On October 17, 1973, in the early hours of the morning, thirteen individuals who were being held in detention were executed: Winston Dwight CABELLO BRAVO […] Agapito del Carmen CARVAJAL GONZALEZ […] Fernando CARVAJAL GONZALEZ […] Manuel Roberto CORTAZAR HERNANDEZ […] Alfonso Ambrosio GAMBOA FARIAS […] Raúl del Carmen GUARDIA OLIVARES […] Raúl Leopoldo de Jesús LARRAVIDE LOPEZ […] Edwin Ricardo MANCILLA HESS […] Adolfo Mario PALLERAS NORAMBUENA […] Jaime Iván SIERRA CASTILLO […] Atilio Ernesto UGARTE GUTIERREZ, 24 years old, a Mining Engineering student at the Universidad Técnica del Estado, Copiapó campus, and a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). He was arrested on October 14 at the boarding house where he lived and taken to the Copiapó Regiment. Néctor Leonelo VICENTI CARTAGENA […] Pedro Emilio PEREZ FLORES […] Regarding several of the aforementioned individuals, the Commission has been able to verify that they were subjected to torture and other illegitimate duress. Through an official statement published in the newspaper Atacama on October 18, 1973, the Chief of the State of Siege Zone reported the death of the thirteen individuals identified above, alleging that an escape plan had been detected among the prisoners of the Presidio de Copiapó. The Military Prosecutor's Office had proceeded, in view of the lack of security and the existing prison overcrowding, to "transfer a group of the most dangerous defendants under Military Justice to the La Serena prison." The official statement continued by recounting that they had been transported in a Regiment truck, which had suffered an electrical failure almost upon reaching the summit of the Cuesta Cardones. "Taking advantage of the fact that the driver and his assistant were busy fixing the breakdown, the detainees suddenly took advantage of the carelessness of one of the sentries, jumped to the ground, and fled toward the pampa. Although the sentries shouted 'halt!' at them several times and even fired into the air to intimidate them, they did not stop. In view of this situation, the same report continues, they proceeded to fire at the fugitives, wounding thirteen of them who died at the scene." The date and time of their deaths have been corroborated by various documents, such as death certificates and cemetery records. Their departures from the prison are also duly documented. After they were killed, their bodies remained inside a truck at the Copiapó Regiment, only to be buried later in the local cemetery by military personnel in a single grave, between the final hours of the 17th and the early hours of the 18th. The precise location of the burial was not disclosed, not even to their families. Only on July 31, 1990, by virtue of a judicial filing made by the Commission, were the remains of these 13 people exhumed and, after their identification, handed over to their families for final burial. This Commission rejects the official version that it was necessary to kill the aforementioned individuals to prevent their escape, in consideration of the following circumstances: – The thirteen victims had been selected to be transferred to La Serena due to their dangerousness, according to the official version itself, which leads to the presumption that they were guarded by a strong military contingent in a previously organized operation; all of which leads one to think that, even if the vehicle breakdown had occurred, the surveillance was sufficient to have prevented their escape attempt before they began to run across the pampa; – It also seems implausible to this Commission that a heavily armed military patrol would have needed to kill thirteen prisoners fleeing through the desert as the only means to recapture them. This point is reaffirmed by the consideration of the physical condition in which some of the detainees were, after several days of confinement. The Commission also learned of several detailed and consistent testimonies that account for the torture to which many of them were subjected; – It seems unlikely that, to suppress an escape attempt by thirteen prisoners, it would have been necessary to execute all of them on the spot; – The fact that their lifeless bodies could not be seen by their families suggests an intent to conceal; – The state in which the remains were found upon exhumation indicates that these people were executed while they were under the total control and at the mercy of military personnel, which is absolutely inconsistent with the official version. The remains of several of them were found mutilated, without bullet impacts, and with clear signs of cuts from a bladed weapon. In view of the above, the Commission formed the conviction that these thirteen people were executed by State agents without any justification, which constitutes a grave violation of their human rights. The Commission has learned of diverse and qualified testimonies regarding who may have participated in the planning and execution of these grave events, though it has not been able to form a conviction, nor is it within its competence to establish personal responsibilities, regarding which, consequently, it does not pronounce itself.