detainees at El Belloto who knew Aldoney and saw him on September 13 after a torture session, the only valid explanation is that "they killed him inside El Belloto." He adds that it was impossible for him to escape from the facility, and even less so after having been beaten. "He couldn't walk at that point; his eyes were vacant and his limbs were broken." Furthermore, another fellow prisoner points out that he could hear the sailors requesting instructions by radio to "see what to do with him, because he's slipping away from us." That night, he remembers, helicopters took off and they invented a shootout to confront a supposed terrorist attack. A pickup truck also left the facility. And, according to this witness, after Aldoney's disappearance, the uniformed men intimidated the prisoners by telling them: "Aldoney is already done for, talk once and for all." Wladimiro Morales, another witness, adds that on September 13, when the detainee had supposedly escaped, he saw Aldoney on board the ship Maipo: "I saw Jaime Aldoney only once while he remained in the center of the hold, because there were many people; besides, it was difficult to locate oneself in one sector, it was difficult to return to the same sector of the hold, because it was packed." In addition to pointing out that this meeting was before the ship set sail in the direction of Pisagua, he asserts that upon disembarking from the ship he did not find Aldoney, nor did he see him during his detention in Pisagua. This would confirm the thesis that the former comptroller was transported on board a pickup truck from El Belloto to the Navy ship, where he would have remained for only a few hours. Then the trail is lost. The detainees assert that helicopters flew over the area and loaded bundles similar to bodies that they would have thrown into the sea or the mountain range. A road inspector asserts that on September 14 he saw a pickup truck transporting the body of a badly wounded person. He approached and was able to see that it was Jaime Aldoney, whom he knew because he lived near his house. The next day, another group of officers told him that there was "a big mess" because "they had finished off Aldoney."

BACKGROUND ON THE TORTURERS AND MURDERERS

The process for Aldoney's disappearance began in July 1990 with the report of a presumed misfortune filed by his wife, which was accepted by magistrate Rosario Lavín, head of the Limache Court of Letters.

But from 1990 to 1998, the period in which Judge Lavín processed the case, the process did not advance. This motivated criticism from former intendant Gabriel Aldoney, Jaime's brother, who accused the magistrate of "not wanting to investigate the disappearance." Only with the filing of a complaint for aggravated kidnapping and the appointment of Judge Corti did the process begin to advance. "Jaime Aldoney was killed by the torture at El Belloto.

I saw him dying, and then the repressors themselves told me and all the detainees in the place that he was a corpse." That is the tenor of the testimony given to the Fifth Department of Investigations by one of the witnesses.

The investigation has led to the virtual police clarification of the case. Only a few steps remain for the magistrate to begin the interrogations and confrontations of the 4 retired Navy officers accused with the witnesses who implicate them.

In fact, it is the only one of the 89 disappeared in the area where justice has advanced and threatens to uncover the role of the sailors in human rights violations during the dictatorship. While the Navy's high command has denied that they acted with violence against opponents of the tyranny, according to reports from the Vicariate of Solidarity and the Rettig Commission, security and repression activities in the V Region were assigned to the Navy and Carabineros. "Talk, because Aldoney is already done for," is the fateful phrase remembered by one of the detainees at El Belloto, whose testimony reveals that he saw the former CCU comptroller "on the verge of death" on the morning of September 14. The phrase came from one of his torturers, who answered to the alias "Jimmy," one of the few accused who has not yet been identified, although the plaintiffs have already made progress in determining his name. Meanwhile, the list that Judge Corti is working on includes retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber von Appen, who served at the time as commander of Naval Aviation based in El Belloto and "could not have been unaware of the torture that was applied in the place under his command," says the complaint that requests his prosecution. Also listed as an accused is the Limache and Olmué military governor, former commander Sergio Iván Mendoza Rojas, who "received direct orders from naval superiors, including those that referred to detentions for political reasons," the document adds. Furthermore, Patricio Villalobos Lobos appears as the person in charge of intelligence at the base during 1973 and "his specific work consisted, at least, in ordering the detentions of people who appeared on a list given to him by the superiors and in receiving the captured prisoners, proceeding to direct the interrogations that were carried out." While former Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar was recognized by one of the witnesses in the case as the cruelest torturer at the facility. He answered to the alias "El Colorín" and his procedures were notable for the use of electricity and the submarine (submerging the head for several minutes in water, urine, or feces). All of them, together with Augusto Pinochet, are accused of the crime of aggravated kidnapping and, according to the plaintiff side, the evidence indicates that they must be prosecuted in the shortest possible time, if there is really justice in Chile. For now, the activities of the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police are concentrated on locating the body of the murdered socialist leader, who does not appear in the fraudulent report that the Armed Forces delivered in January, within the framework of the Dialogue Table. Lawyer Juan Bustos, a plaintiff in the process, has presented a document requesting the summons and interrogation of the former commander-in-chief of the Navy and current UDI senatorial candidate Jorge Arancibia, due to the information he has about the operation of the Navy's torture centers, which makes him an accomplice and superior responsible for such crimes. But, according to the corrupt Chilean justice system, a cloak of impunity will cover his contribution to the violation of human rights and he will be able to become an "Honorable Senator."

