The chief physician of the Military Hospital is among those charged as perpetrators of the homicide, along with the former President’s driver. Physicians from the Pontificia Universidad Católica (UC) are charged as accessories.

A total of 6 people, including the head of the Comptroller’s Department of the Military Hospital, Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, have been indicted to varying degrees for the murder of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva on January 22, 1982, at the Clínica Santa María.

The investigating judge for the case, Alejandro Madrid, indicted and ordered the arrest of Silva Garín, Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez as perpetrators of the homicide.

Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto was indicted as an accomplice, while Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González were charged as accessories.

According to a report issued this morning by the Judiciary’s Communications Directorate—the first to officially confirm the case—the indicted individuals were detained in different facilities.

Dr. Silva Garín is a retired Army health colonel and currently serves as head of the Comptroller’s Department at the Military Hospital. Becerra, meanwhile, was the former President’s driver and trusted official, as well as an informant for the DINE (Army Intelligence Directorate) tasked with spying on Frei.

Lillo Gutiérrez, who is also accused in the murder of chemist Eugenio Berríos, was an agent for the DINA, the CNI, and the DINE. He was the one who managed the contact with Becerra.

Valdivia Soto is a former DINA agent and a physician at the Clínica Santa María. Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González are physicians from the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Hospital who performed the autopsy.

According to unofficial reports, the accused were transported by special personnel from the Investigative Police (PDI) to the courthouse on Avenida España, where they were notified by the magistrate.

On Saturday, November 28, Judge Madrid completed the final two procedures to reconstruct the moments before Frei Montalva’s death and the mysterious autopsy performed in the very room where he died, which was hidden for 20 years in the anatomy archives of the UC Hospital.

Judge Madrid: “Toxic substances” in Frei murder

Investigating Judge Alejandro Madrid detailed this afternoon that the murder of Eduardo Frei Montalva, for which he issued 6 indictments today, was caused by “toxic substances” that the perpetrators introduced into his body at the Clínica Santa María.

“The death was caused by the gradual introduction of unconventional toxic substances, by the application of unauthorized pharmacological products, and by the occurrence of anomalous situations that were disguised and that deteriorated his immune system,” the magistrate said in his first statement following the notification and arrest of the group.

He specified that the type of substance injected into the former President, which caused his death on January 22, 1982, after he was hospitalized for a hernia, had, until now, made “the intervention of third parties in his death imperceptible.”

Regarding the presence of close associates as perpetrators of the crime, such as Frei Montalva’s driver, Luis Becerra, and his former Undersecretary of Health, the physician Patricio Silva Garín, he said that “precisely, closeness is sometimes how one acts.”

Regarding the roles of Becerra and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, he noted that they had “the role of surveillance, of having paid informants, of coordinating all telephone wiretaps to keep the former president in a condition of absolute control.”

CIPER

December 8, 2009 The traces left by the assassination of Eduardo Frei Montalva

After seven years of investigation, the death of former President Frei Montalva has been classified as a homicide. The judicial resolution attributes an active role to physicians and agents of the repression, who are accused of having participated in an operation that disguised the progressive poisoning of the former president with chemical substances as an illness.

They tried to erase their tracks, but the discovery of clinical records, scientific analyses, and more than a thousand statements brought them to light 27 years later. The suspicious history of Dr. Patricio Silva Garín and the unprecedented medical testimonies reinforce the thesis of investigating judge Alejandro Madrid.

The CNI and DINE’s encirclement of the Clínica Santa María finished configuring a shocking picture.

Lost in the accounting warehouse of the Clínica Santa María were the clinical records that held the secrets of the final days of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, the man who led the opposition to Pinochet in 1981.

These records, although incomplete, along with more than one hundred medical testimonies and sophisticated scientific analyses, allowed for the verification that he was murdered in 1981 by Augusto Pinochet’s security services by destroying his immune system, in a process similar to that which occurs in AIDS patients.

The traces of thallium and nitrogen mustard recorded in his remains, exhumed on December 22, 2004, poisoned him and weakened his defenses, but what acted as a lethal chemical weapon that triggered his death was Transfer-Factor, a product applied to him on four occasions despite never having international medical certification.

