Visiting Minister Alejandro Madrid discovered that doctors who worked at the DINA’s London Clinic also provided services at the Santa María Clinic. In fact, one of them was part of the medical team that performed the final surgery on the former President, as revealed by the judicial file.

If, in 1977, someone had said that a Court of Appeals judge would eventually establish how a DINA agent died at the hands of his own comrades-in-arms at the London Clinic, they would surely have been branded a dreamer.

Likewise, if in 1982 someone had known that part of the medical team working at the Santa María Clinic, where former President Eduardo Frei Montalva was operated on, was part of the DINA’s London Clinic, perhaps his death could have been avoided.

If, in 1990, after the return to democracy, someone had even raised the suspicion that these two deaths were related, they might have been partially believed, but obtaining concrete results was unthinkable.

For this reason, Minister Alejandro Madrid Crohare has established that a series of deaths prior to Frei’s are a necessary link to establishing what could be the first assassination of a head of state in Chile’s history.

Magistrate Madrid, in a document to which LND had exclusive access, has identified all the personnel who worked in the DINA clinics, from Santa Lucía to London, including guards, nurses, doctors, assistants, drivers, and telephone operators.

This secret list, never before published (see box), is contained in the file that the judge is processing regarding the death of former Army corporal and former DINA agent Manuel Jesús Leyton Robles, murdered in March 1977. This case is linked to the death of Frei.

This fact, when viewed in perspective, has provided clues that have helped strengthen the magistrate’s conviction that Frei’s death was not a mere coincidence.

Added to this are two other events that have also been revealing for the magistrate. First, in 1993, one of the main defendants in the crime against Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria—which occurred on July 14, 1976—Brigadier (R) and former Army Secretary General Jaime Lepe, used agents from the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE) to follow and detain Sub-officer (R) José Remigio Ríos San Martín.

He met with him at a restaurant, where he ordered him to retract the statement that incriminated him in exchange for a pickup truck (see La Nación 21.8.06). The volume of resources Lepe used for this operation, at the behest of Pinochet himself, reveals that it was not just about protecting his career or covering up a death like so many others, but rather about hiding information regarding the manufacture of poisons to eliminate opponents during the military dictatorship.

Second, another path leads to the poisoning with botulinum toxin of MIR members in the public prison in 1981 (see La Nación 23.8.06), brought specially to Chile by the Public Health Institute (ISP) for the Army’s Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory (LGBE), with the endorsement of the then-representative in Chile of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Dr.

Virgilio Scuttia. In that year, the LGBE operationally depended on the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE).

Finally, the departure from Chile of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos Sagredo—who fled the country with the help of the Army in October 1992—and his subsequent murder in 1993 in Uruguay, together constitute a puzzle for which only a few pieces remain to be found in the dark universe of the Pinochet dictatorship’s intelligence operations. And Berríos, in this entire plot, appears as the necessary link.

“Because of this traitorous idiot”

The death of Corporal Leyton Robles, which occurred in March 1977, is a palpable example of what the word “treason” meant to DINA director Manuel Contreras: an unpronounceable term.

Leyton Robles, along with other agents, was looking for spare parts for a Renault 4, as DINA funds were meager and there was no way to repair the vehicle. They solved the problem by stealing a similar car from French citizen Marcel Duhalde.

He reported the events to the Carabineros, who located the Renault and arrested those responsible, Leyton Robles himself and Heriberto Acevedo, both members of the DINA, who were taken to a police station.

And that is where it all began. The DINA ordered their release. The Carabineros refused. The service’s agents surrounded the police unit. Crisis. Manuel Leyton Robles remained in custody. However, minutes earlier, he had revealed the DINA’s best-kept secret: the existence of the forcibly disappeared and their final destination, the sea.

Once released, the DINA, aware of his statements, confined him to one of their facilities. He died days later of a mysterious heart attack. He was only 24 years old. This is as far as what is currently public knowledge goes.

“Package coming”

However, the who, how, when, and where he was murdered turned out to be a mystery and a secret kept in the mouths of very few. But only until now, as Madrid and detective Nelson Jofré have the case completely clarified.

Leyton Robles was not taken to just any place, but to the London Clinic. In this regard, the testimony of Army Sub-officer (R) and nurse Carlos Norambuena Retamales is eloquent in illustrating the facility located at Almirante Barroso 76.

“In this clinic, I was able to observe events that marked my life forever. I confirmed that there was a group of doctors involved in the deaths of the detainees who arrived at the clinic. I became aware of these episodes when I was on the night shift, which were habitual.”

According to this former DINA nurse, those involved were Dr. Osvaldo Leyton, Werner Zanguellini, and head nurse Eliana Borumburu Taboada. “There was a code in the clinic, which was a warning: ‘package coming.’ It meant that a detainee was arriving, and one understood that one should not get involved in anything; only those already mentioned.

A DINA vehicle would arrive, and people we didn’t know would take the detainee down on a stretcher, then they would take him into a room, administer something, and later the patient would come out dead.”

Norambuena Retamales also recounts the formula used by the doctors: “They would administer eight milligrams of Pentothal, which would immediately cause the patient to have an arrhythmia, followed by cardiorespiratory arrest, dying in the clinic, and about an hour and a half later they would take him out at night, half-camouflaged.”

This former DINA official had privileged access to several dark episodes of the dictatorship alongside nurse Borumburu. “I was able to accidentally see ‘the tower’ (Villa Grimaldi) on one occasion when Major Gerardo Ulrich was proceeding to burn the nipples of a completely naked woman with alcohol.”

The “Doctor Torment”

London Clinic nursing assistant Jazna Larrecheda Valdés told a second detail that was crucial for the judge and the first concrete clue regarding Leyton’s death. The woman told Madrid that in March 1977, “at about 2 A.M., about eight people arrived at the London Clinic in charge of an officer and two other agents whom I identified as Armando Cabrera and Corporal Manuel Leyton.

In an instant, the whole group entered the administrative chief’s office, and a few minutes later a subject known as Dr. Pinchetti arrived.” The latter, also known as “Doctor Torment,” was the DINA’s hypnotist.

After a few hours, she saw Leyton smoking and pacing from one place to another, “touching his head in a sign of nervousness and desperation, while at the same time stroking the service weapon he carried on his belt (...) A few minutes passed and Cabrera left the room. Immediately, Leyton entered where Pinchetti remained,” the nursing assistant declared.

A few minutes later, the hypnotist called on the phone and said: “The first (Cabrera) negative, the second (Leyton) positive,” says Larrecheda.

On the other hand, former civilian employee of the service Julio Huerta Gutiérrez recounted that Leyton was then left detained in the clinic with an external DINA guard, submachine gun in hand in case he wanted to escape.

Huerta was responsible, according to his testimony, for bringing him lunch. He also gave him cigarettes when Leyton asked for them, ignoring the orders of the head of security, then-Lieutenant Hernán Sovino Maturana: not to have contact with the prisoners.

