The special judge (ministro de fuero) Juan Guzmán Tapia issued indictments for human rights violations that occurred in Tocopilla, and prosecuted former Carabineros Luciano Astete Almendras, who was the prefect of Tocopilla, and Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery, who served as the military prosecutor for the Carabineros, for the crimes of repeated aggravated homicide.

The indictment states that there are well-founded presumptions to establish the participation as perpetrators by the former members of the security forces in the homicides of Julio Brewe Torres, Claudio Tognola Ríos, Agustín Villaroel Carmona, Carlos Garay Benavides, Freddy Araya Figueroa, Reinaldo Aguirre Prudena, Luis Segovia Villalobos, Ernesto Moreno Díaz, Iván Morán Araya, Carlos Gallegos Sántis, Breno Cuevas Díaz, and Vicente Cepeda Soto.

The homicides of these individuals took place in the port of Tocopilla between September 18 and October 23, 1973. Many of them were disguised as false confrontations.

Source: El Mostrador, July 17, 2002

Bail denied for former military prosecutor, Juan de Dios Salazar

The retired officer was prosecuted last week, along with the former Carabineros prefect, Luciano Astete Almendras, by special judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, on charges of homicide and kidnapping committed against 12 people in 1973.

The Second Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals today denied bail for the former military prosecutor of the Second Region, retired captain Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery. The retired officer was prosecuted last week, along with the former Carabineros prefect, Luciano Astete Almendras, by special judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, on charges of homicide and kidnapping committed against 12 people in Tocopilla between September 18 and October 23, 1973.

According to the indictment, Astete and Salazar killed twelve people with firearms. Six of the victims died at the "La Veleidora" mine, located thirty kilometers east of Tocopilla, four died in the jail of the same city, and two other bodies were delivered to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada hospital.

Since 1991, the bodies of these twelve victims began to be found, identified as Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Félix Álex Araya Figueroa, Reinaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Luis Orosimbo Segovia Villalobos, Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz, Iván Florencio Morán Araya, Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis, Bruno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, and Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto.

The two individuals prosecuted as authors of repeated aggravated homicide are being held at the Carabineros Police Training School. The appellate court was composed of judges Sergio Valenzuela Patino, Lamberto Cisternas, and the presiding lawyer, Domingo Hernández.

Source: emol.cl, July 23, 2002

Special Judge Juan Guzmán Case file No. 2182-98 Case regarding the homicide of 12 people in Tocopilla

A1. Special Judge Juan Guzmán Case file No. 2182-98: Against A. Pinochet and others O. Case regarding the homicide of 12 people in Tocopilla, September 18 and October 23, 1973 July 23, 2002: The Second Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals denied bail for Captain (ret.) Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery.

July 16, 2002: The victims are: Julio Brewe Torres, Claudio Togñola Ríos, Agustín de la Cruz Villaroel, Carlos Garay Benavides, Freddy Araya Figueroa, Reinaldo Aguirre Pruneda, Luis Segovia Villalobos, Ernesto Moreno Díaz, Iván Mora Araya, Carlos Gallegos Santis, Breno Cuevas Díaz, and Vicente Cepeda Soto.

Judge Guzmán indicted former Military Prosecutor (ret.) Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery and Prefect (ret.) Luciano Astete Almendras, both belonging to the Carabineros, as perpetrators of the crimes of repeated aggravated homicide.

Source: fasic.org, July 16, 2002

Those prosecuted for Tocopilla crimes spent New Year's at home

Two former Carabineros prosecuted as perpetrators of 12 homicides committed at the Tocopilla police station in 1973 managed to spend only five months detained in Punta Peuco. The Santiago Court of Appeals took pity on them during the year-end festivities, and despite previous denials based on the finding that they constituted a danger to society, in December the Second Chamber granted them the benefit of house arrest.

The former Carabineros Prosecutor, Colonel (ret.) Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery, and the Prefect (ret.) Luciano Astete Almendras were able to spend New Year's at home thanks to the decision made on December 27 by the appellate court chamber, presided over by Judge Sergio Valenzuela Patiño and composed of two presiding lawyers.

Salazar and Astete were prosecuted by Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia on July 16, 2002, as alleged perpetrators of twelve homicides. The case regarding the crimes in Tocopilla is currently in the hands of Judge Daniel Calvo, who took over the investigation following the reorganization of the cases being instructed by Judge Guzmán.

Judge Calvo had systematically refused to grant the benefit of bail requested by the defense of the accused, led by lawyer Carlos Portales, and the Court had ratified his decision on other occasions. But this time, the arrival of the New Year was a factor to be considered by the appellate court chamber, which found a Solomonic solution for those dates: a return home.

The members of that body also considered the age of the accused (Salazar is nearly 80 years old) and some health reports that did not account for any real need for transfer. The history of the benefit granted to the former Carabineros is full of ironies, as most of the dead from Tocopilla could never be seen by their relatives, and some were allowed visits for only three minutes during the entire time they were held in detention.

On October 23, 1973, the following were executed at the Tocopilla Police Station: Julio Brewe Torres, Claudio Togñola Ríos, Agustín de la Cruz Villaroel, Carlos Garay Benavides, Freddy Araya Figueroa, Reinaldo Aguirre Pruneda, Luis Segovia Villalobos, Ernesto Moreno Díaz, Iván Mora Araya, Carlos Gallegos Santis, Breno Cuevas Díaz, and Vicente Cepeda Soto.

Julio Brewe, 26 years old at the time of his death, was a teacher, union leader, and socialist militant. He was detained when he voluntarily presented himself at the Tocopilla Police Station on September 18, remaining held in that facility without the right to visits until the day of his homicide.

Claudio Tognola—an obstetrician, married, father of four, and leader of the Socialist Party—was detained at his home on September 16, 1973, by the Chief of Investigations of Tocopilla, along with a military patrol.

He remained held at the Tocopilla Carabineros Station and in the city's jail. In the first days of October 1973, he was taken to an abandoned mine located 15 kilometers north of Tocopilla, along with Luis Segovia, Carlos Garay, Freddy Araya, and Reinaldo Aguirre.

All of them were killed on that date. Carlos Gallegos, 30 years old, was a teacher and socialist militant. He had been detained on September 17 near his home and taken to the Tocopilla Police Station, where he remained without the right to be visited until the date of his death.

Breno Cuevas, 45 years old, was a health inspector and socialist militant. He was detained on September 16, 1973, at his home by Carabineros and taken to the Tocopilla Police Station, where he remained held there and also in the Public Jail.

He was never permitted to receive visits. Vicente Cepeda was 31 years old, a surgeon, director of the Codelco polyclinic, and a socialist militant. He was detained on September 20 by Carabineros who took him to the police station, where he remained until his death, without the right to be visited.

