During the morning, the Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police (PDI) began the transfer to the Valparaíso Court of Appeals of the last 14 individuals indicted for the disappearance of the English priest Miguel Woodward, who was also tortured aboard the Chilean Navy training ship Esmeralda and subsequently disappeared.

It should be noted that on August 26, Minister María Eliana Quezada ordered the indictment of these fourteen former uniformed officers. The events date back to the first days of the military dictatorship, when the Chilean Navy implemented Plan Cochayuyo, devised to repress social organizations and control the area following the military coup.

After 11:00 hours, the retired Carabineros and Navy officials involved in this human rights case began to arrive at the Fifth Region Court of Appeals so that the magistrate could notify them of their indictment and pretrial detention.

Those indicted are retired Carabineros Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, and Enrique Corrales Díaz, all colonels; as well as Major Luis Araya Maureira, Captain Nelson López Cofré, and Second Sergeant Jorge Leiva Cordero.

Also indicted were former Navy officers: Captain Pedro Abregó Diamanti; and retired Marine Corps non-commissioned officers Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Bertalino Castillo Soto, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

With this action, the number of those indicted in this case—an emblematic human rights case in Valparaíso—reaches 33.

Source: August 30, 2010, Radio Universidad de Chile

Chilean justice system indicts 14 former uniformed officers in the Woodward case

According to judicial sources, to date, Judge Eliana Quezada of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals has issued 33 indictments for the crime against the Chilean-British priest. In her resolution, Quezada also issued arrest warrants for the accused: former Carabineros colonels Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, and Enrique Corrales Díaz; former major of the same institution Ricardo Araya Maureira; former Carabineros captain Nelson López Jofré; and former non-commissioned officer Jorge Leiva Cordero.

The minister (special judge) also indicted former Navy captain Pedro Abregó Diamante and former Marine Corps senior non-commissioned officers Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, Juan Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Bertalino Castillo Soto, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

To date, in this case, Judge Quezada has issued indictments against 33 officers and non-commissioned officers, all of whom are now retired. Of these, 25 belong to the Navy and six to the Carabineros. This is the first time the judge has indicted members of the uniformed police for this crime.

The figure of 33 is currently reduced to 31, due to the death last year of former rear admiral, former commander of the Valparaíso Naval War Academy, and DINA agent Sergio Barra von Kretschmann, and the revocation of the indictment against former Navy captain Luis Holley de la Maza.

Priest Miguel Woodward was arrested on September 16, 1973, by a Navy patrol at his home on Cerro Los Placeres in Valparaíso and taken to the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, where he was interrogated and tortured for several hours.

Following the military coup of September 11, 1973, that university served as a center for political imprisonment and torture under the control of the Navy. Later, Woodward was taken to the Naval War Academy (AGN) on the port's Cerro Playa Ancha, where he was likewise tortured.

On September 21, 1973, he was removed from the AGN and transferred to the training ship Esmeralda, which, following the military uprising, also operated as a site for political imprisonment and torture.

The investigation has established that Woodward died aboard the Esmeralda as a result of the torture. His body was removed from that vessel and taken to the Naval Hospital, which at that time was located on Cerro Playa Ancha.

It is during this period that all traces of his body were lost, although the judicial investigation established that Navy officials took his body to be buried in the Playa Ancha Cemetery, from where it has remained disappeared to this day.

Source: Noticias.terra.es, August 28, 2010