• Juan Antonio Rodríguez, Chilean, detained on January 8 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, from which date he remains forcibly disappeared.
• Sylvia Lilian Almendras Zapata, disappeared in Argentina.
• Santiago Pedro Astelarra, disappeared in Argentina.
• Yolanda Barría Santana, disappeared in Argentina.
• Omar José Ojeda Mera, disappeared in Argentina.
• Mario Juan Villa Colombo, disappeared in Argentina.
• Ricardo Lancelot Carvajal Vargas, disappeared in Argentina.
• Gary Nelson Olomos Guzmán, disappeared in Argentina.
• José Fernando Fanjul Mallea, disappeared in Argentina.
• Silvía Teresa Marrambio Silva, disappeared in Argentina.
• Angel Manuel Martínez Fernández, disappeared in Argentina.
• Luisa Aurora Arredondo Fernández, disappeared in Argentina.

Source: basedatos.parquedelamemoria.org.ar

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases in the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, issued an indictment against two retired members of the Carabineros for their responsibility in the aggravated homicide of Roberto Eder Huaiqui Barría and the frustrated homicide of José Oporto del Río.

These crimes were perpetrated in the commune of Lago Ranco in September 1973. In the resolution (case file 2-2014 Valdivia), the visiting minister charged Mamerto Tercero Ávila González and Carlos Emilio Galindo Ruiz as authors of the crimes, which occurred within the framework of an ambush in which Carabineros and civilians participated, following a report of alleged looting of homes.

During the investigation phase of the case, Minister Álvaro Mesa managed to gather sufficient evidence to establish the following facts:

“A.-

That Roberto Eder Huaiqui Barría, in 1973, was 17 years old, a secondary school student, a member of the Socialist Party, and the son of Yolanda Barría Santana and Emilio Huaiqui Calfulef, who was the president of the Peasant Communal Council of Lago Ranco and also a member of the Socialist Party, and who lived in the Tringlo A sector of the aforementioned area. (As recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 02, fs. 27, fs. 32, fs. 48, fs. 101, fs. 215 (Volume I), fs. 319 (Volume II), and fs. 723 (Volume III)).

B.- That in 1973, in the Commune of Lago Ranco, there was a Carabineros Station, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Luis Ernesto Quezada Ramírez, who was in charge of the border outposts of Riñinahue and Llifén, among others, which were dependent on the Fourth Carabineros Commissariat of Río Bueno.

It should be noted that the Riñinahue Outpost was staffed by Carabineros Carlos Galindo Ruiz, Mamerto Tercero Ávila González, and Carlos Germán Oñate Jaramillo (as recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 450, fs. 451, Volume II).

Regarding the daily functions performed at these outposts, they included 24-hour guard duty, patrols on horseback, in vehicles, or on foot in the vicinity, in addition to carrying out judicial orders from the Criminal and Local Police Courts of Río Bueno and La Unión.

These outposts, after September 11, 1973, repeatedly facilitated their facilities to officials of the Army, Air Force, and Navy for the purpose of carrying out specific operations. [As recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 188, fs. 189, fs. 194, fs. 196, fs. 197, fs. 302 (Volume I), fs. 632 (Volume III)].

C.- That after September 11, 1973, rumors were heard via radio at the Carabineros Station that there were clashes between guerrillas and the military in the Neltume area; it is for this reason that, at that time, Carabineros from the aforementioned outposts began to search for people who were members of or political sympathizers with the opposition in the sector (as recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 302, fs. 305, fs. 313, Volume II).

D.- That in the context described above, days after September 11, 1973, an operation was carried out in which personnel from the Riñinahue Outpost were surrounded by people, forcing the Carabineros of said outpost to flee the place toward Llifén, being assisted by other colleagues.

The following day, military reinforcements arrived from the Maturana Regiment in Valdivia, which took control, installing themselves in the Arquihue sector, a place where they had a kind of base with trucks and military patrols, stationing themselves with Carabineros from the Riñinahue and Llifén outposts and even civilians, in order to control the situation. [As recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 342 and in the statement of Germán Oñate Jaramillo (Volume II), fs. 346 to fs. 363, fs. 789 (Volume III)].