Source: La Nacion, May 5, 2011

This is how the Chilean Navy killed during the dictatorship

Four retired Navy officers have been charged in the disappearance of Jaime Aldoney. Retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen has provided two contradictory versions of events to deflect charges. Plaintiffs have requested that the former Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Jorge Arancibia, testify before the judge investigating the disappearance.

The case threatens to uncover the human rights violations committed by the Navy.

El Belloto was a well-known detention center for political prisoners opposed to the dictatorship that began operating on September 1, 1973. Detainees held there suffered illegitimate coercion, torture, rape, and mock executions.

Virtually all detainees from the Fifth Region were held there. In that concentration camp, torture was common, with the most frequent methods being the application of electric shocks and the "submarine" (submerging the head in water, feces, or urine).

Prisoners were generally held for no more than ten days. Subsequently, they were transferred to the ships Maipo, Lebú, or Esmeralda, which took them to the Pisagua concentration camp.

Where a supermarket and a fast-food restaurant stand today, the facilities of the El Belloto concentration camp once operated under the orders of Navy personnel. It was at this location that witnesses last saw the former comptroller of the Compañía Cervecerías Unidas (CCU), Jaime Aldoney.

His body has still not been found. Aldoney, a civil engineer, PS militant, and brother of the former intendant of the Fifth Region, Gabriel Aldoney, was detained on September 12, 1973, for being a former councilman and comptroller of the CCU. His trail was lost on September 14, 1973, when he was 30 years old.

During the early hours of September 11, 1973, Radio Limache was bombed. Fearing for his safety, Aldoney decided to accompany the workers who were at the CCU factory. The following day, they began organizing the company to hand it over to the Armed Forces.

Contingents of the Navy, Carabineros, and civilian militants from Patria y Libertad arrived at the site and detained Aldoney and ten other workers. Among them were the president of the union, Oscar Henríquez Villanueva, and workers José Cabezas and Humberto Rodríguez.

They were transferred to the Carabineros police station in Limache. According to witnesses, Aldoney was beaten by officers at this location. Among the torturers identified are Commander Bezoain, Detective Salvo, and Corporal Becerra.

They were assisted by the terrorists from Patria y Libertad. That same night, he was taken along with other detainees to the El Belloto Naval Air Base. None of the accused have appeared before the courts. Only the testimonies of the detainees provide evidence. These are conclusive. One of them notes that "some of the aggressors were even our neighbors."

The sailors interrogated the political prisoners about weapons from a Russian ship that never existed. They hold, among others, former Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar ("El Colorín") responsible for the torture; he also participated in the torture that cost Aldoney his life.