This accumulation of expert reports, documents, and testimonies finished assembling the map of his death, allowing Judge Alejandro Madrid to establish the crime of homicide and indict four physicians and two former intelligence service agents as perpetrators, accomplices, and accessories.

The investigation began seven years ago when the former president’s daughter, Carmen Frei, requested an investigation into the cover-up and illicit association behind her father’s death. And that illicit association included a tight circle of telephone wiretaps, surveillance, infiltrators, and filming that included Frei’s house, his movements inside and outside the country, and even the hallways of the Clínica Santa María.

The encirclement of the former president was carried out by commanders of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) and the CNI, then directed by the man who had been a military aide during his term, showing him multiple gestures of appreciation and loyalty: General Humberto Gordón. He would not be the only trusted man to betray him.

The telephone wiretaps were in charge of Colonel Jorge Vizcaya Donoso (head of the division), who was responsible for the security of La Moneda’s communications and also a secret Telephone Monitoring office, which did not appear on any institutional organizational chart.

And it is understandable, because Luis Vargas worked there, who was an official of the Telephone Company assigned to the CNI. His mission: to enable telephone connections to intercept and record the phones that the high command ordered.

It is not strange, then, that two CTC officials appeared at Frei’s house to replace a device supposedly in poor condition. Later, it would be proven that what they actually did was install a tiny recorder inside it.

Before Frei was admitted to the Clínica Santa María, the operational team that prepared Frei’s elimination set another device in motion. A group of approximately seven retired military personnel arrived unexpectedly at the hospital facility to perform “guard” and “butler” duties.

Several members of the Clinic’s medical staff even recalled that the director at the time, Dr. Enrique Duval, complained about this imposition by his superiors. The new contingent remained under the orders of the administrative manager of the establishment at the time, Ana María Benavente, sister-in-law of General Julio Canessa, who lived in the same house as the man Pinochet chose in 1982, shortly after Frei’s murder, as Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

Among the new employees was Sergeant (ret.) José Miguel Ogalde, who took charge of the establishment’s warehouse, and Army Sergeant Major (ret.) José Espinoza. It was that official who prepared the room (401) assigned to Frei when he arrived for surgery at the clinic on November 18, 1981, and where he remained until December 7, after having been readmitted.

It was the same Espinoza who moved him to the X-ray room on December 6, when he suffered septic shock caused by the rupture of a catheter.

Espinoza knew Dr. Patricio Silva Garín well, who headed the last three operations Frei underwent and has just been indicted as a perpetrator of his homicide. Espinoza’s daughter, Rosa, worked at the Military Hospital, in the Diagnostic Imaging Department, under the direct orders of Silva Garín.

The orderly and butler had another peculiarity. His other daughter, Sonia, went from corporal in the Army’s Permanent Staff to the Officer Corps, reaching the rank of captain in the intelligence specialty after successive courses and training.

She spent her entire career in those tasks, mainly in the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) and as an assistant to sub-director Gustavo Rivera Toro, until 1992.

With Madrid’s ruling, it is clear that Dr. Patricio Silva Garín was also part of the circle that security agencies built around Frei Montalva. Only in this way can it be understood that he called Pinochet himself when he assumed command of the former president’s second operation and everything related to his treatment.

Perpetrators, accessories, and accomplices

Dr. Silva Garín claims to have never known about the use of Transfer-Factor on his patient Eduardo Frei, but the express record of its subcutaneous inoculation was documented in the clinical records discovered in Judge Madrid’s investigation.

The product was applied after he was readmitted to the Clínica Santa María on December 4, 1981, following a surprise complication that arose after a routine hiatal hernia operation performed on November 18 at the same clinic. From that December 4, Silva Garín was in charge of the three new interventions, treatments, and examinations.

Judge Alejandro Madrid imprisoned and indicted Silva Garín, current Director of Clinical Management at the Military Hospital and a member of the military staff since 1956, as a perpetrator of Frei’s murder.

Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, the man who directed the espionage circle around the former president, operational chief of the DINA, CNI, and later the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE) in the 90s, and custodian of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos during the days he was murdered in Uruguay in 1993 (See the report: All deaths lead to Berríos), was indicted under the same charge; as was Luis Becerra Arancibia, the driver and trusted man of Frei for more than 20 years, who worked for the CNI.

Madrid also ordered the arrest and indicted Dr. Pedro Valdivia Soto as an accomplice in Frei’s crime. He worked at the time at the Clínica Santa María and, in parallel, at the CNI’s Clínica London, where Corporal Manuel Jesús Leyton was murdered with sarin gas on March 29, 1977—a crime for which he is indicted and soon to be sentenced as an accessory (the Court annulled his indictment as a member of the illicit association).

Until recently, Valdivia was a physician at the Clínica Alemana.

Drs. Helman Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio Javier González Bombardiere, from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Clinical Hospital, were indicted as accessories to the assassination. Both physicians performed the secret and irregular autopsy on Frei’s remains in the same room where he died, just minutes after his death.

The reconstruction of the autopsy performed on Saturday, October 31, confirmed that the procedures and elements used altered any possibility of subsequent toxicological examinations that could have evidenced the existence of lethal chemical substances inoculated into his body.

The autopsy, authorized and requested by former minister Patricio Rojas and his brother-in-law Patricio Silva Garín, was kept hidden for more than 20 years, until an anonymous call alerted authorities to its existence.

Madrid’s resolution established that the crime of homicide—“sufficiently proven”—was caused “by the gradual introduction of unconventional toxic substances, the application of an unauthorized pharmacological product—‘Transfer Factor’—and by the occurrence of various anomalous situations, which could be disguised as oversights or negligence that gradually deteriorated his immune system and facilitated the appearance of opportunistic bacteria, such as those called ‘proteus vulgaris’ and ‘candida albicans,’ which turned out to be the final cause of his death and gave the appearance that his death occurred due to complications derived from the surgical interventions to which he was subjected, making the intervention of third parties in his death imperceptible.”

More than a thousand interrogations and police interviews, dozens of scientific expert reports in Chile and abroad, and more than 400 reports were accumulated to support Judge Madrid’s ruling. All of this accounts for the exhaustive work carried out in several countries since 1999, when Judge Olga Pérez began the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos, supported by the same police team that includes Prefect Nelson Jofré and Inspector Palmira Mella of the Investigative Police.

THE MYSTERIOUS BROTHER-IN-LAW OF ROJAS

Dr. Silva Garín, Director of Clinical Management at the Military Hospital, was a brother-in-law and remains one of the closest friends of former minister under Frei and Patricio Aylwin, Patricio Rojas.

Being part of the Army staff did not prevent Silva Garín from being appointed Undersecretary of Health by Frei Montalva. From that position, in October 1969, he assumed important tasks unrelated to his duties, becoming the manager of the solution to the serious crisis of the rebellion of the Tacna Regiment and other Army units, led by General Roberto Viaux, which was on the verge of leading to a coup d’état.

The negotiation act that ended the conflict bears the signature of Silva Garín and that of Viaux.

Shortly after, when the terrorist attack that ended the life of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General René Schneider, occurred on October 24, 1970—a crime led by a group of nationalists and high-ranking military chiefs, including Viaux, which sought to prevent Salvador Allende from assuming the presidency—Silva Garín went into action again.

The operational chief of that attack, the nationalist militant Juan Diego Dávila Basterrica (who passed away last March), stated in the Schneider trial that he had an interview with Silva Garín during the preparation of the attack. The episode, denied by Silva Garín until now but reaffirmed by Dávila, was also revealed at the time by Sepa magazine.

Silva also hid the role he played after the attack on Schneider. In his service record, the commendation he received for attending to the Army chief at the Military Hospital when he was admitted there in serious condition after the attack was recorded. Silva was then Director of the National Health Service (SNS). What was he doing at the Military Hospital examining General Schneider?