The events continued their course when the London Clinic ambulance driver, active Army Sergeant Major S.A.C.V., saw an ambulance arrive and a patient being taken to the emergency room. “Upon entering, I see a young subject on the stretcher, unknown to me until that moment, and I see Dr.

Pedro Valdivia and another person I don’t remember (...) The patient was unconscious and in cardiorespiratory arrest (...) I was present and cooperated by transporting a defibrillator and a resuscitator. I remember I was very shocked; it was the first time I had seen a person die. I felt very bad and went out into the hallway.”

Another person who participated in this episode was former DINA nursing assistant Silvia Valdés Uribe, who confirms the facts and adds that they tried to resuscitate Leyton, but everything indicates that the torture applied by Pinchetti with the Pentothal, plus the interrogation sessions, ended his vital signs.

A few hours later, Jazna Larrecheda Valdés confirmed this same fact with her own eyes. “I asked an assistant what had happened to the patient and he told me he had died; then I entered the plaster room, where I confirmed that a naked body was lying on a stretcher. It was Corporal Leyton.”

That same night, Commander Vianel Valdivieso, one of the men in the DINA’s inner circle, arrived at the clinic along with Major Juan Morales Salgado, and they took the body away.

Judicial Hermeneutics

When Madrid and the police had this story completely clear, they focused on establishing these medical links to Frei’s death and encountered surprises.

Professionals who worked at the DINA were part of the medical team that treated Frei, just as there were others from the intelligence agency who worked at the Santa María Clinic while the former President remained hospitalized there.

One of the investigators’ main clues came from the statement—on page 656 of the judicial file—of the last doctor who attended to the former President, Patricio Silva Garín.

The latter, in 1982, worked at the Military Hospital, although he was a man very close to Frei Montalva.

Silva Garín told Minister Madrid that he formed his team with doctors Eduardo Weinstein (who also worked at the Military Hospital) and Dr. Rodrigo Vélez.

The latter, according to the account of active Army Sergeant Major S.A.C.V., also provided services at the London Clinic. The team was also composed of doctor Pedro Valdivia, who was present at the time of Corporal Leyton’s death at the DINA facilities.

But there was more. The DINA’s head nurse, Eliana Borumburu, had a cousin in those years, Ana María Borumburu, who worked precisely at the Catholic University, where doctors Hermal Rosemberg and Sergio González Bombardiere worked, who were in charge of the unauthorized autopsy—according to the family’s version—of Frei.

Among the documents seized by the Investigations police, there was no record of the last surgical operations performed on the former President, except for the first one, carried out in December 1981. LND

Related cases

The proceedings that Madrid links to the death of Eduardo Frei Montalva

1.- Carmelo Soria: Spanish Diplomat Homicide: July 14, 1976. Perpetrators: DINA.

Main defendants

Brigadier (R) Jaime Lepe Orellana. Major (R) Patricio Quilhot. Sub-officer (R) José Remigio Ríos San Martín. Civilian Chemist Eugenio Berríos.

2.- Army Corporal Manuel Jesús Leyton Robles DINA Agent Homicide: March 1977. Perpetrators: DINA

Main defendants

Hypnotist, Osvaldo Pinchetti. Commander (R) Vianel Valdivieso Colonel (R) Juan Morales Salgado Dr. Sergio Valdés. Dr. Osvaldo Leyton. Nurse Eliana Borumburu Taboada Chemist Eugenio Berríos

3.- Ricardo and Elizardo Aguilera, Guillermo Rodríguez Morales “El Ronco,” and Adalberto Muñoz Jara. MIR Militants Poisoning by botulism. Perpetrators: suspected to be the CNI. Main defendants: DINA chemist, Eugenio Berríos.

General (R) doctor Eduardo Arriagada Rehren and Army Health Colonel (R) Sergio Rosende Ollarzu, both officials of the Army Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory (LBGE), then dependent on the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE). Chemist Eugenio Berríos Hartmut Hopp (Colonia Dignidad)

4.- Eduardo Frei Montalva. Former President of Chile Death by generalized septicemia: January 21, 1982. Perpetrators: suspected to be the LGBE, the DINE, and the CNI. Main suspects: General (R) doctor Eduardo Arriagada Rehren and Army Health Colonel (R) Sergio Rosende Ollarzu, both officials of the Army Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory (LBGE), dependent on the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE).

5.- Eugenio Berríos Sagredo Former DINA chemist Homicide: between January and March 1993, in Uruguay Perpetrators: DINE agents.

Main defendants

General (R) Eugenio Covarrubias, former head of the DINE Major (R) Arturo Silva Valdés.

The doctors speak

The statements of the doctors who participated in the operation before Minister Madrid are full of technicalities, explaining how they operated on the former President. Here are some of the most important paragraphs from their judicial testimonies.

Augusto Larraín

“In this second operation where I participated as an observer, I saw a high mesenteric inflammation of the small intestine of an inflammatory type that I had never encountered before in the digestive surgeries I have performed.”

Alejandro Goic

“Regarding the question of a possible intervention by third parties in the infection, I must point out that I cannot comment on that. Everything that happened in the post-operative period has a logical medical explanation without the need for external factors.”

Dr. Patricio Silva Garín

“Dr. Augusto Larraín was in favor of surgery; I was in favor of treating him medically, since the Barré ulcer, in my professional experience, improved with medication treatment.”

Dr. Eduardo Weinstein Baranovsky

“The degree of risk in those years with the patient’s condition of intestinal obstruction, the operative mortality could reach 60 percent. As a corollary to the sequence and complications that were occurring, I must point out that I attribute the main issue to the delay, despite the diagnosis that Dr.

Patricio Silva had given, in performing the intestinal obstruction operation. From there on, there is a whole sequence of a septic problem in an elderly man that ultimately triggered multisystem failure.”

Dr. Guillermo Steading Valenzuela

“My opinion is that when Frei was admitted for the second time to the clinic, he should have been operated on immediately and not waited for Dr. xx Larraín, who was outside of Santiago.”

Dr. Carlos Zavala Urzúa

“The evolution of Eduardo Frei Montalva was that of a very serious illness resulting from septic shock that occurs in a 72-year-old person and which has a high mortality rate.”