The testimonies continue. Sergio Clark Lillo was detained with Aldoney. He declares that he first met him at the Limache police station and "while I remained in that place, I heard gunshots and the noise of planes and helicopters flying over the station." He adds that later, the prisoners, who had already been tortured, were transferred to El Belloto. "We were placed in the landing strip area, lying on the ground face down with our hands on our necks.

I remember Aldoney. The treatment we received on that occasion was very harsh, because the sailors asked us for our identities in the midst of beatings, rifle-butt strikes, and jumping on the bodies of the detainees." "Another detainee and I were subjected to a mock execution, being forced beforehand to dig a hole that simulated the place of our burial, only to then hear the sound of gunfire," says Clark.

Regarding Aldoney—he indicates in a sworn statement dated November 7, 1989—"he was taken from the place on September 13, but I did not see who was taking him; I only know that his condition was precarious, and everyone believed he was dying."

THE LIES OF A MURDERER

Sergio Clark, Carlos Aguilar, Waldo Ortega, Pedro Arellano, Enrique Villanueva, José Cabezas, and Humberto Rodríguez are some of those who gave testimony—through sworn statements—that Aldoney was in a "deteriorated state of health, on the verge of death." All agree that his last day at El Belloto was September 13.

However, retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen, who was in charge of that concentration camp, has contradicted them not with one, but with two false versions. When appearing before the investigating judge of the case, Gabriela Corti, Von Appen stated that on that same day, the detainee escaped from the facility, eluding the Navy's security measures.

That statement contradicts what the same officer told María Isabel Bazignam, Jaime Aldoney's wife, in October 1973. Indeed, it is recorded in the spouse's sworn statement that she interviewed Von Appen, and the Rear Admiral told her that "her husband was detained by mistake and had been released on September 13."

In both fraudulent versions, the mystery remains the same: how could a detainee who had been subjected to torture for two days escape from a prison camp without an investigation being ordered? According to the versions of retired Rear Admiral Von Appen, the detainee "fled" on September 13.

What is strange is that the military institution never carried out a search operation, nor did it conduct an internal investigation, and in the institution's records, nothing is said about an incident in which a detainee escaped.

It is even stranger to one of the key witnesses in the case, who saw Aldoney on September 12 "with severe wounds all over his body." They had just subjected him to a torture session that included the traditional "submarine," and he presented serious dislocations in his body; "he could not move, he could not even maintain a position.

How was he going to escape from a place where security was the norm?"

There is no answer to Von Appen's fallacious claims in the proceedings being conducted in Valparaíso for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against 4 Navy officers and Augusto Pinochet. Instead, for one of the detainees at El Belloto, who knew Aldoney and saw him on September 13 after a torture session, the only valid explanation is that "they killed him inside El Belloto." He adds that it was impossible for him to escape from the facility, and even less so after having been beaten. "He could not walk; at that point, his eyes were vacant and his limbs were broken." Furthermore, another fellow prisoner points out that he could hear the sailors requesting instructions by radio to "see what to do with him, as we are losing him." That night, he recalls, helicopters took off and they invented a shootout to confront a supposed terrorist attack. A pickup truck also left the facility. And, according to this witness, after Aldoney's disappearance, the uniformed officers intimidated the prisoners by telling them: "Aldoney is already done for, talk once and for all."

Wladimiro Morales, another witness, adds that on September 13, when the detainee had supposedly escaped, he saw Aldoney aboard the ship Maipo: "I saw Jaime Aldoney only once while I remained in the center of the hold, because there were many people, and it was difficult to locate oneself in a sector, difficult to return to the same sector of the hold, because it was packed." In addition to noting that this encounter was before the ship set sail for Pisagua, he asserts that upon disembarking from the ship, he did not find Aldoney, nor did he see him during his detention in Pisagua.

This would confirm the thesis that the former comptroller was transported aboard a pickup truck from El Belloto to the Navy ship, where he would have remained for only a few hours. Then the tracks are lost. The detainees assert that helicopters flew over the area and loaded bundles resembling bodies that they may have thrown into the sea or the mountains.