It was not the only death of a relevant figure recorded in his medical and military career. In 1974, he went to Punta Arenas and operated on General Augusto Lutz at the Military Hospital after he suffered a sudden hemorrhage of unknown origin.

As happened with Frei, Lutz had an inexplicable problem with a “nasogastric tube,” which caused a new hemorrhage. The anesthesiologist who accompanied him in the operation on Lutz was Pedro Cubillos, the same one who would assist him when he operated on Frei on December 6, 1981.

Lutz was head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM, now DINE) from 1972 until two months after the 1973 coup. He did not drink or consume alcohol and died of septicemia at age 52 at the Military Hospital on November 28, 1974, twenty days after being hospitalized.

Days before getting sick, he had participated in the annual meeting of Army generals. At that meeting, he and Oscar Bonilla harshly criticized the repressive methods of Manuel Contreras and the DINA. The harsh confrontation ended abruptly when Pinochet cut off the discussion: “Gentlemen generals, the DINA is me. Does anyone else have any questions?”

At that time, Silva Garín was head of the Medical Department of the Military Hospital, where no record was kept of the admission of prisoners arriving wounded from various secret torture centers. There, it was his duty to examine and follow the progress of Allende’s former Minister of the Interior, José Tohá, transferred from the Isla Dawson prison camp to the Military Hospital due to his state of health.

The official record says that Tohá committed suicide in that facility on March 15, 1974. But today there is new evidence and testimony revealing that it was a homicide.

Silva Garín’s relationship with the Army command was close and formal (Report “DINA and CNI doctor operated on Eduardo Frei Montalva,” published in CIPER on March 5, 2009). This is proven by the two courses he took in 1966 at the School of the Americas in Panama, a dark training center for Latin American repressors.

With Pinochet in power, Silva increased those ties and also his penchant for “intelligence.”

In 1974, he was a student in the “Information for Service Officers” course at the War Academy, where he had as a classmate Dr. Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, who, after assuming command of the DINA’s Clínica London, was Director of Army Health and Director of the Bacteriological Institute of the same institution, until he was found in 1990 in the basement of the Army Intelligence Brigade (BIE).

In that same course were Drs. Horacio Taricco Lavín and Vittorio Orvieto, both directors of the DINA’s Clínica London; as well as the dentist Sergio Muñoz Bontá, from the same establishment.

In 1981, Silva was not the doctor chosen by Frei to operate on his hiatal hernia. The first operation was performed by Dr. Augusto Larraín. Sixteen days later, Frei was admitted again to the Clínica Santa María and Larraín was displaced by Silva, who took charge of his treatment and the second operation (December 6), from which he would not recover.

Two other new interventions followed, all of them performed by a team composed exclusively of military personnel, including CNI doctor Rodrigo Vélez Fuenzalida.

What no one has been able to explain is why, in Silva Garín’s Army service record, he appears during that same period—from April 1980 to July 1982—on “extra-institutional commission to the Army Commander-in-Chief.” This is not a trivial point. That is the figure used to hide the assignment of a military officer to the DINA or DINE.

Despite the dark episodes that Silva Garín concentrated in his extensive military and political career, no one ever questioned him. Moreover, in 1990, with the return of democracy, his brother-in-law, Minister of Defense Patricio Rojas, appointed him Executive Vice President of the National Defense Pension Fund (Capredena), a position he held until 1995.

From there, he returned to the Military Hospital, where he remains to this day as Director of Clinical Management, one of the highest positions.

Silva Garín’s loyalty to the Army went directly to Pinochet. As he himself has acknowledged, it was the then-commander-in-chief whom he first informed that he would be in charge of Frei’s second operation and all his medical care.

DR. VALDIVIA’S VACATION

Dr. Pedro Valdivia, indicted by Madrid as an accomplice in the former president’s homicide, tried to prove during the judicial investigation that he was on vacation during the days Frei died and that he never visited him in his room.

The first claim was debunked by a clinical record of an operation performed by Valdivia on another patient at the same establishment. Regarding the second, he later clarified that he had examined him at the request of nurse María Victoria Larraechea, sister of the wife of Frei Montalva’s son, who was also an employee of the clinic. The nurse flatly denied having interceded.