E.- That one of the Carabineros who had to leave the outpost in the operation described above was Mamerto Tercero Ávila González, a 1st Sergeant who worked at the Fourth Carabineros Commissariat of Río Bueno, with the Riñinahue Outpost being the detachment where he was assigned to perform duties during the period of September 11, 1973; due to this event, he was transferred to Llifén and Lago Ranco in order to reinforce the aforementioned outpost [as recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 345, fs. 347, fs. 348, fs. 352, fs. 425 (Volume II)].

F.- That following the chronological order of the events that occurred, in the statement from fs. 456 to fs. 458 (Volume II), Carlos Emilio Galindo Ruiz, a Carabinero from the Riñinahue Station, indicates that ‘after September 11, 1973, a lieutenant from Lago Ranco informed him via radio that around seventy extremists had escaped from the town of Riñinahue; likewise, the lieutenant from Llifén reported that said extremists would attack his police barracks that same night.

Immediately thereafter, while in the town of Llifén, he and another Carabinero went to Riñinahue since there was no police contingent, as they had been withdrawn from the sector, with the purpose of verifying the situation in the place.

While they were carrying out said patrol, between 16:00 and 18:00 hours in the Calporrupe sector, specifically on a plain very close to a river located about 100 meters from the road, they noticed the presence of a group of approximately sixty people, who were shouting for help because their houses were being looted by people who were hiding on the other side of the mountain range, for which reason they went with their colleague to the place.

