This is the first time a magistrate has prosecuted a former uniformed officer for the crime of abduction of minors, a crime that was expressly excluded from the 1978 Amnesty Decree, meaning the former police officer could face a harsh penalty if convicted.

The judge ordered the pretrial detention of Barría at the Pudahuel Norte Carabineros Sub-station for the crime of abducting minors Leonidas Isabel Díaz Díaz, 14, and Jaime Max Bastías Navarrete, 17, who were detained on October 12, 1973, in Puente Alto and executed in the early morning hours on the banks of the Mapocho River.

The magistrate also charged Barría with the crime of kidnapping with homicide against Alfredo Andrés Moreno Mena, 23; Luis Miguel Rodríguez Arancibia, 23; Luis Alberto Verdejo Contreras, 26; and Luis Suazo Suazo, 20, who were detained along with the two minors.

Likewise, he charged the former uniformed officer with the crime of kidnapping against Luis Abraham González Plaza, 19 at the time of the detention and the only survivor of the operation. The Facts According to the resolution by Judge Calvo, the group of youths and children was detained by Carabineros personnel on October 12, 1973, on public streets for the crimes of street disturbances and public intoxication.

The group was transferred during the day to the Second Police Station of Puente Alto, referred to the Fourth Police Station of Santiago, and then to the Rogelio Ugarte Precinct, from where they were taken and executed on the banks of the Mapocho River during curfew hours.

Only Luis González Plaza survived the executions, and the cases were not included as victims in the 1991 Rettig Report; however, they were reclassified by the Reparation and Reconciliation Commission as victims of the dictatorship.

Calvo was appointed by the Supreme Court as a special minister to take over part of the cases being investigated by his colleague Juan Guzmán Tapia in a reorganization of human rights violation proceedings.

Source: tvn.cl October 31, 2002

Case dismissed in human rights matter

Minister Daniel Calvo dismissed yesterday the application of international human rights treaties when definitively dismissing the case against retired Carabineros sub-officer Rubén Barría Igor, who was accused of the kidnapping and homicide of two minors, two adults, and the kidnapping of a person who survived his detention, events that occurred in October 1973.

The magistrate applied the statute of limitations to the criminal action given the time elapsed since the date of the crimes, after determining that they do not fall under the categories of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or crimes of aggression, which do not expire according to doctrine and international treaties.

According to the Rettig Report, the events occurred on October 13, 1973, when Carabineros personnel detained minors Leonidas Díaz Díaz and Jaime Bastías Martínez; adults Alfredo Moreno Mena, Luis Miguel Rodríguez Arancibia, Luis Alberto Verdejo Contreras, Luis Suazo Suazo, and Luis Abraham González Plaza (the only survivor), inside a recreational park in the Puente Alto commune in the Metropolitan Region.

They were then transferred, the document notes, to the 20th Police Station of Puente Alto and later to the 4th Police Station of Santiago, being taken in the early morning to the Bulnes Bridge, where they were executed.

In the first-instance sentence, Minister Calvo determines that "from the study of its pieces or evidence, no background information arises that allows one to infer that the perpetrator of the crimes proceeded with the detention and subsequent transfer of his victims by order or instruction of a superior and motivated by their political, ethnic, racial, and/or religious affiliation." The superior order was ruled out, as it is recorded in the former Carabineros officer's service record that he was sanctioned with 15 days of arrest for detaining the Bastías brothers, among whom is one of those executed. The ruling also alludes to the Rettig Report, which does not attribute the crimes to political violence. The application of the amnesty was not analyzed after the statute of limitations for the criminal action was accepted. The civil action for damages against the state was also declared expired.

Source: El Mercurio August 5, 2003

Court orders compensation for survivor of military repression

The tribunal determined that the State is responsible for an operation carried out on October 12, 1973, which ended in the death of seven youths, aged between 14 and 26, and from which only one person escaped alive.

Furthermore, it ordered reparation of $200 million for the families of four of the victims, while the officer in charge of the patrol was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In a ruling that could set a precedent from a judicial point of view regarding monetary reparation in cases of dictatorship crimes, the Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the Chilean State to pay compensation of $65 million to a survivor of a political execution carried out by Carabineros personnel in October 1973.

In a unanimous resolution, the Fourth Chamber of the capital's appellate court, composed of ministers Jorge Dahm, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, and lawyer Francisco Tapia, sentenced the Treasury to pay the aforementioned sum to Luis Abraham González Plaza, who was the only person to survive an extrajudicial execution carried out by police on October 12, 1973, on one of the banks of the Mapocho River.