A highway inspector asserts that on September 14, he saw a pickup truck transporting the body of a badly wounded person. He approached and was able to see that it was Jaime Aldoney, whom he knew because he lived near his house. The next day, another group of officers told him that there was "a big mess" because they "had finished off Aldoney."

BACKGROUND OF THE TORTURERS AND MURDERERS

The proceedings for Aldoney's disappearance began in July 1990 with the report of a presumed death filed by his wife, which was accepted by Magistrate Rosario Lavín, head of the Limache Court of Letters.

But from 1990 to 1998, the period in which Judge Lavín processed the case, the proceedings did not advance. This motivated criticism from former intendant Gabriel Aldoney, Jaime's brother, who accused the magistrate of "not wanting to investigate the disappearance." Only with the filing of a complaint for aggravated kidnapping and the appointment of Minister Corti did the process begin to advance.

"Jaime Aldoney was killed by the torture at El Belloto. I saw him dying, and then the repressors themselves told me and all the detainees in the place that he was a corpse." That is the tenor of the testimony given to the Fifth Department of Investigations by one of the witnesses.

The investigation has led to the virtual police clarification of the case. Only a few procedures remain for the magistrate to initiate the interrogations and confrontations of the 4 retired Navy officers accused with the witnesses who implicate them.

In fact, it is the only one of the 89 disappeared persons in the area where justice has advanced, and it threatens to uncover the role of the sailors in the human rights violations during the dictatorship.

While the Navy's high command has denied that they acted with violence against opponents of the tyranny, according to reports from the Vicariate of Solidarity and the Rettig Report, security and repression activities in the V Region were assigned to the Navy and Carabineros.

"Talk, because Aldoney is already done for," is the fateful phrase recalled by one of the detainees at El Belloto, whose testimony reveals that he saw the former CCU comptroller "on the verge of death" on the morning of September 14.

The phrase came from one of his torturers, who went by the alias "Jimmy," one of the few accused who has not yet been identified, although the plaintiffs have already made progress in determining his name.

Meanwhile, the list that Judge Corti is working on includes retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber von Appen, who served at the time as commander of Naval Aviation based in El Belloto and "could not have been unaware of the torture that was applied in the place under his command," says the complaint requesting his prosecution.

Also listed as an accused is the Limache and Olmué military plaza chief, former commander Sergio Iván Mendoza Rojas, who "received direct orders from the naval superior, including those that referred to detentions for political reasons," the document adds.

Furthermore, Patricio Villalobos Lobos is listed as the intelligence officer at the base during 1973, and "his specific work consisted, at least, in ordering the detentions of people who appeared on a list given to him by the superior and in receiving the captured prisoners, proceeding to direct the interrogations that were carried out." Meanwhile, former Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Arancibia Solar was recognized by one of the witnesses in the case as the most cruel torturer in the facility.

He went by the alias "El Colorín," and his procedures were notable for the use of electricity and the submarine (submerging the head for several minutes in water, urine, or feces). All of them, along with Augusto Pinochet, are accused of the crime of aggravated kidnapping, and according to the plaintiff, the evidence indicates that they should be prosecuted as soon as possible, if there is truly justice in Chile.

For now, the activities of the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police are concentrated on locating the body of the murdered socialist leader, who does not appear in the fraudulent report that the Armed Forces delivered in January, within the framework of the Dialogue Table.

Lawyer Juan Bustos, a plaintiff in the proceedings, has presented a brief requesting the summons and interrogation of the former Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and current UDI senatorial candidate Jorge Arancibia, due to the information he has regarding the operation of Navy torture centers, which makes him an accomplice and a superior responsible for such crimes.

But, according to the corrupt Chilean justice system, a cloak of impunity will cover his contribution to the violation of human rights, and he will be able to become an "Honorable Senator."

Source: Rebelión, August 22, 2001

50 years after the coup, victims' organizations ask for sites to be converted into memorials

Buildings where torture took place are occupied by the PDI, Carabineros, and the Navy as recreational and lodging centers.