The DINA Clinic officials

Doctors

Jorge Fantini Osvaldo Leyton Bahamondes Horacio Taricco Lavín Vittorio Orvietto Juan Pablo Figueroa Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto Sergio Virgilio Bocaz Sergio Muñoz Bonta Christian Emhart Araya Camilia Azar Saba Jorge Bassa Salazar Rodrigo Vélez

Nurses-Assistants

María Eugenia Pérez Irma Aguilera Mitchel Jazna Larrecheda Valdés Fernanda Segura Jara Melanie Soto Cubillos

Civilian employees

Silvia Valdés Uribe Ramón Álvarez Martínez Luis Araya Aguayo Luis Espinoza Tapia Luis Orellana Lara Igor Poblete González Jorge Aceituno Cruz Alberto Arriagada Martínez Luis Barrera Fuentes Enrique Carreño Morales José Guerrero Guerrero Julio Huerta Gutiérrez Roberto Núñez Zenteno Carlos Pulgar Albornoz Claudio Sanhueza Sanhueza Jaime Leiva Olguín Andrés Naranjo Riquelme Lorenzo Toro Olivares

Military

Hernán Sovino, head of security Sergeant Major (R), Ramón Muñoz Rojas Sergeant Major (R) Raúl Cerda Sagardía (nurse) Sergeant Major (R) Leonel Martínez Faúndez Sergeant Major (R) Santiago Matteo Galleguillos Sub-officer (R) Luis Olguín Ortiz Sub-officer (R) Alfredo Naranjo Riquelme Sub-officer (R) Manuel Lucero (nurse) Sub-officer (R) Carlos Norambuena (nurse) Sub-officer (R) Oscar Aceituno Carvajal 1st Sergeant (R) Alfonso Bravo Cifuentes 1st Sergeant (R) Jorge Aravena 1st Sergeant (R) Delberto Esparza Lillo 1st Sergeant, Carabineros, Bernardo González González 2nd Sergeant Vicente Álvarez Ramírez FACH Sergeant, Luis Pechuante Núñez =====================================

Source: La Nación, August 27, 2006

DINA and CNI doctor operated on Eduardo Frei Montalva

December 6, 1981, marks the path to the death of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva. That day, Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, from the Military Hospital, took the helm of the decisive second operation. All the professionals he summoned to his team were military personnel, including one doctor, until now omitted, who belonged to the CNI; and an anesthesiologist with a history.

The reconstruction of those moments reveals that the men from Pinochet’s security services who surrounded Frei in his final days are united in a plot that involves several deaths that could well be clarified in the course of Minister Alejandro Madrid’s investigation. José Tohá’s is one of them.

It only takes a few minutes for Dr. Patricio Silva Garín to decide on that December 4, 1981, that Eduardo Frei Montalva must return immediately to the Santa María Clinic. 17 days have passed since the hiatal hernia operation he underwent at the same clinic, and there are clear symptoms of a relapse.

The first to be alerted are the agents of the CNI and the Anti-Terrorist Unit (UAT, of the Army Intelligence Directorate, DINE). They receive the information—among others—from Frei’s driver and trusted family man, Luis Becerra, who, since Frei became ill, has moved in and is present at all hours at the family home located on Calle Hindemburg.

At that moment, no one suspects that Becerra is a CNI agent.

Two days later, at 4:00 PM, the former President lies pale and feverish on the operating table. The second operation is about to begin. And this time, Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, who has just relieved surgeon Augusto Larraín Orrego, who directed the first intervention, takes the command post.

Beside him stands Dr. Eduardo Wainstein, a gastroenterological and cancer surgeon, and head of Surgery at the Military Hospital.

Only those two doctors appeared until now in that second and decisive operation on the former President. Inexplicably, the name of the third doctor whom Dr. Patricio Silva Garín personally summoned (discarding all the doctors who had previously participated in the team attending to Frei) was omitted.

But the team of police officers who, together with Minister Alejandro Madrid, is investigating the former President’s death, found him. And this was Rodrigo Vélez Fuenzalida, at that time an emergency surgeon at the Military Hospital, the Santa María Clinic, and also a CNI doctor.

Rodrigo Vélez, who joined the DINA in 1976 and remained in the CNI until at least 1982 and in the Army until 2004 (he currently works at the Dial Médica center in Providencia), participated in the operation that on December 6, 1981, marked a before and after in the life of Eduardo Frei Montalva. Also in his medical history.

The other men of the DINE

At 4:00 PM on December 6, 1981, the second intervention begins. Everything goes well except for a brief moment when Dr. Silva tries to separate the intestinal loops upon perceiving a plastron that compromised several of them. But he sutures, and shortly after, gives authorization for the patient to be moved to room 401.

The next morning, Dr. Alejandro Goic is called urgently: Dr. Carlos Zavala, from the Santa María Clinic, informs him that the former President is in septic shock. Another of the doctors from the same hospital establishment, Dr. Sergio Valdés, one of the most respected for his experience in Intensive Care, diagnoses that it is most likely that an infection has been caused in the abdominal cavity.

As has been demonstrated in the judicial investigation and also in the investigation carried out by the author of this report, Frei Montalva’s evolution is closely followed by agents of the CNI’s C1-2 Unit, whose primary mission in those days is to surround the Santa María Clinic to be informed step-by-step of what is happening.

They also have privileged informants, such as doctors Sergio Virgilio Bocaz, who works simultaneously at the CNI’s London Clinic (since 1976) and at the Santa María; and Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto, a CNI doctor who also works at the Santa María Clinic.

Valdivia was hired to attend to post-operative patients between 8:00 PM and 8:00 AM. For this reason, he has access at any hour of the night to room 401, Eduardo Frei’s room.

In fact, shortly before it was decided to relieve Dr. Augusto Larraín of his role as Frei’s head doctor, Dr. Pedro Valdivia examines the patient. He claims to have been summoned by nurse María Victoria Larraechea, sister-in-law of Eduardo Frei Jr.

But the sister of Marta Larraechea denies having called him. And later, minutes before Dr. Patricio Silva Garín assumes the main role among Frei’s doctors, witnesses will see Silva and Dr. Pedro Valdivia talking in a hallway.

Toxins in prison and at the Santa María

On December 8, it is decided to operate on Frei again. These are critical hours. Once again, surgeon Patricio Silva gives the go-ahead. It is exactly 7:30 PM. Outside, the calm rhythm of the city can be felt on a holiday.

But at the Santa María Clinic, there is anguish. In those precise hours, the former President’s family is unaware that a similar dramatic climate is taking hold of the prisoners in the Santiago Prison.

Two common criminals and four members of the MIR are also fighting between life and death: Ricardo and Elizardo Aguilera; the head of the MIR resistance militias, Guillermo Rodríguez Morales, and Adalberto Muñoz Jara; plus common prisoners Víctor Hugo Corvalán Castillo and Héctor Pacheco Díaz.

Only the political prisoners survive. Corvalán and Pacheco die of “nonspecific acute intoxication.” No analysis of their remains was ever performed. Later, it will be proven that it was an intoxication with botulinum toxins.

The same ones that the chemist Eugenio Berríos prepared in the DINA laboratory. And only in recent years will there be evidence that it was a deliberate contamination of their food to murder them. An operation directed from the DINE to avenge the MIR members accused of the murder of their DINA and DINE colleague, the anti-explosives expert Carlos Tapia, and Colonel Roger Vergara.

But at that moment, no one links both events. And the Frei Montalva family places the life of the Christian Democratic leader in the hands of a medical team with close ties to the prevailing military power and its most secret services.

The same ones that, after confirming the former President’s leadership as the main opponent to the plebiscite to ratify the 1980 Constitution, his incorporation as a member of the North-South Commission, the group of the most influential statesmen in the world headed by Willy Brandt; and his adherence to the group led by Tucapel Jiménez that is preparing a national strike, have identified him as the regime’s main enemy to be eliminated.