The tribunal ordered the payment of another $200 million to the relatives of four youths who were executed by the police—the relatives of three other victims did not file lawsuits—while sentencing Carabineros officer Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor to 16 years of effective prison time.

The ruling revoked a decision by the then-minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Daniel Calvo Flores, who on August 4, 2003, had dismissed the conviction by applying the statute of limitations to the crime of homicide and, furthermore, denied the payment of the corresponding compensation by the Chilean state.

The resolution applies the Geneva International Conventions to declare that the crimes of homicide are imprescriptible in both the criminal and civil spheres. International Law mandates payment In the case of González Plaza, the ruling establishes that the bullets lodged in his body left him with an inflammation of bone tissue known as right scapular osteomyelitis, derived from a bullet that was lodged in his body and later extracted. "The reparation in this latter case must especially take into consideration not only the hardships the victim had to endure while suffering from the commission of the crime, but also the subsequent sequelae (...) in this instance, the State of Chile, insofar as the events for which the victim suffers damage stem from the actions of officials of the Carabineros de Chile, the armed police force in charge of order," the sentence states. Regarding civil reparation, the ruling asserts that the norms of the Civil Code dating from 1855 cannot be applied, as the 1949 Geneva Conventions established that human rights violations are imprescriptible in the criminal sphere, which must be extended to the sphere of civil justice. "In the case of war crimes, by virtue of which criminal action is imprescriptible, it is not possible to ignore the unitary nature of the criminal process, whereby, consequently with the sanction that corresponds to be applied by virtue of criminal norms, the civil sanction must naturally be established, since the damage has been declared and which grounds the former, it must be repaired by virtue of the latter, as the source of the obligations is the same," it adds. Fatal evening at the recreational park The story of Luis Abraham Plaza González could be one of the most emblematic of the harsh repression applied after the military coup of September 11, 1973, in which state agents believed they had carte blanche to commit all kinds of crimes without being sanctioned and without apparent justification. Plaza, then 19 years old, was at four in the afternoon on Friday, October 12, 1973, with some friends at the "El Sauce" recreational park, located in the Puente Alto commune, when a patrol of four Carabineros, including Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor, violently entered the premises and took several people into custody who apparently had no connection to political activities. The detainees were taken first to the Second Police Station of Puente Alto, where no record of their entry was made, and then transferred to the Fourth Police Station of Santiago, located on Calle Chiloé in Santiago, where no official trace of their passage was left either. Later, they were taken to the Rogelio Ugarte Precinct, from where seven youths, aged between 14 and 26, were taken to the Bulnes Bridge to be executed between the night of October 13 and the early morning of the following day. The victims of police repression were: Leonidas Isabel Díaz Díaz (14); Jaime Max Bastías Martínez (17); Luis Abraham González Plaza (19); Luis Suazo Suazo (20); Alfredo Andrés Moreno Mena (23); Luis Miguel Rodríguez Arancibia (23); and Luis Alberto Verdejo Contreras (26), all executed with bursts of gunfire to the thorax and skull. The members of the patrol, before starting to shoot, told the youths to run from the place, but the bursts fired made escape almost impossible, and some of the bodies fell into the Mapocho River bed after being struck. Only Luis Plaza managed to survive because two inert bodies fell on top of him and "cushioned" the bullets fired to ensure death after the initial shots. A final aspect to remember when evaluating the brutality of the crime committed is that at the date of the events, the legal age of majority was 21, so in practice, the police fired against four minors who had only gone to have fun at a recreational park.

Source: elmostrador.cl February 2, 2007

Former Carabineros officer who killed six youths days after the military coup convicted

The decision of the Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals affects former uniformed officer Rubén Barría Igor. The justice system sentenced a former Carabineros officer to 16 years in prison for having executed six youths a few days after the military coup of September 11, 1973.

The decision of the Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals affects former uniformed officer Rubén Barría Igor, whom it sentenced as the perpetrator of the deaths of the youths—two of them minors—after arbitrarily detaining them at a grocery store.

Human rights lawyer Alberto Espinoza noted that with today's resolution, the justice system annulled the dismissal of the sentence issued in August 2003 by Judge Daniel Calvo, which determined the statute of limitations for the accused.

Barría is accused of the detention, on October 12, 1973, of several youths who were at a recreational park located in the Puente Alto commune. Barría took the youths to three police stations in Santiago without registering their entry in any of them.