Source: El Mostrador, January 14, 2003

Special Judge Mario Carroza issues new indictment against prisoner who participated in the mass of forgiveness at Punta Peuco

Special Judge Mario Carroza issued an indictment against retired Army members Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Roberto Merino Merino, Patricio Silva Abarca, and Patricio Silva Garín, as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Gonzalo Toro Garland, an illicit act perpetrated starting August 4, 1974, in the commune of Providencia, as recorded by the Judiciary.

It should be remembered that Carevic is being held in Punta Peuco and his family was part of the controversial mass held last Friday at the prison, where Manuel is being held for the disappearance of Air Force conscript Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez, a case to which the new indictment will be added.

At the ecumenical act, they did not refer to the human rights violations caused by Carevic, but rather to the figure of his brother, Pedro, who died in an attack carried out at the offices of the CNI. During the investigation stage, the visiting judge managed to determine that Toro Garland was detained by personnel of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) on April 4, 1974, in front of the Main House of the University of Chile, an operation in which he was wounded and taken to the Military Hospital, a facility where he was hospitalized until August 4, 1974, the date from which his whereabouts remain unknown. Other indictments Mario Carroza also issued indictments against retired members of the Carabineros and the Army for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated homicide and aggravated kidnapping, perpetrated in Tocopilla between September and October 1973 by Luciano Astete Almendras, Alex Cantín Leyton, Humberto Fuentes Morales, Gilberto Egaña García, Manuel Guillén Muñoz, José Fuentes Berrocal, Ricardo Gómez Centella, Sergio Mendez Henríquez, Nelson Ávalos Rauld, Hernán Salinas Solari, and Osvaldo Carmona Otero, whom he indicated as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated homicide, and against Raúl Almonacid Valdivia, as an accomplice. The group of former Carabineros would have responsibility for the homicides of Iván Morán Araya, Ernesto Moreno Díaz, Claudio Tognola Ríos, Carlos Garay Benavides, Luis Segovia Villalobos, Agustín Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Araya Figueroa, Julio Brewe Torres, Breno Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Gallegos Santis. These illicit acts were perpetrated between September and October 1973 in the city of Tocopilla, Antofagasta Region. According to the information gathered in the investigation, the victims were detained by Carabineros personnel at their homes and taken to the First Police Station of Tocopilla, where they remained in cells until they were taken to different mines in the area to be executed.

Source: eldescocierto.cl, December 29, 2016

Special Judge Mario Carroza issues indictment against Carabineros and military (ret.) for homicides in Tocopilla and kidnapping in Santiago

The special visiting judge for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, issued separate indictments against retired members of the Carabineros and the Army for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated homicide and aggravated kidnapping, perpetrated in Tocopilla and Santiago, respectively.

In the first resolution (case file 2182-1998), the special judge issued an indictment against Luciano Astete Almendras, Alex Cantín Leyton, Humberto Fuentes Morales, Gilberto Egaña García, Manuel Guillén Muñoz, José Fuentes Berrocal, Ricardo Gómez Centella, Sergio Mendez Henríquez, Nelson Ávalos Rauld, Hernán Salinas Solari, and Osvaldo Carmona Otero, as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated homicide; and against Raúl Almonacid Valdivia, as an accomplice.

This group of former Carabineros would have responsibility for the homicides of Iván Morán Araya, Ernesto Moreno Díaz, Claudio Tognola Ríos, Carlos Garay Benavides, Luis Segovia Villalobos, Agustín Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Araya Figueroa, Julio Brewe Torres, Breno Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Gallegos Santis.

These illicit acts were perpetrated between September and October 1973 in the city of Tocopilla, Antofagasta Region. According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, the victims were detained by Carabineros personnel at their homes and taken to the First Police Station of Tocopilla, where they remained in cells until they were taken out to be executed in the area of the La Veleidosa or La Descubridora mine, among other places.

Military Hospital In the second case (case file 107-2012), Judge Carroza issued an indictment against retired Army members Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Roberto Merino Merino, Patricio Silva Abarca, and Patricio Silva Garín, as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Gonzalo Toro Garland, an illicit act perpetrated starting August 4, 1974, in the commune of Providencia.

During the investigation stage, the visiting judge managed to determine that Toro Garland was detained by personnel of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) on April 4, 1974, in front of the main house of the University of Chile.

This was an operation in which the victim was wounded and taken to the Military Hospital, a facility where he was hospitalized until August 4, 1974, the date on which his trail was lost.

Source: pjud.cl, December 29, 2016

Tocopilla | State of Chile must pay nearly 1 billion to relatives of 13 people murdered by Carabineros in 1973

