Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, 20 years old, married, a worker and militant of the Communist Youth, was detained on October 6, 1973, around 09:00 in the morning, by officials of the Investigations Service (Servicio de Investigaciones) dressed in nurse uniforms.

He was attempting to seek asylum in the Embassy of the Republic of Argentina along with four other people by jumping over a wall adjacent to an interior courtyard of the San Borja Hospital.

Due to his political militancy and community activities, Raúl San Martín had been facing security issues since September 11, 1973. As a result, he decided to seek asylum. Juan Castro Fuentes, the victim's brother-in-law, informed him that it was possible to do so via a wall of the Embassy that faced a courtyard of the San Borja Hospital.

Raúl Buridán accepted and told his brother-in-law that he would seek asylum along with some friends, who turned out to be brothers Eduardo and Abelardo Jesús Quinteros Miranda, Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra—all of them Communist militants—and Samuel Riquelme Cruz, who until September 11, 1973, served as Deputy Director of Investigations and was the only survivor of the group.

Indeed, on October 6, 1973, the victim and his friends, along with witness Juan Castro Fuentes, entered the San Borja Hospital around 8:30. The witness, who entered the hospital grounds alone, positioned himself far from the group, observing that there were more people present than usual. The others entered through the main door and headed toward the hospital courtyard.

Only moments had passed when Juan Castro heard gunshots and managed to see Raúl Buridán on the ground—he did not know if he was wounded or not—and two other young men whose faces he could not distinguish. People dressed as nurses emerged from ambulances and fired directly at the group attempting to seek asylum. He saw no more because, given the circumstances, he withdrew from the area.

These events resulted in the death of Eduardo Quinteros Miranda, whose body was found in the San Carlos Canal with gunshot wounds to the torso and abdomen; he had been admitted to the Legal Medical Institute (Instituto Médico Legal) sent by the Military Prosecutor's Office on October 11, 1973.

The events also resulted in the forced disappearance of Raúl Buridán San Martín, Abelardo Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra. For his part, Samuel Riquelme Cruz was detained and prosecuted.

While this witness was still under arrest, the case regarding the death of Eduardo Quinteros was dismissed without the court calling the only survivor of the events to testify. (For further background on this case, see the case of Abelardo Quinteros Miranda).

Samuel Segundo Riquelme Cruz, in a sworn statement made in 1990, indicated that on October 6, 1973, he was inside the San Borja Hospital, next to the parish located there, with two young men he did not know.

One of them approached him—after recognizing him—and asked him how he intended to seek asylum. They discussed the situation and then headed toward a high wall that they had to cross to enter the Argentine Embassy.

At that moment—the witness adds—armed civilians appeared and began to fire. Samuel Riquelme managed to escape the scene and entered one of the hospital offices, asking for help. Two civilians whom the witness recognized arrived at that room.

One of them worked in the Carabineros security apparatus, and the other was a photographer for the Investigations Service. Riquelme Cruz does not remember their names. The agents proceeded to detain the witness and took him to where the two young men with whom he had attempted to seek asylum were located.

They remained on the ground. Shortly after, a Carabineros van arrived, in which they transported the witness and the two young men to the Carabineros station located on Calle San Isidro. Ramón Esquivel, a Carabineros officer who worked in the institutional intelligence apparatus, arrived at this police facility and ordered that the witness be taken for interrogation, during which he was tortured.

Upon entering the station, the detainees were left in a courtyard. A Carabinero observed blood and said, "there is a wounded man." Another policeman replied, "why do you care if we are going to kill these ones immediately." At that moment, the witness realized that one of the young men was wounded.

Samuel Riquelme was subjected to electric shocks on different parts of his body. On the third day of being at the station, he was taken out of the police facility and led to different places of detention: the Air Force War Academy (Academia de Guerra Aérea), the National Stadium, the Chile Stadium, and the Penitentiary.

Prosecuted and later having his case dismissed, he was expelled from the country on September 3, 1975.

Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera remains a forcibly disappeared person to this day.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On March 24, 1974, the victim's name was included in a mass writ of amparo for 131 people before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was filed under No. 289-74. Without being able to establish the particular situation of any of those included, the appeal was rejected on November 28, 1974.