The current "guesthouse" that the PDI has in Ñuñoa belonged to a group dedicated to meditation that included, among other people, the astrologer Pedro Engel. The property was seized from them in March 1974.

The house was in the name of a person who was detained and tortured, and who later transferred the property to the PDI in 1976. In that same place, two UC students were tortured in 1980. One of them, Eduardo Jara, died.

Carabineros and the Navy also maintain properties for recreational or lodging purposes with records of having been torture centers: the Las Melosas refuge (San José de Maipo) and the former naval sanatorium of Los Maitenes (Limache).

The tranquility of the Ñuñoa neighborhood is broken by the cars that pass through José Domingo Cañas. The two-story white house is located at the corner of that street and Obispo Orrego. This Monday, not much movement is detected, although there are two cars parked inside and some windows are open.

In this Investigative Police (PDI) property, which is offered as a "Guesthouse" to accommodate its officials, two journalism students from the Catholic University were tortured in 1980, according to a ruling by Judge Mario Carroza that awaits ratification by the Supreme Court.

Carroza established that students Eduardo Jara (a MIR militant) and his companion, Cecilia Alzamora, were kidnapped on July 23, 1980, in the middle of the dictatorship, and taken to the PDI central headquarters in General Mackenna.

Later, when a magistrate inspected that police headquarters, they were taken to the house on Obispo Orrego. There, "they return to captivity and the interrogations continue with physical and psychological coercion," says Carroza's ruling.

There are at least two other real estate properties in the hands of military or police institutions, intended for recreational or lodging uses, with records of having been sites where torture took place.

One belongs to Carabineros and the second to the Navy. The one belonging to the uniformed police is the Las Melosas mountain refuge, located in San José de Maipo. The one belonging to the Navy is the site of the old Los Maitenes Naval Sanatorium, in Limache.

For leaders of victims' organizations, these sites should be used to remember what happened there. "They have to be places of memory, and an active memory; if it is for recreation, it should not be in the hands of the Armed Forces, because they were the ones who violated human rights," points out Alicia Lira, of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions (AFEP).

Meanwhile, Marta Cisterna Flores, executive director of the 1367 Casa Memoria José Domingo Cañas Foundation, states that the property on Obispo Orrego street "should not be a guesthouse: what it should be is a site of memory that accounts for what that place meant during the dictatorship."

"GIVE THEM THE HOUSE, SO WE CAN LEAVE"

The history of the house that the PDI occupies as a lodging center in Ñuñoa also has a controversial episode regarding how the civil police acquired it. The property belonged to a meditation group called the Divine Light Mission.

The Investigative Police took possession of the property, in fact, in March 1974, six months after the coup d'état. The person who had the house in his name, Francisco Arce Araya, was detained and tortured. The records of the Santiago Real Estate Registrar indicate that two years later, Arce sold it to the PDI.

People who were part of the meditation group told CIPER that the sale was made under pressure. A decree dated March 6, 1975, signed by Augusto Pinochet, shows that the PDI had occupied the house long before the purchase took place, which was finalized in 1976.

The document indicates that the civil police had "taken material possession on March 27, 1974, having set up a Female Boarding School in it that houses the students of the Technical School of that Service (the Investigative Police)."

The acquisition would not materialize until March 1976, when two of the main leaders of the Divine Light Mission had already left Chile after having been detained and released. Mónica Izak lived in the house before the coup d'état.

She tells CIPER that the property was bought with her money, but that the person who appeared on the deed was Francisco Arce, who died in 1992. Arce, according to Izak's testimony, left the country after passing through Tejas Verdes, where he was tortured.

–One day someone rings the doorbell and it's Francisco, but he's a wreck. Some soldiers took him and dumped him there at the house. It took them all that time to see that he had really lived in Canada, and he had a Canadian passport–, relates Mónica Izak.

The story of the sale of the house located at Obispo Orrego 241 was told at the time, and briefly, by the astrologer Pedro Engel, who was part of the meditation group. He did so on the channel La Red, in an interview with the now ambassador to Mexico, Beatriz Sánchez.