The special visiting judge for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, convicted six retired members of the Carabineros and the Army for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo; and the aggravated homicides of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, Iván Florencio Morán Araya, Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis. These illicit acts were perpetrated between September and October 1973 in the city of Tocopilla. In the ruling (case file 2.182-1998 “Tocopilla”), the special judge sentenced Luciano Astete Almendras and Álex Adalberto Cantín Leyton to effective prison terms of 17 years and 15 years and one day, respectively, as perpetrators of the crimes. Meanwhile, Gilberto Arturo Santiago Egaña García and Raúl Darío Almonacid Valdivia must serve 7 years and 5 years and one day in prison, respectively, as accomplices. In the case of Juan José Rojas Fuentes and Luis Ramón Guerrero González, they were sentenced to 800 days in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, as accomplices to the crime of aggravated kidnapping. The same sentence and benefit were given to Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña, as a cover-up. During the investigation stage of the case, Judge Carroza managed to establish the following facts: “1) That as a result of the events that occurred in the country on September 11, 1973, the Military Government ordered the takeover of the city of Tocopilla, and to carry it out, specific missions were instructed to the units of the Navy, Carabineros, Investigative Police, and the military within the jurisdiction. 2) That, as things stood, initially, Navy Captain Humberto Fuentes Morales assumed the role of Governor of Tocopilla, who, due to his health status and logistical resources, handed that responsibility over to Carabineros Prefect Luciano Astete Almendras, and at the same time, sub-prefect Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery was designated as Military Prosecutor for the department of Tocopilla, with his functions directed at instructing the cases related to political and subversive activities occurring in the province. 3) That for such a purpose, by instructions of Prefect Luciano Astete Almendras, the Military Prosecutor designated a Civil Commission under the command of the then-Lieutenant Alex Cantín Leyton, to dedicate itself, in coordination with military, Navy, and Investigative personnel, to executing operations against the civilian population of the city, consisting of raids, deprivation of liberty, interrogations, torture, and summary executions, as in the cases indicated below: A.- Events that occurred on September 18, 1973, which caused the death of Iván Florencio Morán Araya and Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz. On the night of September 18, 1973, around 8:00 PM, Carabineros personnel from Tocopilla commanded by Raúl Gaete Cuevas (deceased), Juan Bonilla Castro (deceased), and Diocario Contreras Labrín (deceased), detained Iván Florencio Morán Araya and Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz at their homes to take them to the Police Station of that city, where they would be interrogated; however, in the early hours of the following day, both were executed outside the Police Station by police officers following orders from their superiors under the pretext of having attempted to flee, with their bodies subsequently delivered lifeless with gunshot wounds to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada Hospital in Tocopilla. B.- Executed by firing squad at the La Veleidosa Mine. On another occasion, these same officers from the Tocopilla Police Station detained, between September 11 and October 4, 1973, several people identified as Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, and Freddy Alex Araya Figueroa, and kept them deprived of liberty first in the cells of the First Carabineros Police Station of that city and later in the Public Jail of said port, the latter being the place from which they were taken on October 6 of that year, handcuffed, to the mining pit called “Mina La Veleidosa” or “La Descubridora,” located at a distance of approximately 30 kilometers east of the center of the city of Tocopilla. In that place, they were ordered to descend, and a firing squad was formed, integrated by Carabineros, Investigative, Navy, and Army personnel, who were ordered to shoot them with their firearms to take their lives. Subsequently, the lifeless bodies of Tognola, Garay, Segovia, and Villarroel were thrown into the aforementioned pit, which at that date had a depth of over six hundred meters; their remains were partially recovered and identified in the course of 1991. However, the bodies of Aguirre and Araya were taken to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada Hospital in Tocopilla, with the argument that they had died during an attempted escape while an operation to search for weapons and explosives was being carried out in the area of an unnamed mine. C.- The events that caused the death of Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Oscar Gallegos Santis, in the early hours of October 23 of that same year. For their part, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Oscar Gallegos Santis were detained between September 16 and 20, 1973, by personnel under the same Carabineros Prefecture of Tocopilla, taken to the First Police Station of that city, where they were kept in the cells until the early hours of October 23 of that same year, at which time all four were killed inside their cells using machine guns. Their bodies were subsequently delivered to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada Hospital, and the public was informed that the detainees had snatched a SIG rifle from a sentry who was guarding them, which they could not use due to lack of knowledge, and because of this, police unit personnel had to open fire and cause their deaths. D.- Aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, which occurred on September 14, 1973. As previously noted, for September 11, 1973, in the context of the events that occurred in the country, the mission was given to Prefect Delegate Luciano Astete Almendras to create an operational group for political repression in Tocopilla, for which he designated as Ad-Hoc Military Prosecutor the Carabineros Sub-prefect Juan de Dios Salazar Lantieri (deceased), and to fulfill his task, he proceeded to designate certain personnel from the First Police Station of Tocopilla to be in charge of the detention and interrogation of people known as supporters of the government deposed by the military coup. This Carabineros operational group was led by Lieutenant Alexis Cantín Leyton and permanently integrated by police officers who had full knowledge of the illegality of the acts that were committed and even so, cooperated in their execution with prior or simultaneous acts. Thus, on September 11, 1973, these Carabineros officers appeared at the SOQUIMICH company, commanded by Lieutenant Alex Cantín Leyton, and detained Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, whom they took to the Tocopilla Police Station, then to a cell in the Tocopilla Preventive Detention Center, where he remained for three days under cruel and inhuman torture. On September 14, 1973, he was taken from the jail by the same Lieutenant Cantín and his subordinates to be taken to an unknown location, where his trail was lost, and to this date, his destination or whereabouts remain unknown.” In the civil aspect, the ruling accepted with costs the claims for moral damages filed, ordering the State of Chile to pay a total sum of $980,000,000 (nine hundred and eighty million pesos) to the relatives of the victims. Likewise, it ordered Astete Almendras, Cantín Leyton, and Almonacid Valdivia to pay Rosa Canales Illesca, Claudia Tognola Canales, Verónica Tognola Canales, and Paola Tognola Canales $20,000,000 (twenty million pesos) each.

Source: radiopaulina.cl, November 27, 2018

“La Veleidosa” mine case 1973: Former Armed Forces official sentenced to 17 years in prison

Today, the sentences for the Armed Forces officials involved in the death and disappearance of more than 12 political prisoners between September and October 1973 were announced. These are Luciano Astete Almendras and Alex Cantín Leyton, who must serve 17 and 15 years in prison, respectively.

Six of the victims were murdered at the “La Veleidosa” mine, located thirty kilometers east of Tocopilla, four died in the jail of the same city, and two other bodies were delivered to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada hospital.

To cover up their crimes, many of them were disguised as false confrontations or attempted escapes. Luis Segovia Villalobos was one of the victims. A 28-year-old from Copiapó and an employee of Cobrechuqui.

For his cousin, Ivon Villalobos, this sentence meets the family's expectations. “We have waited so long that I always thought we were going to die without finding justice, as has happened to so many people, as happened to Anita González; it is a high sentence that leaves us satisfied as relatives.

Not even those convicted in the Caravan of Death had to pay such a high penalty,” she concluded. The information about the conviction was provided by human rights lawyer José Olivares. It should be noted that the history of these events at the “La Veleidosa” mine can be found in the book Tumbas de Cristal (Crystal Tombs), written by journalist Ruby Weitzel.

Source: atacamanoticias.cl, October 29, 2018

The battle of Claudio Tognola’s daughter began in 1990, with the search for the body of her father, who was murdered alongside eleven other people in October 1973. Although she was able to bury his remains 19 years later, justice never arrived. “Many of the military and Carabineros have passed away without ever stepping foot in a courtroom; we have not had real justice,” she says.

This is her story.

Paola was barely 23 years old when she began the search for the body of her father, Dr. Claudio Tognola, murdered in 1973. She had a clear mission: to find his remains. It was 1990, and she had traveled by bus to Tocopilla.

She got off at the terminal with a tight chest, took a deep breath, and listened intently to the desert once more. She had left behind friends, family, and her home. She set her mind to the possibility of living in the port for a couple of years if necessary, looking for work, perhaps settling into an apartment. To do the impossible. But this story begins much earlier.

The coup d'état of September 11, 1973, crushed Tocopilla with a wave of forced disappearances and torture. One of the most well-known murders was that of the city’s mayor, Marcos de la Vega, and the governor, Mario Arqueos, who were later taken to Antofagasta and executed during the passage of the Caravan of Death.

It was a transversal repression, through which everyone from politicians to students was persecuted. A repression that was branded by fire: denunciations of neighbors, friends, and family members. Denunciation and violence transformed some into torturers and executioners of people they knew.

-My father was killed by those who had worked with him, his friends-, Paola would later say.

In 1962, Tognola arrived in Tocopilla from Santiago with his wife, Rosa Canales, who was pregnant with their first daughter. Paola and Verónica followed. At first, he worked at the Marcos Macuada Hospital and was later hired as an official doctor for the Carabineros.