The hidden history of Patricio Silva

The head of the medical team is now Patricio Silva Garín, a member of the Military Hospital’s senior staff, brother-in-law and friend of Patricio Rojas, the loyal former minister of Frei. His presence in the military hierarchy since 1956 is not nominal. In 1966, he participated in two courses at the School of the Americas in Panama, a dark training center for Latin American repressors.

Silva liked military courses. In 1974, he took the “Information for Service Officers” course at the War Academy, where he had several notable classmates. Among them, Dr. Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, who after assuming command of the DINA’s London Clinic was Director of Army Health and Director of the Army Bacteriological Institute until 1990, when he was found in the basement of the Army Intelligence Brigade (BIE) on Calle García Reyes.

Also appearing in the same course are Dr. Sergio Rosende Oyarzo, from the same Army Bacteriological Laboratory, and doctors Horacio Taricco Lavín and Vitorio Orvietto, both directors of the DINA’s London Clinic; in addition to dentist Sergio Muñoz Bontá, from the same establishment.

When Dr. Patricio Silva has been asked about colleagues who participated in the security services, his response is that he knows nothing about that area. He also does not identify Dr. Rodrigo Vélez in that group.

And he prefers not to include Vélez among the doctors present at the decisive operation on Frei Montalva. He also does not know about the autopsy performed on the former President, about which he was informed by the very doctor who performed it: Dr. Helmar Rosenberg. Silva insists that he does not even know Rosenberg.

The truth is that Dr. Silva, the same one who was on “extra-institutional commission to the Army General Command” from April 1980 to July 1982, takes charge of deciding what will be done with patient Eduardo Frei Montalva in December 1981, having already had an important role in the as-yet-unclarified death of General Augusto Lutz, former Director of Army Intelligence, in 1974.

It was Silva himself who attended to Lutz when he suddenly fell ill in Punta Arenas, a place to which he was relegated by Pinochet in 1974, thus settling the dispute Lutz had with Manuel Contreras over the abuses of power by the DINA chief.

Silva diagnosed him with a gastric ulcer and accompanied him on the plane that brought him to the Military Hospital, where he operated on him. The anesthesiologist for that operation was Dr. Pedro Cubillos, who would fulfill the same function in two interventions on former President Eduardo Frei Montalva under the direction of Silva Garín.

Shortly after the intervention, on November 28, 1974, former Intelligence Director Augusto Lutz died under strange circumstances. “Get me out of here!” was the last sentence he managed to write on a piece of paper he had sent to one of his daughters before dying. He was 52 years old.

But by December 1981, Silva was already the protagonist of another dark episode, until now unknown and discovered by the team of police officers supporting Minister Alejandro Madrid. It was Dr. Silva himself who operated in 1975 on Salvador Allende’s former Minister of the Interior and Defense, José Tohá, when he was being interrogated by DINA commanders Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann and Marcelo Moren Brito, at the Military Hospital.

The operation took place shortly before Tohá died in a suicide that could be reclassified as homicide in the coming months.

The men of the siege on Frei

The men who surrounded Frei in his final days of life share a dark past. This is the case of Luis Becerra, his driver; of Raúl Lillo, one of the heads of the surveillance on Frei from the CNI and the DINE; of Dr.

Rodrigo Vélez Fuenzalida, the doctor who operates on him; and also Dr. Pedro Valdivia, who circulates on the same floor where the former President is hospitalized. The latter two attend to prisoners tortured at the CNI’s Borgoño barracks, and both know of another murder at the DINA’s London Clinic.

So much so that Valdivia will be prosecuted in 2007 as an accessory to the crime of DINA corporal Manuel Leyton, who was administered the deadly sarin gas—manufactured by Eugenio Berríos—so that he would not reveal to a judge who was going to interrogate him that they had thrown the bodies of the forcibly disappeared into the sea.

But in those days of December 1981, doctors Vélez and Valdivia, with their impeccable white coats, move without problems from the supervision of torture and the suturing of raped women to the delicate care of patients at the then-exclusive Santa María Clinic.

Eduardo Frei dies on January 22, 1982. A month later, union leader Tucapel Jiménez is murdered. The two main leaders of the opposition and organizers of the national strike with which it was thought the end of the dictatorship would be accelerated have disappeared from the scene.

In 1990, with democracy recovered, Minister Adolfo Bañados takes the trial for the assassination of Orlando Letelier into his hands and also decides to investigate the DINA’s operations in depth. It is then that the security circle around Pinochet is activated, which follows a continuous line from the DINA’s Mulchén Brigade, which was renamed the Anti-Terrorist Unit (UAT) in 1978, and then became the Intelligence Brigade (BIE).

But always under the dependence of the DINE.

Miguel Hernández and Raúl Lillo, protagonists of the surveillance on Frei and Tucapel Jiménez from the UAT and the CNI, have a new boss: Arturo Silva Valdés. It will be Silva Valdés and Francisco Ferrer Lima, convicted for the murder of Tucapel Jiménez, who will be in charge of taking Carlos Herrera Jiménez, author of the crime of Tucapel Jiménez, and Eugenio Berríos, the chemist who manufactured the toxins and lethal substances with which enemies like Eduardo Frei Montalva were eliminated, out of Chile to Uruguay.

Other men from the former Mulchén Brigade, such as Brigadier Jaime Lepe, Pinochet’s bodyguard and later Army Secretary General, will be in charge of blocking justice so that the secret operations of that elite unit, such as the murder of Carmelo Soria, remain in impunity.

They will also protect Sub-officer José Roa Vera, of the same secret DINE unit mentioned above, who was responsible for taking the botulinum toxins to the Public Prison in December 1981, with which they attempted to murder four members of the MIR on the same date that Frei was also agonizing.

Dr. Rodrigo Vélez (61 years old) will continue his career for many years without disturbances. But there is a piece of data, a small link that connects him to the hidden plot where the security services decided on the life and death of opponents to the military regime.

The event occurs in January 1993, the same year Eugenio Berríos was murdered in Uruguay, when this emergency surgeon was assigned to the Army Intelligence Directorate.

As for Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, his career has been in continuous ascent. In democracy, he was executive vice president of the National Defense Pension Fund (Capredena) and today is one of the most important advisors to the new Military Hospital.

His brother-in-law and friend, Patricio Rojas, cannot say the same. While attention is concentrated on the figure of Frei Montalva’s former Minister of the Interior, the demand made to him from Congress by the former President’s daughter, Carmen Frei, gains importance again: “Who is Patricio Rojas protecting?”

Source: CIPER, March 5, 2009

Pinochet allegedly kept the deadly botulinum toxins at La Moneda

According to the DPA agency, the vials that were destroyed at the Public Health Institute (ISP) in 2008 arrived in diplomatic pouches from Brazil under the pretext of being used for "antidotes."

The chemical weapons that Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) acquired for his internal and external war plans were delivered at the presidential palace of La Moneda (Santiago de Chile) itself, as confirmed by confidential police and judicial documents accessed today by the DPA agency.