The resolution was appealed, and on January 31, 1975, the Plenary of the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling and, in the same act, agreed to appoint a Minister in Extraordinary Visitation to conduct the corresponding investigation. The appointment fell to Minister Enrique Zurita Camps, who, on February 24, 1975, appeared at the 1st Criminal Court of Santiago and instructed case file No. 106.657.

The process began with the summons of the complaining family members, who appeared over the course of the months. Official letters were sent to the authorities—all of which received negative responses—and cases of alleged disappearances were consolidated, including the files of 11 people from Isla de Maipo, some of whose bodies appeared in the Lonquén Kilns.

On September 25, 1975—without having delved into any of the reported cases—the summary was closed because "no further progress could be made in the investigation." On September 29 of the same year, Minister Zurita issued a ruling.

In a high number of the situations—among them, that of the victim—the case was temporarily dismissed because the existence of a criminal act was not sufficiently proven. In other cases, the records were sent to the Military Justice system.

On May 10, 1976, the Santiago Court of Appeals approved the resolution of Minister Enrique Zurita Camps.

In addition to the aforementioned process, the family filed a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the victim in 1974. In June 1980—when the case had already been temporarily dismissed—a criminal complaint was filed for the crime of kidnapping against the officials of the Investigations Service who "participated in the illegal detention of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera," before the Minister in Visitation Servando Jordán López.

He did not grant the complaint or the reopening of the summary. This resolution was appealed, and the case was sent to the 16th Criminal Court of Santiago, a court that continued the judicial investigation under file No. 8455-C.

During its processing, it was requested to review the case followed against Samuel Riquelme Cruz in the Aviation Court and the case regarding the death of Eduardo Quinteros Miranda. As of December 1992, this process was still ongoing and in the summary stage.

The anthropometric data of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera were annexed to case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago, regarding the crime of illegal burial in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of unidentified persons who died between September and December 1973.

The investigating judge of the case ordered the excavation of 108 graves in September 1991. From there, 125 bodies were exhumed and sent to the Legal Medical Institute. Currently (late 1992), the forensic identification reports are pending.

Source: Corporation report

The Minister in Extraordinary Visitation sentenced, with costs, a retired Carabineros officer and non-commissioned officer for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, and the aggravated homicide of Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda.

These crimes were committed in October 1973 when they thwarted the victims' entry into the Argentine Embassy.

The Minister in Extraordinary Visitation for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza González, sentenced, with costs, a retired Carabineros officer and non-commissioned officer for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, and the aggravated homicide of Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda.

These crimes were committed in October 1973 when they thwarted the victims' entry into the Argentine Embassy.

In the ruling (case file 177-2010), the visiting minister sentenced the then-second sergeant of the Carabineros, Nolberto Fermín Ceballos Moraga, to an effective prison sentence of 10 years and one day as the perpetrator of the three crimes of aggravated kidnapping, plus another 10 years and one day of imprisonment as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide.

Meanwhile, the Carabineros major at the time of the events, José Alfredo Aros Velásquez, must serve 10 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnappings.

In the resolution, Minister Plaza González established the following facts:

"On October 6, 1973, around 10:00, Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda, 19 years old, a high school student and militant of the Communist Youth; Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, 21 years old, single, a tailoring student and militant of the Communist Party; Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, 19 years old, a worker and militant of the Communist Youth; Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, 25 years old, a welder and militant of the Communist Party; and Samuel Segundo Riquelme Cruz, Deputy Director General of the Investigations Police of Chile at the date of the investigated events, attempted to seek asylum in the Argentine Embassy, located on Avenida Vicuña Mackenna, using the San Borja Arriarán Hospital, whose facilities were adjacent to it, as an access route. At the moment the aforementioned individuals prepared to jump over the dividing wall, they were intercepted by Carabineros officials belonging to the 6th Precinct, who were already at the same location, wearing clothing that simulated health personnel. They thwarted the attempt by using their firearms against those seeking refuge, resulting in the death of Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda at the scene. The other detainees were transported to the indicated precinct along with the Investigations official who accompanied them, Samuel Segundo Riquelme Cruz, who finally managed to survive."

Subsequently, the remains of Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra were found after being identified among those victims whose bodies were recovered from Patio 29 of the General Cemetery in 1991, without identification and outside of any public record.