Engel said that his sister-in-law (Mónica Izak) had donated money to buy this site that they used as an ashram (a place for meditation), until the Armed Forces and police began to persecute them and even detained them. "We had a pretty bad time, but in the end, what they wanted was that house," Engel assured.

Mónica Izak tells CIPER that at Obispo Orrego "we would get together to meditate, and we followed a person from India, who went all over the world teaching how to meditate."

–We had meditation talks every day. Some of us lived there, other people came in the afternoons. I lived there. Francisco Arce too. There were about five or six of us who lived there –she says.

They acquired the house on August 8, 1973. The person who appeared on behalf of the Divine Light Mission was Francisco Arce Araya. A month later came the Coup d'État. And then the persecution against the group, which was recorded in the press.

An article in Las Últimas Noticias, on March 22, 1974, reported that the Investigative Police had gone to the house and detained various people. "The authorities, considering that the attendance of the fanatics at the 'Divine Light Mission' was a symptom of social derangement and clear escapism from the reality that the country is living, determined to end the sect," it was indicated in the article.

Notes in La Tercera, from March 1974, pointed out that the Divine Light Mission faced accusations of "sexual attacks, robberies, abandonment of work, study, and assaults on elderly people," all discarded by the sources linked to this group who spoke with CIPER.

One of the articles ended by identifying "Francisco Arce, also director of the sect, who has stated that his desire is to sell that mansion and leave the country."

But those close to Francisco Arce explain that he never wanted to sell. Mónica Izak says that some time before leaving the place, "they came looking for Francisco. Only him (...). They took him to a building.

All this time with his eyes blindfolded. It was a building somewhere where they kept him tied up for three days, blindfolded in a chair, and he heard screams and beatings. They didn't give him anything to eat for three days."

Then, they took Arce in a vehicle to Tejas Verdes, says Mónica Izak, who says that version was given to her by the detainee himself: "He insisted that he lived in Canada, but they didn't care (...). He told me that they wouldn't let them go to the bathroom in Tejas Verdes, they beat them, they tortured them, when they interrogated him they used electricity and those things (...).

He was in Tejas Verdes for 30 days."

Izak and Arce left Chile at the end of March 1974. Before leaving, Arce signed a power of attorney in favor of Felipe Oro Pérez, then a young lawyer for the Divine Light Mission, to sell the property to the General Directorate of Investigations.

CIPER reviewed that document, in which Arce says he agrees that the police institution was already using the house on Obispo Orrego since March 27, 1974. According to Izak, Arce signed "because he didn't want to be detained again (...). I told him 'give them the house, so we can leave'."

Finally, the sale was finalized on March 3, 1976. According to the notary archive, Ernesto Baeza Michaelsen—General Director of Investigations—and Felipe Oro Pérez, on behalf of Francisco Arce Araya, appeared.

Oro pointed out to CIPER that the payment for the property reached him around 1984, or something like that. He is not very clear about the year, but he does remember that he exchanged the money for US$6,000.

Regarding whether he believes this operation was forced, the lawyer points out: "Yes, by all means. The price that was paid I think did not correspond. But there was nothing to do. Nobody wanted to sell the house. The military arrived, they kicked us all out, they put us in jail, I was there for two or three days, it was one of the moments of neurosis of my youth."

1980: "PLACE OF CONFINEMENT AND TORTURE"

A few years after the sale, in 1980, and according to the investigation by Minister Mario Carroza, journalism students from the Catholic University, Eduardo Jara Aravena and Cecilia Alzamora Vejares, were taken to Obispo Orrego 241 after being kidnapped a few days earlier at the corner of Eliodoro Yáñez and Los Leones, in Providencia.

All this occurred within the framework of the investigation into the assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Roger Vergara Campos, which happened in mid-July 1980. A group of Investigative Police officers decided to "initiate on their own operational actions at odds with institutional procedures and outside the law, more violent and violating Fundamental Rights, with the sole purpose of quickly finding the whereabouts of the authors of the crime of Lieutenant Colonel Roger Vergara," points out the ruling by Minister Carroza.