The botulinum toxins, which were only destroyed in 2008 as DPA revealed this week, arrived in diplomatic pouches from Brazil, retired agents of the Army and the state-run Public Health Institute (ISP) admitted to the police.

In the statements, which are in the possession of the judiciary, official Marcos Poduje Frugone acknowledged that he went as a courier from the ISP to La Moneda to pick up a package that he later learned contained botulinum toxins.

Poduje Frugone assured the police that he delivered the toxins to the then-head of the ISP Department of Laboratories, Hernán Lobos, after retrieving them from an office that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had in La Moneda.

The operation, according to statements made to the police by the other individuals involved, took place at the beginning of the 1980s and prior to the poisoning of political prisoners with botulinum and the death of President Eduardo Frei in 1982, in whose remains mustard gas and thallium were found.

The director of the ISP himself during those years, Colonel Joaquín Larraín, acknowledged to the civil police in a signed text that the acquisition of chemical weapons began after a meeting with the physician Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, of military intelligence.

In the meeting, Arriagada asked Larraín, a former professor at the School of the Americas, if the ISP had botulinum toxins, claiming that the Army needed them due to tensions with neighboring countries, especially Argentina.

Arriagada, who was also accompanied at the meeting by the veterinarian Eduardo Rosende, also admitted the facts to the investigators, who carried out the inquiries at the request of Judge Alejandro Madrid.

The magistrate, who has spent years investigating the death of Frei and the poisoning of prisoners in the Cárcel Pública de Santiago, is expected to issue a sentence in both cases in the coming months.

Regarding the importation of the chemical substances to Chile from Brazil, the version provided by the agents and officials is that the botulinum toxins were to be used to generate antidotes.

These antidotes would be produced—according to that version from the repressive agents—by the Army's secret Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory, in light of the fear of border conflicts.

This week, the director of the Public Health Institute (ISP) between 2007 and 2010, Ingrid Heitmann, revealed to DPA that professionals at the center found two boxes full of vials containing botulinum in 2008, in the refrigerators in the ISP basement.

The event was never reported to the then-government of the socialist leader Michelle Bachelet or to the judiciary, which was investigating the destination of the botulinum during those years.

Heitmann's version suggests that several boxes containing chemical weapons entered Chile during those years, unlike the information gathered by the police, which speaks of one box that was sent to Army facilities.

Director Heitmann's account admits to the discovery of two boxes at the ISP itself, located next to the busy Estadio Nacional.

Source: Soychile.cl, August 24, 2013

He will remain out of the Medical Association: Court rejects appeal from doctor convicted of poisoning

Eduardo Arriagada Rehren was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Minister Alejandro Madrid, which led to his expulsion from the Medical Association.

In 2017, Dr. Eduardo Arriagada Rehren was sentenced in the first instance, along with veterinarian Sergio Rosende Ollarzú, to 20 years in prison for the qualified homicide of two inmates in 1981. This took place within the framework of the case led by visiting judge Alejandro Madrid regarding the poisoning of inmates at the former Cárcel Pública.

As a result of this conviction, on April 17 of this year, the former Army member was notified of his expulsion from the Medical Association, following a decision by the organization's Ethics Tribunal.

Considering that through his defense, Arriagada Rehren appealed to the Court of Appeals regarding the conviction issued by Minister Madrid, he also decided to file an injunction (recurso de protección) aimed at overturning his expulsion from the Medical Association.

Although he indicated that with said disciplinary measure "an arbitrary and illegal act has been committed" that "deprives and disturbs" him in the exercise of his constitutional rights, his action was ultimately rejected by the Second Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals.

In a unanimous ruling, the illegality of the determination made by the entity presided over by Izkia Siches was ruled out, as "the decision challenged through this path was issued by virtue of the powers vested in the respondent, which naturally makes it legal."

"Likewise, it has become clear that the expulsion action appears rational and supported by sufficient motivations that are appropriate, as well as endowed with justification and legitimacy; it is a different matter that the appellant does not share these or agree with the merit of the same, which is certainly not the scope of this constitutional action, and therefore it cannot prosper," the ruling adds.

Due to the crimes for which Eduardo Arriagada Rehren was being investigated, in 2014 he was the target of the Comisión Funa, an entity that decided to take action against him for being a member of the DINA Health Brigade.

Source: latercera.cl, October 24, 2018

Retired Army officer convicted for the 1973 homicide of radio announcer Archibaldo Morales

Eduardo Arriagada Rehren received a seven-year sentence.

Visiting judge Mario Carroza sentenced retired Army officer Eduardo Arriagada Rehren to 7 years in prison. The reason is his responsibility in the homicide of radio announcer Archibaldo Morales Villanueva, at the "Colchagua" regiment in San Fernando, in October 1973.

The magistrate convicted the brigadier for the murder of the man who was also the owner of a local newspaper, who was detained in Santiago in September of that year, days after the military coup. The communicator was taken to San Fernando, where he remained detained incommunicado and under torture.

Detention of Archibaldo Morales in 1973

"On September 26, 1973, Archibaldo Morales Villanueva, an announcer for Radio San Fernando, was detained along with his friend Eva Valiente Espinoza, at her home, located at Calle Curicó N° 33, second floor, apartment A in the city of Santiago, by the Mobile Prefecture of Special Services of the Investigative Police," following an order from Colonel Hernán Brantes Martínez—now deceased—who was in command of the N° 19 "Colchagua" Regiment.

The ruling explains that Morales and Valiente were at the Investigative Headquarters in Santiago. That was until they were transferred to the city of San Fernando on September 29.

"The detainee Archibaldo Morales, known in the area as 'Chito Morales,' once interrogated, was transferred to the San Fernando Public Jail, where he remained incommunicado for about 43 days, suffering in the meantime duress, torture, and interrogations at the Military Prosecutor's Office," it indicates.

A month of torture

The text specifies that Archibaldo's death occurred in October, when they attempted to add him to a line, along with a group of detainees who were waiting to be interrogated by Prosecutor Ramírez.

The victim, showing evident signs of torture, fainted at that moment and was taken to the infirmary of the military facility, where he would be attended to by the Regiment's doctor, the health officer and member of the CIE, Eduardo Adolfo Arriagada Rehren.

After examining him, the physician decided to inject him with a medication composed of dipyridamole, with the purpose of causing a myocardial infarction. Morales Villanueva's condition worsened and he died moments later, while he was being transferred to the San Fernando Hospital, as was maintained in the forensic medical report.

Cause of death

"Considering the result of the toxicological examination that established the presence of barbiturates and persantin (dipyridamole) in the bone samples of Archibaldo Morales Villanueva, the participation of third parties in the events that determined the victim's death cannot be ruled out, since the affected party was inside a penitentiary facility, at least 43 days prior to his death.

That the death of Archibaldo Morales Villanueva occurred while he was in the status of a detainee and under the custody of State agents, so his death corresponds to be classified—from a forensic medical point of view—as a death in custody."