Suddenly, he saw about six people running out of some bushes and shrubs in different directions, remembering one person who ran in the direction where the sixty people were, and upon observing the flight and losing sight of him, he remembers hearing several shots.’ G.- That the people indicated in the previous paragraph (the six people who appeared from the bushes) corresponded to a group of young Socialists and Communists who left the city of Lago Ranco bound for Argentina, with the intention of passing through the border crossings that exist in Riñinahue and crossing the mountain range, without success due to the weather conditions and snow existing in the place, forcing them to return. Among them were Roberto Huaiqui Barría, who was accompanied by his friend José Jovin Oporto del Río, Carlos Ancacura Antihual, Sergio Segundo Calfulef Traillanca, and Luis Rubén Días Zumelzu, among others. When they were returning through Riñinahue, the first two, Roberto and José Jovin, plus others whose identity is unknown, had to separate from the aforementioned group. They were walking through a wooded area and some people came out and shot at them, for which reason they ran toward the Nilahue bridge. They found themselves in an ambush, since on the other side of the road there were many civilians and Carabineros, among them Mamerto Tercero Ávila González (as recorded in the statement of José Jovin Oporto del Río from fs. 327 to fs. 329 [(Volume II) and (fs. 645, fs. 715, fs. 724) (Volume III)], seeing and recognizing him in that place. Also present there at those moments, in that action, was Carabinero Carlos Emilio Galindo Ruiz, according to his own statement from fs. 450 to fs. 452 (Volume II). H.- That according to what was related in the previous paragraph and as a result of the ambush [as recorded in, among other evidence, the court’s personal inspection from fs. 1123 to fs. 1125, in the planimetric and photographic report from fs. 983 to fs. 988 (Volume III)] and the statements of Hernán Daniel Leal Oporto from fs. 553 to fs. 554 (Volume II), a tractor driver who was at the scene of the events, Roberto Huaiqui and his friend José Jovin Oporto headed to the Nilahue River in order to escape their pursuers. The Carabineros in charge of the pursuit, Mamerto Tercero Ávila González and Carlos Emilio Galindo Ruiz, observed that Huaiqui and Oporto entered the Nilahue River. A series of shots were then fired at the bodies of Roberto Huaiqui and his friend José Jovin Oporto. Roberto Huaiqui received a bullet impact and began to lose vitality while the river current carried him away. On the other hand, José Jovin Oporto, his accompanying friend, received a shot in the back at the height of the left lung, approaching the shore to lie down in that place, at which moment this large group of people detained him, struck him on the head with the butt of a carbine and with feet and fists, to be transported by light aircraft to Río Bueno and subsequently left at the police station and then transported to the hospital to be imprisoned, a place where he met again with his other two accompanying friends who had escaped the ambush by taking another path, Sergio Segundo Calfulef Traillanca and Luis Rubén Días Zumelzu, to whom he recounted what happened, indicating to them that a Carabinero from Riñinahue with the surname Ávila had been involved on the day they shot at him and Roberto Huaiqui, a situation that is ratified in the judicial statement of Sergio Segundo Calfulef Traillanca from fs. 722 to fs. 724 (Volume III) and Luis Rubén Días Zumelzu at fs. 805 (Volume III) (as recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 3, fs. 28, fs. 29, fs. 60, fs. 87, fs. 232 (Volume I), fs. 313, fs. 319, fs. 339, fs. 367, fs. 397, fs. 313, fs. 425, fs. 476, fs. 478, fs. 511, fs. 512 (Volume II), and fs. 804 (Volume III)). I.- That some time after the events occurred, Roberto Huaiqui’s father rented a boat to travel along the Nilahue River in search of his son, thinking that he might have been trapped between the rocks or some bush on the riverbank, a situation that could not be carried out because Carabineros from Riñinahue prevented him from reaching the place where the events occurred. It should be noted that Carabineros from Lago Ranco, on other occasions, had gone together to carry out raids on the home of the victim in this case, detaining Roberto’s father and taking him to the Río Bueno Jail. (As recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 98 (Volume I), in the statement of Dina Huaiqui Barría, fs. 100, fs. 101, fs. 137, fs. 139 (Volume I), fs. 319, fs. 478 (Volume II), fs. 632, fs. 633 (Volume III)). J.- That years later, and due to not knowing the whereabouts of Roberto Huaiqui, on April 30, 2008, Eliel Huaiqui Barría, the brother of the victim in this case, presented a request for a Declaration of Presumed Death to the Río Bueno Court of Letters and Guarantee, in which a final judgment was issued on February 1, 2012, declaring the presumed death of the victim in this case. (As recorded in, among other evidence, fs. 215, 223, 232, 258, 271 (Volume I)). K.- That although both uniformed officers mentioned in the preceding paragraphs were part of the group of people (Carabineros and civilians) that killed the victim of this case, they did not take any action to prevent the execution of the crime, likewise collaborating with it; furthermore, they did not report or inform the Carabineros’ superiors or any other authority of the fact, nor is there any record that an investigation was carried out, nor the existence of a record as a consequence of the commission of this act.” Likewise, the resolution states: “That the facts outlined above, at this procedural stage, constitute the crime of consummated aggravated homicide, as a crime against humanity, in the person of Roberto Eder Huaiqui Barría, provided for and sanctioned in Article 391 No. 1, First Circumstance of the Penal Code in force at the time of the events, and constitute the crime of frustrated aggravated homicide as a crime against humanity, in the person of José Jovin Oporto del Río, provided for and sanctioned in Article 391 No. 1, First Circumstance, in relation to Article 7 of the Penal Code in force at the time of the events.” “That from these same antecedents –it continues– and the own statements of MAMERTO TERCERO ÁVILA GONZÁLEZ, from fs. 358 to fs. 359, from fs. 482 to fs. 483 (Volume II), from fs. 1070 to fs. 1071 (Volume III), from fs. 1357 (Volume IV), and of CARLOS EMILIO GALINDO RUIZ from fs. 456 to fs. 458 (Volume II), from fs. 866 to fs. 870, from fs. 873 to fs. 876, from fs. 1070 to fs. 1071 (Volume III), from fs. 1354 to fs. 1355 (Volume IV), there are well-founded presumptions to consider them Authors, by virtue of Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, in the crimes of aggravated homicide in the person of Roberto Huaiqui Barría and frustrated aggravated homicide in the person of José Jovin Oporto del Río, as crimes against humanity.” “For these considerations and having seen the provisions of Articles 424 and 425 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in relation to Articles 14 and 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, it is declared: That this case is ELEVATED to the PLENARY and MAMERTO TERCERO ÁVILA GONZÁLEZ and CARLOS EMILIO GALINDO RUIZ are ACCUSED as AUTHORS of the crimes of aggravated homicide, as crimes against humanity, in the person of Roberto Eder Huaiqui Barría (consummated aggravated homicide) and in the person of José Jovin Oporto del Río, of the crime of frustrated homicide, perpetrated in the commune of Lago Ranco. Both crimes occurred, according to the merits of the process, between September 15 and 17, 1973,” it concludes.

Source: pjud.cl 31/5/2023