After some time, he separated, returned to Santiago to complete his specialty in Obstetrics, but in 1972 he decided to return to Tocopilla. During that time, he met a new partner, but he continued to communicate with his ex-wife and daughters through letters. They had a close relationship; in fact, Rosa settled with the girls in her in-laws' house on Avenida Matta.

Tognola was a man loved by the people of the port. He obtained the position of general practitioner shortly thereafter, was a socialist militant, and had been elected general secretary of the party one week before the coup d'état.

He was recognized for his physical appearance: a short, freckled redhead with a strong but affable character, deeply concerned with social issues and the humble people of that land. His house calls were well known; he would reach the last house on the hill, structures that bordered the train tracks. A life that would be suddenly interrupted with the arrival of September 11.

-My dad was like that; if he saw an older lady or an elderly woman, he would say: “Come on, let’s get you checked out.” And he would carry her to the hospital in his arms, laughing his head off. People loved him very much and he had a very active social life- remembers Paola.

Paola Tognola (53) retains her composure, her face covered in the freckles she inherited from her father, as she speaks of that history of searching, but also a history that does not end. She has organized funas (public protests) against the culprits, but she feels that justice has not yet arrived, at least not completely.

Military personnel and Carabineros who were involved in the murders of Tognola—and 11 others—have died without ever setting foot in a courtroom.

Paola recounts what is known about what happened to her father: after September 11, he had worked with a safe-conduct pass; he had been detained a few days earlier, but they had let him go. September 16, 1973, was different.

Around 9:30 p.m., the head of the Tocopilla Investigations unit, whose surname was “Fuentes,” went to look for him at his home. Outside, a military patrol was waiting for him in a green pickup truck belonging to the Copper Corporation (CODELCO).

Tognola was held at the Tocopilla Carabineros Station and was later transferred to the city’s jail. He was seen there by some witnesses. They say they heard him screaming that he was hungry. They let him eat for a few days, but his appearance was already pale and sickly.

He was subjected to proceedings at the Carabineros Prosecutor's Office alongside Luis Segovia, Carlos Garay (all forcibly disappeared), and Freddy Araya and Reinaldo Aguirre (political executions), among others.

On October 6, 1973, an official statement was published in the local press, signed by the delegate Chief of the Tocopilla State of Siege Zone, Lieutenant Colonel and Prefect of Carabineros, Luciano Astete Almendras, which reported a false escape of a group of detainees.

The statement said that “at 08:30 hours, while personnel from the Armed Forces and Carabineros were carrying out a Military Prosecutor’s duty at a mine located 15 kilometers north of Tocopilla, taking advantage of the fact that this personnel was unearthing a large quantity of dynamite, the prisoners Carlos Garay, Luis Segovia, Claudio Tognola, Freddy Araya, and Reinaldo Aguirre ‘fled’ toward the interior of the mine and, despite being shouted at to ‘halt’ on repeated occasions, they did not obey the order to stop, which is why fire was opened upon them.”

Tognola was supposed to go to Santiago during those days. Rosa, upon receiving no news of him, packed a suitcase, traveled to Tocopilla, and went to the Minister of Mining, Alfredo Yovanne (also a general of the Carabineros and a coup organizer), to ask for information about her husband.

The response they had up to that moment was that he had been involved in “Plan Z” (a supposed plan by Salvador Allende’s government to eliminate the opposition to his government). Yovanne sent her on an institutional plane to Tocopilla and gave her a letter asking sub-prefect Luciano Astete to provide her with every facility “for the efforts she will carry out in the city.” There was no response.

Astete told her to return in a month to pick up the document that the Antofagasta Military Prosecutor’s Office would grant her, which would confirm the doctor’s disappearance.

Paola was seven years old when her father was added to the extensive list of the forcibly disappeared. Tognola had gone to Santiago days earlier to visit his daughters. She remembers that they were just arriving from Far West (a theme park), when she heard his voice.

“Daddy’s here, Daddy’s here!” she shouted through the house until she saw him and ran to hang onto his waist. Paola asked him to stay; he promised her he would return in three days. That afternoon she waited, sitting on the armchair in front of the glass door at the entrance of the house. Her father never arrived.

-Days later I heard a conversation between a family friend and my grandparents. I looked through the half-open door and saw my grandmother cover her mouth to scream: “No, not my son!” That’s when I understood everything-, she remembers.

Back in Tocopilla in 1990, Paola’s persistence yielded the first results. In the midst of that process, she met several people from the local Human Rights Commission, with whom they carried out a campaign on the radio and in the press, and met in the city’s Plaza Condell. They pressured for the search for the bodies to begin. In those days, they did work that left them breathless.

There was hope; during her mother’s first trip, a small-scale miner (pirquinero) had approached her to tell her he knew where her husband’s body was. What seemed like a rumor began to grow, until in 1974 two miners entered the mine and found a group of corpses piled up and, among them, a body hanging upside down with red, curly hair.

-That rumor ended up being a certainty; we always knew they were there, but then they forced those miners to dynamite the place and they were later tortured, but that was the lead we always followed. Unlike many families, we knew where they were-, explains Paola. The event was described in a report in “Cauce” magazine in 1984.

At the end of July 1990, the judge of Tocopilla at the time, Jorge Cortez Monroy, accepted the complaint and began the search for Tognola and the other disappeared persons.

Paola divided her time between her work and climbing the “Tres Puntas” hill with the help of miners, lamps, and trucks provided by a mining company. The women cooked large pots of pasta with sauce and other meals made possible thanks to the food donated by some local shops.

There was no money, but everything was provided thanks to the solidarity of their neighbors in the city. The miners took two hours to go down and four to go up, which reduced the search time. Other nights, in a local custom, the townspeople would leave burning rags on the desert path. “To light their way back home,” they would tell them.

By October, they had found the remains of the disappeared; only her father was missing, and there was little time left to finish the search.

On October 5, 1991, Marisol Ramírez—a member of the Commission—arrived at the place where Paola was working. Her eyes were moist.

-“Paolita, they found a hand, I think it’s your dad’s,” she told me, and I replied that they should show it to me, that I would recognize it immediately. She told me that a double forensic examination was going to be done to avoid any problems.

In January 1992, Dr. Alfredo Sierra came to see me; he asked me to talk—by that point we were all very close friends—and he informed me that the examinations were finished and showed me the file of photos. It was him, it was his left hand. I was in shock, they took me to the desert, I screamed and cried, at last I could let it all out-, remembers Paola, her voice breaking.

In October 2001, Judge Juan Guzmán began to investigate the case, and in November of that year, he traveled to the mine. On July 16, 2002, he indicted and declared Juan de Dios Salazar and Luciano Astete as defendants for the qualified homicide of 12 people in Tocopilla.