The death certificate indicates as the cause of his death Cardiac Arrest and Myocardial Infarction on November 12, 1973, at 13:10 hours," they detail in the report.

Also, the convicted party and the Treasury were sentenced to pay a total compensation of $192 million to the victims' relatives.

Source: publimetro.cl, September 23, 2019

Supreme Court confirms expulsion from the Medical Association of former director of the sinister DINA London Clinic who had requested his reinstatement

Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, a pediatrician with a specialty in pediatric bronchopulmonary medicine, was expelled from the order for crimes against humanity. Minister Alejandro Madrid, the same one from the case of the assassination of Eduardo Frei Montalva, convicted him in the first instance for poisoning common prisoners and militants of the MIR held in the former Cárcel Pública in 1981.

In a unanimous ruling, the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that rejected the injunction filed against the Medical Association by Dr. Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, who sought to reverse his expulsion from the professional order.

Arriagada is a pediatrician, with a specialty in pediatric bronchopulmonary medicine, and has a sinister record during the Dictatorship, to the point that he is convicted by Minister Alejandro Madrid—the same one from the ruling regarding the assassination of Eduardo Frei Montalva—for the poisoning of common prisoners and militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in the former Cárcel Pública in 1981.

It is a first-instance conviction to 20 years in prison dating from April 3, 2017, as the perpetrator of crimes against humanity for two qualified homicides and five other frustrated homicides in the defunct Cárcel Pública. In that instance, veterinarian Sergio Rosende Ollarzú was also convicted. The sentence is not final.

In the resolution, where the Medical Association justifies the expulsion of Dr. Eduardo Arriagada from the order, it is pointed out that his "activities carried out at the time the events that form the basis of his 20-year prison sentence occurred, according to his own statements and beyond his participation in the homicides for which he was convicted, are sufficient proof that he completely departed from the practice of Medicine to engage in activities unrelated to the purposes of this profession, seriously violating medical ethics."

Link to the Frei case

But Arriagada's trajectory during the Dictatorship, who holds the rank of retired general, goes further, because he was also director of Army Health, director of the Bacteriological Institute of the same institution, and was in command of the DINA's London Clinic.

This clandestine facility, located at Calle Almirante Barroso N° 162, in the center of Santiago, served as a clandestine clinic and was linked to different acts of torture and disappearances during the era of political repression.

The London Clinic intersects with the Frei case, as the group of doctors who worked at the Santa María Clinic who attended to the former president worked there.

In fact, Arriagada testified in the framework of the Frei case, after the former president's family mentioned him, along with the DINA Laboratory, as suspects due to his expertise in the bacteriological field and the evidence regarding the use of poisons in the assassination.

In fact, Minister Madrid's ruling on the Frei case mentions Arriagada's statement, noting that the doctor "requested authorization to ask for an interview with Mr. Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle, to clarify his null participation in his father's death.

That the interview was denied to him, for which he called Dr. Patricio Silva by phone so that he could make contact with Mr. Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle's secretary, or with the family, to which Dr. Silva replied that he no longer had any contact with said family and proceeded to give him his version of the events, which he made known to the Tribunal.

That it was the only time he made telephone contact with him and he places on record that subsequently the person who received him was the lawyer Álvaro Varela."

"Justification and legitimacy" of the expulsion

In the resolution, which keeps the former DINA doctor expelled from the association to which he belonged for more than 40 years, the Supreme Court chamber, composed of ministers Sergio Muñoz, María Eugenia Sandoval, Ricardo Blanco, Arturo Prado, and Ángela Vivanco, ratified the sentence of the Court of Appeals that dismissed the precautionary action filed by the professional's defense.

In his appeal, the doctor alleged that his expulsion constitutes an "arbitrary and illegal act that deprives and disturbs his client in the exercise of the constitutional rights established in Article 19 N° 3 paragraphs 5 and 6 and, N° 4, respectively, of the Political Constitution of the Republic."

However, in the ruling, the Supreme Court ministers estimate that "it has become clear that the expulsion action appears rational and supported by sufficient motivations that are appropriate, as well as endowed with justification and legitimacy."

Likewise, the ministers warn about a procedural formality, pointing out that "the appropriate way to challenge the respondent's resolution, just as the Political Constitution of the Republic provides, is the appeal, and not this precautionary action."

Source: elmostrador.cl, March 5, 2019

Sentence increased against dictatorship doctor who killed well-known radio announcer by administering a fatal injection

The Court established that Colonel (ret.) Eduardo Arriagada Rehren supplied Persantin to the detainee Archibaldo Morales in 1973, knowing that the condition in which the torture had left him could imply his death.

The Santiago Court of Appeals increased from 7 to 10 years and one day in prison the sentence that the retired Army colonel and doctor Eduardo Adolfo Arriagada Rehren must serve, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the consummated crime of qualified homicide of radio announcer Archibaldo Morales Villanueva, a crime perpetrated in November 1973 in the city of San Fernando, O'Higgins Region.

In a unanimous ruling, the Seventh Chamber of the appellate court modified the sentence that had been imposed by visiting judge Mario Carroza, by rejecting that the mitigating circumstance of substantial collaboration in the clarification of the facts by the specialist applies in this case.

Carroza took as established that on September 26, 1973, the Radio San Fernando announcer, Archibaldo Morales, was detained in Santiago by the Investigative Police and transferred three days later to San Fernando.

After being interrogated, Morales was taken to the San Fernando Public Jail, where he was held incommunicado for about 43 days, "suffering in the meantime duress, torture, and interrogations at the Military Prosecutor's Office," which operated in the N° 19 Colchagua Regiment, in charge of Juan Ramírez Rojas.

Days later, already in the month of October, while waiting in the regiment's guardroom to be interrogated by Prosecutor Ramírez—"with evident signs of having been tortured"—he tried to join the line of detainees, but he fainted, being taken to the infirmary of the military facility.

There he was attended to by the regiment's doctor, the health officer and member of the Army Intelligence Corps (CIE), the aforementioned Dr. Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, who—as the ruling established—"after examining him, adopts the decision to inject him intravenously with a medication composed of dipyridamole, with the purpose of causing a reaction of the myocardial infarction he was feeling, but Morales Villanueva, as a result of that drug, worsened and died moments later, when he was being transferred to the San Fernando Hospital, as was maintained in the forensic medical report."

In that sense, the judicial resolution emphasizes that "the background of the process shows that the accused Arriagada had full knowledge of Mr. Morales's deprivation of liberty, since his assistant was the latter's partner, and he habitually asked him about his state."

On the other hand, it is pointed out that he knew who the detainee was because it was "a well-known journalist from the area, announcer of a radio program, who constantly criticized his management as director of the Chimbarongo Hospital," and that "he knew the victim's physical condition as a result of the torture, which was, according to witnesses, evident and notorious."

The latter acquired relevance for Judge Carroza when issuing the sentence, under the argument that as "someone knowledgeable of the situation affecting the victim (torture and permanent confinement, for a prolonged period, with the subsequent level of tension that this naturally entails in a person), he decided to inject him with the medication called Persantin (...), knowing the imminent reaction it would cause in him, precisely given the profession he practiced."