Jara and Alzamora were taken first to the Investigations headquarters, in General Mackenna. "In that place, this group of officials from the operational team designated in the main investigation proceeded to interrogate them through the application of torture, and the above only concludes when it is reported that a Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals would attend the institutional building of Investigations, a situation that leads them to modify the place of confinement and torture, moving them to a house located at 241 Obispo Orrego street in Ñuñoa," says Carroza.

In Obispo Orrego, according to the ruling—which is awaiting its ratification in the Supreme Court—"interrogations with physical and psychological coercion continued, to ask them about their political activities, especially Eduardo Jara."

Jara and Alzamora were released in the early hours of August 2, 1980. They were abandoned in a lot in La Reina, after 11 days of captivity. Cecilia Alzamora's statement is attached to Judge Carroza's ruling. In it, she pointed out that, upon taking off her blindfold, she realized that her companion was in terrible condition. Eduardo Jara died at the Ñuñoa Post No. 4 that same day.

CIPER contacted the PDI to ask about the reasons for giving a recreational and lodging destination to a site that carries a ruling pointing to it as a torture center and that was occupied in fact, against the will of its owners, who were also victims of the dictatorship.

Although initially, in response to a request made through Transparency, the PDI cataloged the house as a "vacation center," from its communications department they nuanced its use: "It corresponds to a shelter house that is managed by the Welfare Headquarters of our institution, used by personnel who come from regions to Santiago to undergo medical treatments."

On the website Guiature.cl, a platform for recreational places of the Army, Navy, Carabineros, Air Force, and PDI, the Ñuñoa property is described as a "Guesthouse," where reservations must be made and additional services are offered: "The property houses officers who are passing through the city of Santiago, offering its guests breakfast in a comfortable, safe, and welcoming space." In the Public Market records, there are tenders made by the PDI Welfare headquarters where they have also referred to the property as a "Guesthouse."

Before his death, Francisco Arce left a power of attorney to Mónica Izak's sister, Nancy, regarding any rights over the house. She tried to recover it in 2004 through a civil lawsuit. "Unfortunately, it was rejected and since then I haven't done anything. But the idea is to receive compensation, because this house was acquired in a bad way," she tells CIPER.

LOS MAITENES

Pedro Hugo Arellano Carvajal, a radio businessman and exile during the dictatorship, says that the Los Maitenes Recreational Center, belonging to the Navy, is the old Naval Sanatorium of Limache, where political prisoners were tortured during the dictatorship, according to various sentences already ratified by the Supreme Court.

In the investigation into the disappearance of Jaime Aldoney Vargas, comptroller of the Compañía Cervecerías Unidas of Limache during the Popular Unity government, investigating minister Julio Miranda Lillo mentioned in his November 2007 ruling the "Naval Sanatorium 'Los Maitenes'" as a place where victims of human rights violations claim to have been detained and tortured.

Arellano says that he was detained on September 11, 1973, and that the Armed Forces tore down the antenna of the radio station that, by then, belonged to his father. They released him, but detained him the following day, when he went to sign in at a Limache police station. Immediately, he says, he was sent to the Naval Sanatorium that was on the way to Olmué:

–I was received by one of the most beastly lieutenants of the Navy, the famous (Pedro Pablo) Arancibia Solar. As soon as I arrived, they gave me beatings, they did the famous death corridor, where sailors stood on both sides, and they made you pass through the middle and they gave you kicks, punches, whatever landed (...).

They took us to the office of the unpresentable Arancibia Solar, they gave us electricity, they played Russian roulette with a revolver. When they tortured us at night, they took us outside and piled us all up, everyone who was in there –says Arellano in an interview with CIPER.

Testimonies like Hugo Arellano's serve as evidence in trials that are still being carried out in Valparaíso or that have already concluded. One of these cases was the trial for the homicide of Óscar Armando Farías Urzúa, a militant of the Socialist Party and who was, until before the coup, the comptroller of a cannery in the sector.