In the end, the truth came to light: in one of the stages of the investigation, Minister Carroza established that on September 19, 1973, Iván Morán Araya and Ernesto Moreno Díaz, after being taken to the Tocopilla police station the day before for a supposed interrogation, were finally executed by police officials.

Then, on October 6, a group of six detainees were taken to the mining pit “Mina La Veleidosa” or “La Descubridora” by the same officials, where a firing squad composed of members of the Carabineros, Investigations, the Navy, and the Army took their lives.

Inexplicably, Juan Manuel Bonilla—one of those involved—was dismissed from the case some time later. In the statements of the sentence, it is clear that those who dedicated themselves to interrogating and torturing the victims were Alex Cantín and Omar Valdivia, as part of the Carabineros Intelligence Section (Sicar). Most of the time, they used electricity to carry out torture.

According to the residents of Tocopilla, Cantín was the one who suffered the most abrupt change in personality after September 11. He had repressed and tortured neighbors he knew; the same happened with the Chinese doctor Roberto Hafon, a friend and godfather to Verónica, one of Tognola’s daughters. After the coup, he was accused of covering up the deaths from the Carabineros Hospital.

In 2007, Paola found Alex Cantín’s address in the south of Chile and went to the university where he worked. She organized a funa; she says that part of her struggle is to ensure that what Alex Cantín, Ángel Calderón, Juan Bonilla, and Gilberto Egaña, among others, did is not forgotten. That no one ever forgets the Tocopilla massacre.

-Justice has been slow and not very assertive; we are punished from all sides. We had to wait for the dictatorship to end to have some justice, and then the delays continued, and we were the ones who were stuck, stigmatized to this day.

Some of those involved are already dead, but at this point, at least, Cantín has gone through the courts to testify, but we have not had real justice-, states Paola.

In February 1992, Tognola’s remains were transferred to Santiago, where they were given a final burial in the General Cemetery in the mausoleum next to his parents, just as Rosa had promised Rómulo, her father-in-law.

-That day I stood watching the hearse on the Costanera street that goes toward the Tocopilla airport with a kind of emptiness. That was when I realized that the goal of my whole life had been to look for him, to look for him so much. Now I had to start from scratch-, she says, and falls silent.

Source: eldesconcierto.cl, September 10, 2019

Santiago Court of Appeals convicts retired Carabineros for homicides and kidnapping in Tocopilla

The Eighth Chamber of the Court of Appeals rejected the appeals filed against the first-instance sentence issued by the special judge Mario Carroza, confirming it with the declaration that the sentences and the participation of some of the convicted individuals were modified from accomplices and accessories to authors of the crimes.

The Santiago Court of Appeals issued a second-instance ruling in the investigation into the aggravated homicides of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reynaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis; and the aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo.

These crimes were perpetrated in September and October 1973, in the commune of Tocopilla.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 1.748-2019), the Eighth Chamber of the Court of Appeals—composed of justices Mireya López Miranda, Rafael Andrade Díaz, and María Inés Lausen Montt—rejected the appeals filed against the first-instance sentence issued by the special judge Mario Carroza, confirming it with the declaration that the sentences and the participation of some of the convicted individuals were modified from accomplices and accessories to authors of the crimes.

Thus, the court resolved that the defendants Luciano Astete Almendras, Álex Adalberto Cantín Leyton, and Gilberto Arturo Santiago Egaña García “are convicted as authors of the repeated crimes of aggravated homicide of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reynaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis; and for the aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, to each suffer the corporal penalty of FIFTEEN YEARS of presidio mayor in its medium degree, in addition to the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence.”

Meanwhile, Raúl Darío Almonacid Valdivia “is convicted as an author of the repeated crimes of aggravated homicide of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, and Freddy Alex Araya Figueroa, to suffer the corporal penalty of EIGHT YEARS of presidio mayor in its minimum degree.

In addition, he is subject to the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence.”

Finally, regarding the criminal aspect: “The aforementioned sentence is confirmed with the declaration that Luis Ramón Guerrero González and Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña, who are convicted as authors of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, shall each suffer the corporal penalty of FIVE YEARS of presidio menor in its maximum degree, in addition to the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence.”

“Given the quantum of the penalty imposed on the convicted individuals Luciano Astete Almendras, Alex Adalberto Cantín Leyton, Gilberto Arturo Santiago Egaña García, Raúl Darío Almonacid Valdivia, Luis Ramón Guerrero González, and Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña, and as they do not meet the requirements referred to in Law 18.216, they are not granted the benefits of substitute sentences, and each must effectively serve the imposed corporal penalty, taking into account the credits that appear in the first-instance sentence,” the resolution states.

Participation

In resolving the participation of the convicted individuals Astete Almendras and Cantín Leyton in the events, the Santiago Court “(…) agrees with the conclusion reached by the first-instance judge, contained in the Ninth and Tenth considerations respectively, in that, with the evidence gathered during the investigation, it is possible to construct various judicial presumptions which, by meeting the requirements of being based on real and proven facts, being multiple, serious, precise, direct, and concordant, are sufficient to sustain with the judicial conviction referred to in Article 456 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, that these defendants participated as authors, in the terms of Nos. 2 and 1, respectively, of Article 15 of the Penal Code, in the repeated crimes of aggravated homicide of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reynaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, Iván Florencio Morán Araya, Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis; and of the aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo.”

The resolution adds: “In his case, the defendant Luciano Astete Almendras was, as of September 1973, the Prefect of Carabineros of Tocopilla, and by virtue of that, orders from him led to the formation of a civilian commission, which remained under the command of the Carabineros Lieutenant at that time, Álex Adalberto Cantín Leyton.

Through said group, in that city, opponents of the military government of the time were repressed, affecting, in the case sub judice, first the liberty, and then the lives of the persons indicated above.

This is according to the evidentiary background already detailed in the appellate sentence, concluding in the Twenty-Third and Twenty-Fourth foundations that both defendants had participation as authors. Under such conditions, it is appropriate to maintain the conviction of these defendants.”

“Regarding the participation of the defendants Gilberto Arturo Santiago Egaña García and Raúl Darío Almonacid Valdivia, this Court shares the opinion of the Judicial Public Prosecutor that both are authors and not accomplices in the investigated facts, given the real and exact participation of both defendants that has been reconstructed regarding the investigated facts.

Indeed, from the accumulation of evidence detailed in the Eleventh consideration, which includes the statement of Egaña García himself, who, in his capacity as a carabinero, was part of the civilian group under the command of Lieutenant Adalberto Cantín and participated directly in the detentions of the victims.

Although Egaña initially denied having been part of Cantín's group, the truth is that he ended up acknowledging it by stating in the process, ‘…that he recognizes that he went out to carry out political detentions in a group, but did not participate in Cantín Leyton's group’; only for Egaña himself to later indicate ‘…that he was part of Cantín's group, because the carabinero Cisternas left the group, and Cantín chose him and took him…’ Furthermore, the testimony of several uniformed officers identifies him as a member of Cantín Leyton's group.