Along with this, the ruling also warns that Dr. Eduardo Arriagada introduced said medication into the jail on his own initiative, because it "was not in the Health Service of the O'Higgins area."

Finally, it is highlighted in the resolution that "the fact that (the medication) still remains in the victim's remains shows that the quantity inoculated was clearly excessive, considering the physical conditions of the victim, known by Arriagada, so what was alleged by his defense does not result acceptable, in the sense that he limited himself to acting in his capacity as a doctor, with no homicidal intent existing."

In the civil aspect, the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals increased to $300,000,000 the compensation that the Treasury and the convicted party must pay jointly and severally to the victim's children.

Source: lavozdelosquesobran.cl, September 29, 2021

Santiago Court convicts former military doctor for qualified homicide of journalist in San Fernando in 1973

The Santiago Court of Appeals increased to 10 years and one day in prison the sentence that Eduardo Adolfo Arriagada Rehren, former Army officer, former Health general, and former doctor, must serve, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the consummated crime of qualified homicide of journalist Archibaldo Morales Villanueva, committed in the city of San Fernando, Colchagua province, in November 1973.

Archibaldo Morales, 43 years old, was a recognized communist militant who worked as an announcer at Radio Manuel Rodríguez, a reporter at the Diario La Región, and creator of the newspaper "El Guerrillero," all public media outlets in the city of San Fernando at that time.

From those platforms, he demonstrated his unrestricted support for the government of Salvador Allende and criticized the reactionary uprisings of the right and the attacks of far-right terrorist bands that operated in the central part of the country.

For the same reason, once the military coup that overthrew the popular government occurred, he began to be sought by the repressive forces and civilians of the right. Archibaldo took refuge in the house of a friend in the city of Santiago; however, he was detained at this residence on September 26, 1973, by repressive agents sent from San Fernando.

They transferred him to the Colchagua city where they admitted him as a detainee to the N° 19 "Colchagua" Mountain Regiment.

In this military facility, he was subjected to constant and brutal torture by repressive agents of the Military Intelligence Service and the Army Intelligence Command (CIE) to which the then-doctor with the rank of Health Major Eduardo Arriagada Rehren belonged.

This individual, until the military coup, served as director of the Chimbarongo Hospital and had received complaints accused of medical negligence for the death of a patient in the waiting room of the healthcare establishment. From the Radio where he worked, Archivaldo Morales was in charge of confronting the deficient service of Dr. Arriagada.

In subsequent weeks, the detainee Archibaldo Morales was transferred and admitted as a detainee and incommunicado to the San Fernando Jail, from where prisoners were taken to be tortured or interrogated by intelligence agents or the prosecutor's office.

Morales died inside the "Colchagua" Regiment, on November 12, 1973, where he had been taken at the end of October to be supposedly interrogated by the Military Prosecutor.

Subjected to brutal torture, he did not return to the public jail. He died under the custody of Arriagada, who administered an injection of "Persantin," a drug that caused his almost immediate death as a consequence of various physiological disorders caused by the medication.

The toxicological examinations carried out in the course of the recent judicial investigation on the victim's remains established the presence of pentothal and persantin, which demonstrates the participation of third parties in his death, concludes the Santiago Court.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 6.494-2019), the Seventh Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Lilian Leyton, Alberto Amiot, and the lawyer (i) Jorge Norambuena—increased to 10 years and one day in prison the 7-year sentence that had been imposed on him by visiting judge Mario Carroza, by rejecting that the mitigating circumstance of substantial collaboration in the clarification of the facts applies in this case.

The medication called persantin was a product that was not available in the Health Service of the Colchagua and O'Higgins area, but rather irregularly and by his own decision, the individual Arriagada Rehren obtained it from strange sources outside the area, introduced it into the military facility, and administered it to Archibaldo Morales knowing the consequences it would cause in the victim.

This way of operating of the former doctor reveals his early relationships with the CIE facilities dedicated to producing chemical elements to attack people who were the object of his repressive actions and his criminal ends.

A similar criminal exercise with chemical elements was developed by this individual, a former doctor, in December 1981 when he poisoned seven political prisoners in the Santiago Public Jail by injecting botulinum toxin into food that would be ingested by the victims.

The criminal action caused the death of two prisoners and left five other political prisoners of the dictatorship seriously injured and with severe consequences.

For the criminal action in the Public Jail in 1981, Arriagada Rehren was convicted in February 2017 in a first-instance ruling to 20 years in prison by Minister Alejandro Madrid; this sentence was reduced to 15 years in prison by the Court of Appeals in January of this year.

With a criminal performance that he prolonged throughout the dictatorship, this individual was successively promoted until reaching the rank of Army general with which he went into retirement.

This former general, former criminal agent, former doctor, whose record continues to develop, was expelled from the Medical Association on July 18, 2018.

Source: resumen.cl, September 30, 2021

Supreme Court confirms convictions of former DINE agents for poisoning political prisoners in the Santiago Public Jail in 1981

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals in form and substance filed against the sentence that convicted former Army officers and members of the DINE for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of qualified homicide of Víctor Hugo Corvalán Castillo and Héctor Walter Pacheco Díaz; and in the frustrated crimes of qualified homicide of Guillermo Rodríguez Morales, Ricardo Antonio Aguilera Morales, Elizardo Enrique Aguilera Morales, Adalberto Muñoz Jara, and Rafael Enrique Garrido Ceballos, prisoners of the former Santiago Public Jail, who were poisoned by DINE agents in December 1981.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 36.753-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Andrea Muñoz, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, María Teresa Letelier, and the lawyer (i) Pía Tavolari—ruled out error in the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which convicted the surgeon and former Army general Eduardo Adolfo Arriagada Rehren; the veterinarian and former Army colonel Sergio Eduardo Rosende Ollarzú; the former Army lieutenant colonel Jaime Fuenzalida Bravo; and the former colonel Joaquín Larraín Gana to sentences of 15 years and one day in prison, in their capacity as perpetrators of the seven crimes, as crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, the then-warden of the penal facility, Ronald Carlos Nemesio Bennett Ramírez, was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison, as an accomplice to the illicit acts.

Botulinum toxin

In the judicial investigation and in the first-degree ruling, the visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals Alejandro Madrid Crohare shows with certainty the actions and the purpose pursued by the agents of the dictatorship. Among them the following background:

In the month of December 1981, the militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) Guillermo Rodríguez Morales, and the sympathizers of said political group Adalberto Muñoz Jara, Ricardo Antonio Aguilera Morales, and Elizardo Enrique Aguilera Morales, were being held in gallery N° 2 of the Former Public Jail of Santiago, who shared in the so-called 'carreta,' the food that was brought to them by their families with the common defendants Víctor Hugo Corvalán Castillo and Héctor Walter Pacheco Díaz, resulting in that starting on December 7, 1981, they began to present serious problems in their state of health, for which, at 15:30 hours on the aforementioned day, the aforementioned inmates were admitted to the prison infirmary.