Forensic and identification procedures established the cause of death for Abelardo Quinteros as "wounds from a firearm, with the immediate cause of death being hemorrhagic shock in the context of a violent, homicidal, legal-medical death," and for Sepúlveda Labra as "a direct and proportionate consequence of wounds from a firearm, with the immediate cause of death being hemorrhagic shock in the context of a violent, homicidal, legal-medical death."

The investigation established that the police officials who used their firearms were Carabineros Gonzalo Andrés Valdivia Zúñiga (currently deceased) and Nolberto Fermín Ceballos Moraga, and those who ordered, supervised, and were in charge of the detention of the victims were the then-major Jorge David Retamal Berríos (now deceased), commissioner and head of the police unit that intervened in the procedure—the 6th Precinct—and José Alfredo Aros Velásquez, head of the First Shift Service, in charge of operations outside the police facility on October 6, 1973.

For the visiting minister: "(...) the facts described in the preceding motive constitute crimes of aggravated kidnapping committed against the persons of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, provided for and sanctioned in Article 141, paragraphs one and three of the Penal Code, and the crime of aggravated homicide perpetrated against Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda, typified in Article 391 No. 1, first circumstance, of the same legal body, all in their wording in force at the time of occurrence.

The terms of the fiscal accusation regarding the victims Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra are thus reclassified, in attention to the elements gathered in the criminal trial, the content and scope of the private accusations, and the powers of the tribunal, expressed upon issuing the sentence, to frame the facts demonstrated through the legal evidence presented to the typical figure that best fits the factual circumstances established in the preceding foundation, without prejudice to what will be said later when addressing the totality of the arguments of the plaintiffs."

The resolution adds that: "Regarding the crime of homicide, it has been demonstrated that Nolberto Ceballos Moraga acted from a position of safety, simulating being an official of the hospital facility, which meant that he did not venture into any risk in the perpetration of the illicit act, thus creating a state of defenselessness in the victim, Eduardo Quinteros Miranda, who could not warn of the presence of the state agents guarding the place, and in that context, he fired against the group of young men, causing his death at the scene."

"At the same time, the crimes indicated above assume the typology of crimes against International Law, as crimes against humanity, it being established in the case file that the illicit act is executed in a historical context of massive, repeated, and systematic attacks against the civilian population, committed by state agents who, taking advantage of their status and encouraged by political and ideological motives, implemented a plan conceived by the State as a policy to be followed against people whose thinking was contrary to the government of the time, proceeding to perpetrate the legally reprehensible acts exposed in the preceding motive," it adds.

In the civil sphere, Minister Plaza González ordered the state treasury to pay a total compensation of $435,000,000 for moral damages to the victims' family members.

Source: pdju.cl, November 26, 2024 Date: 26-11-2024

Breaking the silence of children and adolescents who were political executions during the 1973-1990 civil-military dictatorship (BOOK)

The book "Breaking the silence of children and adolescents who were political executions during the 1973-1990 civil-military dictatorship," which was produced by the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons (AFEP) with the support of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, through the Culture, Memory, and Human Rights Unit, and the Human Rights Chair of the University of Chile, incorporates testimonies, photographs, letters, and other documents that families and friends provided or wrote specifically to be published.

The publication, based mainly on the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and the Report of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (1996), seeks to reconstruct in a comprehensive and careful manner each of the lives and stories of the victims.

During the investigation, access was granted to the archive of the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons, where documents that families have preserved over the years are kept. Illustrations by Álvaro Gómez were also included.

The creation process was a complex challenge that involved combining delicacy, respect, and methodological rigor to state a painful and inescapable truth in this work.

Source: Cultura.gob.cl, 20/4/2023 Date: 20-04-2023

Patio 29: Behind the Iron Cross (BOOK)

Patio 29 used to be used for the burial of the indigent, psychiatric patients, and people who died without being identified (NN). However, between September 1973 and January 1974, its graves were used to hide victims of repression as NN.

Javiera Bustamante and Stephan Ruderer reconstruct the painful history of the place, using testimonies from the families of the forcibly disappeared, letters, documents, and other sources. The book also accounts for the arduous process of identification and delivery of the bodies, as well as the irregularities that characterized these proceedings.

The powerful photographs that illustrate the volume were taken by visual artist Mara Daruich. Bustamante, Javiera; Ruderer, Stephan

Source: ocholibros.cl, no date