The accumulation of statements synthesized in the Twenty-Sixth foundation of the first-instance sentence, which place Gilberto Egaña precisely as a member of the group under Lieutenant Cantín's command, also contributes to reaching the conviction for conviction,” the resolution details.

For the Eighth Chamber of the Court of Appeals: “It being clear that the detentions of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reynaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis; and of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, culminated in the murders of each of them as well as in the disappearance of the last of them, the truth is that Egaña García's responsibility is that of an author, having carried out direct conduct in relation to these persons by detaining them, and such detentions concluding in the aggravated homicide of most of them, and in the aggravated kidnapping of the latter, it results that the work of this defendant is that of an executing author of conduct that ended in the death and disappearance of the victims of the case sub judice.”

Likewise, the participation that Almonacid Valdivia “had in the facts of the case is that of an author, and this derives from the evidence gathered in the criminal investigation carried out, which reveals that he participated as a member of the firing squad at the ‘La Veleidosa’ mine; therefore, his participation in such events cannot be other than that of an author-executor of the homicide of such victims, this Court thus sharing the opinion of the Judicial Public Prosecutor.”

“Indeed, the sentence under review, in the Eighteenth consideration, collects the statements of this defendant made during the process, and he indicated that as of September 11, 1973, he was a second corporal in the Navy, and at page 2,683 he acknowledged that he was part of the squad and explains in his version ‘…that he did not manage to fire along with the others, and that he then pulled the trigger of the weapon but the person who was standing in front fainted, but he did not see him with blood, and an army officer approached and gave him a coup de grâce…’ The statement of this defendant allows him to be placed precisely as part of the firing squad at the ‘La Veleidosa’ mine, in the vicinity of the city of Tocopilla, on October 6, 1973, even firing; in this way, his behavioral work cannot be other than that of an author-executor of the crime of aggravated homicide of these persons,” the chamber concludes.

“To the above,” it delves, “must be added the assertion of witnesses who place him as part of the firing squad at the ‘La Veleidosa’ mine on that occasion. To this effect, the statements of witnesses and co-defendants collected in the Thirtieth foundation, which account for such participation, must be considered.

From what has been stated, it flows that the participation of Raúl Darío Almonacid Valdivia is that of an author of the repeated homicides and the aggravated kidnapping of the victims of the case.”

Regarding the participation of Luis Ramón Guerrero González “in the punishable acts of the case, and having held the rank of subteniente of Carabineros as of September 1973, and despite the fact that he denies participation in them, as noted from his judicial statements collected in the Twentieth foundation of the sentence, it happens that according to the evidence collected in the case, it is clear that he was part of the group in charge of Lieutenant Adalberto Cantín Leyton, also being the secretary of the Ad-Hoc Military Prosecutor of the time, the Sub-Prefect of Carabineros Juan de Dios Salazar Lantery (deceased), this despite the fact that this defendant points out that he never exercised such secretarial functions,” the resolution affirms.

“Indeed,” it continues, “Guerrero González himself acknowledges in his judicial statements that he was appointed secretary of the indicated Ad-Hoc Military Prosecutor, and yet, without giving it greater meaning, he points out that he never truly exercised such functions.

Contrary to the exculpatory claim of the defendant Luis Guerrero González, the statements synthesized in the Thirtieth foundation of Diocario Contreras Labrín, who places Luis Guerrero González as part of the group headed by Cantín Leyton, serve to prove his participation as an author, indicating ‘…that on one occasion he ordered him to accompany him to detain Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, who was the Manager of Soquimich, and thus, all on board a pickup truck, they moved and detained him at said company’; of Waldo Humberto Retamales Argandoña, indicating ‘…that he places Sub-lieutenant Luis Guerrero as part of the group under the command of Lieutenant Adalberto Cantín Leyton, which brought detainees to the police station’. In the same sense, there are the statements of Juan Manuel Bonilla Castro ‘…who mentions Sub-lieutenant Luis Guerrero as participating in the operations of the group directed by Cantín Leyton’. Also, and in the same vein, are the statements of the co-defendant Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña, who points to Sub-lieutenant Luis Guerrero, indicating ‘…that it seems to him that he was part of the group that was under the command of Lieutenant Cantín Leyton, and that this group used, to carry out interrogations, a kind of room or storage room located on the first floor, and after the interrogation, on some occasions they were handed over to the Gendarmerie’.”

“In accordance with what has been indicated, this Court reaches a judicial conviction that Luis Ramón Guerrero González is criminally responsible as an author of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, an event that occurred in Tocopilla on September 14, 1973, thus sharing the criterion in this sense of the Judicial Prosecutor,” it concludes.

In the case of Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña, “his own judicial statement, recorded in the Twenty-First consideration of the appellate sentence, must be considered; he indicated, in summary, ‘…that he served as head of the First Police Station of Carabineros of the city of Tocopilla, indicating that it operated in the same building as the Prefecture, under the command of which was Luciano Astete Almendras, adding that political detentions were carried out by Lieutenant Cantín and his group, and the interrogations were carried out on the unit's premises, in a storage room, at night; he also points out having participated in the detention of Governor Mario Arqueros’.”

For the appellate court: “Despite the denial of participation of this defendant in the investigated facts, the truth is that, given the hierarchy of command that Muñoz Peña held as of September 11, 1973, his participation is that of an author, since it cannot be considered that his participation is only that of an accessory as was maintained in the first-instance sentence, this regarding at least the aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, because in the case there is evidentiary background that this victim was detained by agents of the State, and taken that day, September 11, 1973, and was detained for three days in the facilities of the First Police Station of Carabineros of Tocopilla, his whereabouts remaining unknown to this day. The police unit just indicated was under the command of, precisely, this defendant, a Carabineros Officer at the time.”

“Indeed, in the present case, several testimonies were collected that place Muñoz Peña precisely in charge of the police station, in his capacity as Commissioner. Adalberto Cantín Leyton in his judicial statement collected in the Tenth consideration maintains ‘…the officer in charge of the first police station was Muñoz Peña, and upon the closing of the police station that was under his charge, he remained at the disposal of the First Police Station of Carabineros’, adding ‘…that the prefecture operated on the second floor of the same building as the Police Station and the Prefect was Luciano Astete Almendras, and the sub-prefect was Juan de Dios Salazar Lanteri, and orders were given to detain several people and the Governor and the Mayor of Tocopilla were detained, who were sent to Antofagasta, and later he learned that General Arellano Stark's entourage carried out executions regarding these people’.” In his case, Luis Ramón Guerrero González, in his judicial statement recorded in the Twentieth consideration of the appellate sentence, declares ‘…that in charge of the First Police Station was Commissioner Muñoz and under his charge were about 60 officials, and the civilian commission was under the charge of Lieutenant Cantín Leyton’. Regarding the disappearance of Manuel Muñoz Cornejo, he points out ‘…that he was detained on September 11, 1973, he was one of the managers of Soquimich, he was detained by Carabineros personnel and taken to the first Police Station and after a few days taken to the jail and later he learned that his wife was complaining because she had not been able to find him’,” the ruling transcribes.