Investigating minister Miranda Lillo, through a ruling on December 15, 2009—confirmed by the Supreme Court—exposed different testimonies that prove the torture at the Naval Sanatorium. Among these accounts is that of a former Navy official, who, according to the ruling, "expresses that in the Naval Sanatorium, detainees were interrogated with physical coercion in a room that was used as the Pharmacy and Flammables Storehouse." In Farías's case, at least four testimonies spoke of torture inside the Naval Sanatorium.

CIPER contacted the Navy on Thursday, February 16, 2023, to confirm the destination of the sanatorium, but there was no response by the time this report was closed.

LAS MELOSAS

Camilo Salvo, a deputy for the Popular Unity until the 1973 Coup d'État, was detained in several places—including Dawson Island—before arriving at a freezing room at the Las Melosas facility, in San José de Maipo, between May and June 1974.

He tells CIPER that the cold was "damning," and that they were there "subject to the disposition of the head of the camp, who would suddenly decide that we had to do gymnastics, and we had to do gymnastics, or that suddenly we had to repeat songs." One day, he had to live through an episode with different Carabineros that seemed "unreal" to him:

–They tell me to undress. I thought they were going to give me a medical exam, until they take me to a room and in that room, I was interrogated by three high-ranking officers. I couldn't tell you who they were.

Leopoldo Cáceres, one of the sons of the former mayor of San José de Maipo, Víctor Cáceres Riquelme (PS), says that his father, who died in 2018, told him about what happened at Las Melosas: "I heard my dad talk about Las Melosas and that he had been mistreated, that he had been tortured," he says, about events that occurred when he was only one year old.

Cáceres Riquelme was mayor of San José de Maipo when he was detained by military forces. He was imprisoned for nearly three years in different facilities where people were tortured, until he was exiled and traveled to Mexico. Upon his return, in 1992, he was elected mayor of that commune again, and in 2008 he faced a trial, in which he was acquitted, accused of sexual abuse.

As recorded by the Salvador Allende Human Rights Cultural Center, in its "Human Rights Investigation of Cordillera Province," Cáceres related the following: "On Thursday, September 13, I was sent to the Puente Alto regiment, and I was detained, tortured with electricity, and beaten for several days.

Although I was blindfolded, I recognized Sub-lieutenant Varela as one of the torturers. They performed a mock execution on me. They gave me food with motor oil. In addition, they took me to the Stone House in Lagunillas and to the Las Melosas mining sector, to mistreat me."

On Guiature.cl, the Las Melosas mountain refuge, belonging to Carabineros, is described as follows: "It is a paradisiacal place that is located in the middle of the foothills of the central zone, in the town of San José de Maipo, 86 km from the center of Santiago. It is open every day of the year, offering its visitors, upon reservation, gastronomic, hotel, and spa services."

Leopoldo Cáceres knows that in the place where his father was tortured, a vacation spot for Carabineros operates today. In addition, a statement from a Carabinero, in the context of the disappearance of Uruguayan citizens during the dictatorship, indicated that at that time the Las Melosas refuge was in charge of the Welfare Directorate of the uniformed police, the same one that manages it today.

CIPER asked Carabineros if the center alluded to as a place of torture is the site where the mountain refuge is located. They did not answer that query and only indicated that "the institution currently possesses a mountain refuge for officers, senior non-commissioned officers, and civilian personnel, called Las Melosas, and it depends on the Welfare Directorate of Carabineros, which possesses its administration and guardianship.

This is a place of recreation and rest."

Finally, the institution indicated that they will not refer "to processes that remain judicialized, this by virtue of the judicial, criminal, civil, military, and/or administrative persecution that may proceed in the respective investigations."

(*) Students from the UDP School of Journalism, María Ignacia Ampuero and Juliette Hardy, collaborated in this investigation. They created a database with information on the origins of the recreational centers of the Armed Forces and police.

Source: ciper.cl, February 21, 2023