The substance that caused the poisoning of the aforementioned inmates was obtained by the Bacteriological Institute, because it had been requested by the director of that institute to the corresponding laboratory in Brazil, being then sent via diplomatic pouch to Chile, received at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, subsequently, received in a secret Army laboratory located at Calle Carmen N° 339, which depended on the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE); said substance being then introduced into the Former Public Jail of Santiago, located at Calle General Mackenna, in that city.

The described facts allow it to be legally established that, with the purpose of proceeding to the physical and imperceptible elimination of opponents of the military regime, a 'special intelligence operation' was carried out that ended with the death of the inmates Víctor Hugo Corvalán Castillo and Héctor Walter Pacheco Díaz, who were being tried for common crimes and were being held in gallery N° 2 of the Former Public Jail, their death occurring due to the ingestion of food contaminated with the so-called 'botulinum toxin.' This toxin was brought into the country by the public service in charge of watching over the health of the population and, previously, delivered to those in charge of a secret laboratory under the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE).

On the other hand, the inmates affected by the ingestion of food contaminated with the toxin Guillermo Rodríguez Morales, Ricardo Aguilera Morales, Elizardo Aguilera Morales, Adalberto Muñoz Jara, and Rafael Enrique Garrido Ceballos, suffered serious injuries produced by the toxin, managing to survive—despite the delay in aid—due to the timely and accurate diagnosis of the cause of the poisoning.

This aid was followed by the treatments that were provided to them and the application of the respective antitoxin; in this way, the result sought by the criminal agents did not occur, avoiding the consummation of the murder for reasons independent of the will of the agents.

The fact of not adopting the necessary measures to avoid the introduction of highly toxic substances, as well as the delay in the transfer from the penitentiary hospital of the aforementioned inmates to an adequate hospital center, constitutes an affectation of their rights and evidences a serious willful omission of the duty of care that fell upon the Warden of the Former Public Jail.

Subsequently, the transfer of all the intoxicated persons to the Hospital of the Social Readaptation Center of Santiago (CERESO) was ordered, a situation that was reported to the Third Criminal Court of that city on December 10, 1981, noting that the inmate Víctor Hugo Corvalán Castillo had died in the transfer from the Santiago Penitentiary.

Once the inmates were received at the aforementioned Hospital, they were attended to by a specialist doctor who diagnosed "Botulinum intoxication," with the intoxicated inmates having to be transferred to the Intensive Care unit of the Santiago Public Assistance.

However, on December 20, 1981, the death of the detainee Héctor Walter Pacheco Díaz at the Central Posta was reported, as a consequence of his seriousness.

The other poisoned prisoners managed to survive the assassination attempt but were left with consequences of varying consideration and for life.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, January 3, 2024

Supreme Court confirms conviction of former Army officer for crime of radio journalist in San Fernando in 1973

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted the former Army health officer, the doctor Eduardo Adolfo Arriagada Rehren, for his responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified homicide of radio announcer Archibaldo Morales Villanueva, committed in November 1973, in the commune of San Fernando, Colchagua province.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 88.739-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of minister María Teresa Letelier, minister Jean Pierre Matus, minister Dobra Lusic, and the lawyers (i) Pía Tavolari and Andrea Ruiz—rejected the appeals in form and substance filed by the defense of the former Army Health general, and confirmed the sentence that condemns him to the penalty of 10 years and one day of effective prison, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime.

This individual was convicted for other crimes committed against political prisoners in the Santiago Public Jail in 1981. For that criminal action, Arriagada Rehren was sentenced to the penalty of 15 years and one day in prison in a ruling ratified by the Supreme Court in December 2023.

After that sentence, Arriagada Rehren evaded the action of justice and declared himself a fugitive, but was captured in June of this year, 2024, and is currently imprisoned in a penitentiary facility.

Tortured and murdered

Archibaldo Morales, 43 years old, was a recognized communist militant who worked as an announcer at Radio Manuel Rodríguez, a reporter at the Diario La Región, and creator of the newspaper "El Guerrillero," all public media outlets in the city of San Fernando at that time.

From those platforms, he demonstrated his unrestricted support for the government of Salvador Allende and criticized the reactionary uprisings of the right and the attacks of far-right terrorist bands that operated in the central part of the country.

For the same reason, once the military coup that overthrew the popular government occurred, he began to be sought by the repressive forces and civilians of the right. Archivaldo took refuge in the house of a friend in the city of Santiago; however, he was detained at this residence on September 26, 1973, by repressive agents sent from San Fernando.

They transferred him to the Colchagua city where they admitted him as a detainee to the N° 19 "Colchagua" Mountain Regiment.

In this military facility, he was subjected to constant and brutal torture by repressive agents of the Military Intelligence Service and the Army Intelligence Command (CIE) to which the then-doctor with the rank of Health Major Eduardo Arriagada Rehren belonged.

This individual, until the military coup, served as director of the Chimbarongo Hospital and had received complaints accused of medical negligence for the death of a patient in the waiting room of the healthcare establishment. From the Radio where he worked, Archivaldo Morales was in charge of confronting the deficient service of Dr. Arriagada Rehren.

In subsequent weeks, the detainee Archibaldo Morales was transferred and admitted as a detainee and incommunicado to the San Fernando Jail, from where prisoners were taken to be tortured or interrogated by intelligence agents or the prosecutor's office.

Archivaldo Morales died inside the "Colchagua" Regiment, on November 12, 1973, where he had been taken at the end of October to be supposedly interrogated by the Military Prosecutor. Subjected to brutal torture, he did not return to the public jail.

He died under the custody of Arriagada, who administered an injection of "Persantin," a drug that caused his almost immediate death as a consequence of various physiological disorders caused by the medication.

The toxicological examinations carried out in the course of the recent judicial investigation on the victim's remains established the presence of pentothal and persantin, which demonstrates the participation of third parties in his death, according to what was established by the judicial investigation and the ruling of the case.

The medication called persantin was a product that was not available in the Health Service of the Colchagua and O'Higgins area, but rather irregularly and by his own decision, the individual Arriagada Rehren obtained it from strange sources outside the area, introduced it into the military facility, and administered it to Archibaldo Morales knowing the consequences it would cause in the victim.

This way of operating of the former doctor reveals his early relationships with the CIE facilities dedicated to producing chemical elements to attack people who were the object of his repressive actions and his criminal ends.

A similar criminal exercise with chemical elements was developed by this individual, a former doctor, in December 1981 when he poisoned seven political prisoners in the Santiago Public Jail by injecting botulinum toxin into food that would be ingested by the victims.

The criminal action caused the death of two prisoners and left five other political prisoners of the dictatorship seriously injured and with severe consequences.

With a criminal performance that he prolonged throughout the dictatorship, this individual was successively promoted until reaching the rank of Health general in the Army, a rank with which he retired.

This former general, former criminal agent, former doctor, whose record continues to develop, was expelled from the Medical Association on July 18, 2018.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, November 7, 2024