“In his case,” it continues, “Jorge Veliz Alvear also declared judicially, a statement that appears collected in the Twenty-Second consideration of the sentence, indicating that regarding the disappearance of Manuel Muñoz Cornejo he can declare that he saw Muñoz Cornejo detained in the facilities of the First Police Station of Carabineros of Tocopilla.

The police report of the PDI's Brigade of Crimes against Human Rights maintains in its report 1,219, dated November 14, 2012, ‘that in the First Police Station of Carabineros of Tocopilla, a civilian commission was formed under the charge of Lieutenant Cantín Leyton’.”

Also, Hernando Silva Soto gave a judicial statement, which is recorded in the Twenty-Fourth Consideration, who ‘…indicated being the sub-commissioner of the time of the First Police Station of Tocopilla, and indicates that the detainees, while they were in the Police Station, were guarded by subordinate personnel of the unit’.”

Furthermore, Ángela del Carmen Vega Lang declared judicially, pages 7197 and 7274, who pointed out ‘…that she was the spouse of Manuel del Carmen Cornejo Muñoz and details how on September 11 Carabineros personnel arrived at her house asking for her husband, and forced the entrance, and upon seeing that he was not there they withdrew, then she received a phone call from her husband, indicating that he would surrender voluntarily because he knew they were looking for him’.

Then she refers ‘…that from the balcony of her house, one could see in the distance the facilities of the Soquimich company, and she could see that the same vehicles in which the carabineros who were looking for her husband moved were now transporting him and he was coming out of the facility’.

Then she adds ‘…that that day she brought blankets and food to the first police station of carabineros of Tocopilla, and later they told her that he was no longer there and she never saw him again’.”

Thus, for the Eighth Chamber: “From the accumulation of evidence detailed above, it can only be concluded that Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña, then Commissioner of Carabineros, and given the rank of major of that institution, and being in charge of the First Police Station of Carabineros of Tocopilla, knew that Manuel Muñoz Cornejo remained detained in the cells of the unit, of which he was the officer in command, and by virtue of that, his participation results in being that of an author in the terms of Article 15, number 3, of the Penal Code, since although he does not participate in the detention directly, there is no doubt that he witnessed the fact of this person being detained in the facilities of his police unit, and he accepted it, in the manner of concerting his will in a detention not adjusted to the law.”

Decision adopted with the prevention of Justice Andrade Díaz, who was in favor of imposing higher penalties on all the convicted individuals.

Indemnifications

In the civil aspect, the ruling regulated the indemnifications that the State of Chile must pay to each of the victims, for moral damages: Georgina Ramírez Gallardo, María Gregoria Torres Flores, Ariela Lau Núñez, and Adriana Benavides Espinoza, mothers and spouses, in the sum of $100,000,000 (one hundred million pesos) for each.

In the case of the plaintiffs Carlos Gallegos Ramírez, Georgina Gallegos Ramírez, Silvio Cuevas Martínez, Carolina Cuevas Martínez, Breno Cuevas Martínez, Hernani Cuevas Martínez, Maritza Cuevas Vega, Tania Brewe Lau, Mayra Tognola Vega, Alejandrina Mireya Muñoz Vidal, and Ángela Ema Sanhuesa Vega, children of the victims, each must receive the sum of $50,000,000 (fifty million pesos).

Meanwhile, the siblings of the victims, Mercedes Brewe Torres, Rita Moreno Díaz, Catalina del Carmen Morán Araya, Lucía Cepeda Muñoz, Sonia Garay Benavides, Patricia Garay Benavides, Adriana Garay Benavides, and José Ezequiel Garay Benavides, must each be compensated by the treasury with the sum of $20,000,000 (twenty million pesos).

Finally, the plaintiffs Rebeca Vega Carrasco, Rosa Vega Carrasco, Ivonne Villalobos Salcedo, Jocelin Valeska Muñoz Macías, and Sandra Constanza Muñoz Macías must be compensated with $10,000,000 (ten million pesos) for moral damages, in their capacities as partners of the first two, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz and Claudio Tognola Ríos, respectively; and the third in her capacity as cousin of Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos.

Executions

In the first instance, Judge Mario Carroza established the following facts:

“A.- Events that occurred on September 18, 1973, which caused the death of Iván Florencio Morán Araya and Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz. On September 18, 1973, in the evening hours, around 8:00 PM, Carabineros of Tocopilla commanded by Raúl Gaete Cuevas (deceased), Juan Bonilla Castro (deceased), and Diocario Contreras Labrín (deceased), detained Iván Florencio Morán Araya and Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz at their homes to take them to the Police Station of that city, where they would be interrogated; however, in the early hours of the following day, both were executed outside the Police Station by police officers who were following orders from their superiors under the pretext of having attempted to flee, their bodies subsequently being handed over lifeless with gunshot wounds at the morgue of the Marcos Macuada Hospital in Tocopilla;

B.- Executed at the La Veleidosa Mine. On another occasion, these same officials of the Tocopilla Police Station detained, during the course of the days from September 11 to October 4, 1973, several people identified as Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orocimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, and Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, and kept them deprived of liberty first in the cells of the First Police Station of Carabineros of that city and then in the Public Jail of said port, the latter place from where they were taken on October 6 of that year, handcuffed, to the mining pit called ‘Mina La Veleidosa’ or ‘La Descubridora’, located at an approximate distance of 30 kilometers to the east of the center of the city of Tocopilla. In that place, they were ordered to get out and a firing squad was formed, integrated by officials of Carabineros, Investigations, the Navy, and the Army, who were ordered to fire at them with their firearms to take their lives. Subsequently, the lifeless bodies of Tognola, Garay, Segovia, and Villarroel were thrown inside the aforementioned pit, which on that date had a depth exceeding six hundred meters; their remains were partially recovered and identified during the year 1991; however, the corpses of Aguirre and Araya were taken to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada Hospital in Tocopilla, arguing that they had been killed during an escape attempt while an operation was being carried out to search for weapons and explosives in the sector of an unnamed mine;

The events that caused the death of Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis, in the early hours of October 23 of that same year.

Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis were detained between September 16 and 20, 1973, by personnel dependent on the same Prefecture of Carabineros of Tocopilla, taken to the First Police Station of that city, where they were kept in the cells until the early hours of October 23 of that same year, an occasion on which the four were killed inside their cells, using machine guns for this purpose.