According to the ruling, after releasing some of the detainees, Barría took seven youths from the Rogelio Ugarte precinct, whom he transported to the Mapocho River, where he executed six of them by gunfire, while one survived.

The state was also ordered to pay compensation of 50 million pesos to four relatives of the victims and 75 million pesos to the sole survivor, identified as Luis González, who went to the courts today to be notified of the resolution.

Source: emol.cl February 2, 2007

Executed at the Bulnes Bridge: Carabineros Sub-officer receives new conviction

Minister Mario Carroza handed down 10 years and one day in prison to Rubén Barría for the case of the market vendors detained at a recreational park in Puente Alto and executed at the Mapocho River. Visiting Minister Mario Carroza handed down a sentence in the investigation into the qualified homicide of Luis Toro Veloso, a market vendor with no political affiliation who was detained at a recreational park in Puente Alto and riddled with bullets in the Puente Bulnes sector on October 12, 1973.

The magistrate determined that retired Carabineros sub-officer Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison, thus adding this victim to the others in the investigation known as "El Sauce," for which he has been serving a sentence since 2007 by Supreme Court ruling.

According to the case files, Carabineros detained 11 people who were at the "El Sauce" recreational park, located on Calle José Luis Coo in Puente Alto. They were taken to the Second Carabineros Police Station of the commune and then transferred to the center of Santiago, specifically to the Fourth Police Station and subsequently to the Rogelio Ugarte precinct.

From that last police facility, the group of detainees was taken in an institutional jeep and brought to the Puente Bulnes sector, where they were taken down to the banks of the Mapocho River and riddled with bullets.

According to the only survivor of the massacre, Luis González Plaza, the group was at the recreational park for an activity to raise funds for the funeral of a friend murdered after September 11. The group included, in addition to Toro Veloso, Luis Rodríguez Arancibia, Alfredo Moreno Mena, Luis Verdejo Contreras, Jaime Bastías Leiva, Leonidas Díaz Díaz, Luis Suazo Suazo, Domingo Morales Díaz, David Gayoso González, and Luis González Lazo.

Source: lanacion.cl July 1, 2014

Conviction confirmed against former Carabineros sub-officer for death of worker after Military Coup

The IV Chamber of the appellate court, unanimously, ratified the sentence issued in the first instance on June 30 by special judge Mario Carroza against former sub-officer Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor for the murder of worker Luis Toro Veloso, committed on October 12, 1973.

The Santiago Court of Appeals ratified today the sentence of ten years and one day in prison for a former Carabineros sub-officer for the murder of a worker whose body appeared in the Mapocho River, in Santiago, after the 1973 military coup, judicial sources reported.

The IV Chamber of the appellate court, unanimously, ratified the sentence issued in the first instance on June 30 by special judge Mario Carroza against former sub-officer Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor for the murder of worker Luis Toro Veloso, committed on October 12, 1973.

Luis Toro Veloso was part of a dozen people who were detained by Carabineros at "El Sauce," a recreational park (a place for singing and dancing) in the municipality of Puente Alto, southeast of Santiago, while they were in a state of intoxication and causing some disturbances.

However, nine of them were murdered a few hours later, and only one survived, by a miracle. For other victims of this same case, Rubén Barría is in prison, serving a sentence of ten years and one day handed down against him in 2007, when it was ratified by the Supreme Court.

Those detained at Los Sauces were transferred from the recreational park successively to three police barracks, until they were taken to the bank of the Mapocho River, next to the Bulnes Bridge, in the central sector of Santiago, where they were riddled with gunfire without a judicial order.

Only one of the prisoners, Luis González Plaza, was able to survive the shots, which killed Luis Rodríguez Arancibia, Alfredo Moreno Mena, Luis Verdejo Contreras, Jaime Bastías Leiva, Elizabeth Leonidas Díaz Díaz, Luis Suazo Suazo, Domingo Morales Díaz, David Gayoso González, Luis González Lazo, and Luis Toro Veloso.

Elizabeth Leonidas Díaz was a 14-year-old schoolgirl who was pregnant, and Jaime Bastías was a 17-year-old adolescent. Regarding the first six victims, the Supreme Court ratified in 2007 a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison against Barría Igor for the crimes of frustrated qualified homicide, qualified homicide, and kidnapping.

In 2010, Judge Mario Carroza issued a first-instance sentence against Barría for the victims Morales Díaz, Gayoso González, and González Lazo, which was ratified by the Santiago Court of Appeals and not appealed before the Supreme Court. Now, the ratification of the sentence for the crime of Luis Toro is added.

Source: theclinic.cl, September 23, 2014