Their bodies were subsequently handed over to the morgue of the Marcos Macuada Hospital, and the public was informed that the detainees had snatched a Sig rifle from a sentry who was guarding them, which they could not use due to lack of knowledge, and because of this, service personnel of the police unit had to open fire and cause their deaths;

Aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, which occurred on September 14, 1973.

As previously indicated, on September 11, 1973, in the context of the events that occurred in the country, the Delegate Prefect Luciano Astete Almendras was given the mission to create an operational group for political repression in Tocopilla, for which he designated as Ad-Hoc Military Prosecutor the Sub-Prefect of Carabineros Juan de Dios Salazar Lantieri (deceased), and to fulfill his task, he proceeded to designate certain officials of the First Police Station of Tocopilla to be in charge of the detention and interrogation of persons known as supporters of the government deposed by the military coup. This operational group of Carabineros was directed by Lieutenant Alexis Cantín Leyton and integrated permanently by police officials who had full knowledge of the illegality of the acts that were committed and even so, cooperated in their execution with prior or simultaneous acts; Thus, on September 11, 1973, these Carabineros officials appeared at the SOQUIMICH Company, commanded by Lieutenant Álex Cantín Leyton, and detained Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, whom they took to the Tocopilla Police Station, then to a cell in the Preventive Detention Center of Tocopilla, and he remained in that place for three days under cruel and inhuman torment. On September 14, 1973, he was taken from the jail by the same Lieutenant Cantín and his subordinates to be moved to an unknown location, where his trail was lost, and to date, his destination or whereabouts remain unknown.”

Source: Judiciary, September 2, 2021

Supreme Court convicts former uniformed officers for the homicides and kidnapping of 11 people in Tocopilla in 1973

The Supreme Court convicted six former uniformed officers of Carabineros and the Navy for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated homicide of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orozimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reynaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis, and the aggravated kidnapping of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo.

The crimes were committed between September and October 1973, in the commune of Tocopilla.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 82.318-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of justices Haroldo Brito, Jorge Dahm, Justice Eliana Quezada, and ad hoc lawyers Pía Tavolari and Carolina Coppo—sentenced former Carabineros officer Luciano Astete Almendras and former non-commissioned officer Gilberto Arturo Santiago Egaña García to 20 years of presidio as authors of the crimes.

Meanwhile, former Navy non-commissioned officer Raúl Darío Almonacid Valdivia must serve 15 years and one day of presidio as the author of the aggravated homicides.

Former Carabineros officers Luis Ramón Guerrero González and Ivar Liborio Muñoz Peña were sentenced to serve 5 years and one day of presidio as authors of the aggravated kidnapping.

Finally, former carabinero Juan José Rojas Fuentes was sentenced to 800 days of presidio as an accomplice to the kidnapping, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence.

Former Carabineros officer Álex Adalberto Cantín Leyton, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in previous instances, passed away during the process.

In the ruling, the highest court established an error in the appealed sentence because it applied the partial prescription to those convicted of crimes against humanity.

The Facts

In the judicial investigation, it was established that the detentions of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos (42), Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides (25), Luis Orozimbo Segovia Villalobos (28), Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona (34), Reynaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda (28), Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa (21), Julio Enrique Brewe Torres (26), Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz (45), Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto (31), and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis (30), and of Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo (32), culminated in the murders of the first 10, as well as in the disappearance of the last of them.

The executions of the prisoners were carried out at the "La Veleidosa" mining site located about 30 kilometers from Tocopilla at the beginning of October 1973.

As a consequence of the military coup of September 1973, Navy Captain Humberto Fuentes Morales assumed the position of Governor of Tocopilla, who, due to health problems, handed over that responsibility to Carabineros Prefect Luciano Astete Almendras, who designated the then-Lieutenant Álex Adalberto Cantín Leyton to dedicate himself, in coordination with military personnel, the Navy, and Investigations, to executing operations against the civilian population of the city, consisting of raids, detentions, interrogations, torture, and summary executions.

Thus, on the night of September 18, 1973, Carabineros of Tocopilla commanded by Raúl Gaete Cuevas (deceased), Juan Bonilla Castro (deceased), and Diocario Contreras Labrín (deceased), detained Iván Florencio Morán Araya and Ernesto Manuel Moreno Díaz at their homes to take them to the police station of that city.

In the early hours of the following day, both were executed outside the police station by police officials under the pretext of having attempted to flee, their bodies subsequently being handed over lifeless with gunshot wounds at the morgue of the Tocopilla Hospital.

These same officials of the Tocopilla Police Station detained, between September 11 and October 4, 1973, several people, among whom were Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, Luis Orozimbo Segovia Villalobos, Agustín de la Cruz Villarroel Carmona, Reinaldo Armando Aguirre Pruneda, and Freddy Álex Araya Figueroa, and kept them in the cells of the First Police Station of Carabineros of that city and, later, in the Public Jail of said port.

From this last place, they were taken on October 6 of that year to be brought handcuffed to the mining pit called 'Mina La Veleidosa' or 'La Descubridora', located at an approximate distance of 30 kilometers to the east of Tocopilla.

In that place, they were made to get out and a firing squad was formed, integrated by officials of Carabineros, Investigations, the Navy, and the Army, who were ordered to fire at them with their firearms to take their lives.

Subsequently, the lifeless bodies of Tognola, Garay, Segovia, and Villarroel were thrown inside the aforementioned pit, which on that date had a depth exceeding six hundred meters. Their remains were partially recovered and identified during the year 1991.

However, the corpses of Aguirre and Araya were taken to the morgue of the Tocopilla Hospital, arguing that they had been killed during an escape attempt while an operation was being carried out to search for weapons and explosives in the sector of an unnamed mine.

On the other hand, between September 16 and 20, 1973, Julio Enrique Brewe Torres, Breno Benicio Cuevas Díaz, Vicente Ramón Cepeda Soto, and Carlos Óscar Gallegos Santis were detained by personnel of the same Prefecture of Carabineros of Tocopilla, being taken to the First Police Station of that city, where they were kept in the cells until the early hours of October 23 of that year.

On that date, the four detainees were killed inside their cells, using machine guns for this purpose. Subsequently, their bodies were handed over to the morgue of the Tocopilla Hospital, and the public was informed that the detainees had snatched a Sig rifle from a sentry who was guarding them, and because of this, personnel of the police unit had to open fire and cause their deaths.

On that same day, September 11, 1973, a group of Carabineros commanded by Lieutenant Álex Adalberto Cantín Leyton appeared at the SOQUIMICH Company and detained, among others, Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, whom they took to the Tocopilla Police Station, then to a cell in the Preventive Detention Center of Tocopilla, and he remained in that place for three days under cruel and inhuman torment.

On September 14, 1973, he was taken from the jail by the same Lieutenant Cantín and his subordinates to be moved to an unknown location, where his trail was lost, and to date, his destination or whereabouts remain unknown.

Source: resumen.cl, August 31, 2023