What ended up collapsing Valdivia’s defense is that there were other professionals who did see him entering Frei’s room. The key was provided by one of his university classmates, who certified that a clinical record was missing—the last one—where he left a record of the examination to which he subjected the patient on January 22, 1982, when Frei was about to die.

The point is vital because the name of the physician who was given responsibility for the former president’s body is there. And that was precisely Dr. Valdivia, who received the doctors who performed the autopsy that was kept secret for more than 20 years.

Valdivia not only confirmed Frei’s death. There is also evidence that he gave notice immediately. On the other end of the line was one of Augusto Pinochet’s aides.

THE DEADLY TRANSFER

One of the most difficult and extensive lines of investigation was the one carried out on the entire medical history—examinations, rooms, treatments, indications, clinical and medical records—from the time Eduardo Frei was operated on November 18, readmitted to the Clínica Santa María on December 4, and re-operated on December 6, 8, and 17, until he died on January 22, 1982.

From there, a timeline emerged, and immediately the need to monitor the evolution of his immune system. At the end of the journey, after hundreds of interrogations, interviews, and expert reports, the surprise was enormous. Judge Madrid’s ruling describes it as follows:

“It has also been possible to establish that a product called ‘TRANSFER FACTOR’ was applied to the patient, which was in the experimental stage, and which, as the immunologist and Doctor of Science from the University of Chile, Luis Ferreira Vigouroux, points out on page 8,729 and following, said product was not certified or authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, and although it was thought that it could favor the recovery of a depressed immune system, ultimately, by adding more endotoxins to those already pre-existing in the organism, this would induce the immune system to secrete molecules that mediate septic shock. All of this is corroborated by the text of a scientific study…”

Endotoxins are components of bacteria that trigger an immune response in the body. And Madrid concluded that the application of Transfer-Factor was decisive in Frei’s death since it contained a level of endotoxins higher than normal, which, instead of favoring the patient suffering from an infection (a disease that already produces a high degree of endotoxins), causes a decompensation that depresses the patient’s immune system to a lethal extreme.

Dr. Silva claims to have never known about the Transfer or its use in Frei’s treatment. His statements do not correspond to what is in the clinical records, nor to what Dr. Sergio Valdés Jiménez, an intensivist, states.

According to more than one hundred testimonies from medical personnel interrogated in this investigation, if Frei remained alive until January 22, 1982, it was thanks to the efforts of Dr. Valdés, who did know about the inoculation of the Transfer, noting that in that decision “I had no competence.”

It was the immunology specialist Dr. Rodrigo Hurtado who clarified the mystery. He stated that it was Patricio Rojas who contacted him at the end of 1981 to examine Frei at the clinic. He did so. And the exams he requested showed a clear immune deficiency.

“Trying to correct this defect, I obtained from the Children’s Hospital of San Francisco, California, a product called Transfer-Factor, which I do not specifically remember how it reached me in Chile, but once I obtained it, I indicated that it be administered according to my instructions,” Hurtado stated.

Indeed, as recorded in the clinical record and the medical and nursing control sheet, the therapy with Transfer-Factor began on January 2, 1982. It also states that an ampoule of the product was introduced—subcutaneously—on January 2, 3, 13, and 20, 1982.

Dr. Hurtado’s second observation when examining the clinical records deepens the mystery of the product used: “It strikes me that the treatment with Transfer-Factor was used two days in a row and then there was a lapse of ten days to place the third dose, even though what was customary was to place it daily, and that is how I must have prescribed it. I do not know why it was not done that way.”

Although the accelerated deterioration in the patient’s immune system was evident since he was operated on for the second time by Dr. Silva Garín’s team, 19 days passed before an urgent immunological study (December 23) was requested on T, B, and DNCB lymphocytes.

World immunology expert Luis Ferreira Vigoroux was consulted on the application of Transfer-Factor. Having all the clinical records at his...

view, stated

-If Transfer-Factor was used, it was essential to specify its exact origin, the procedure used in its preparation, and whether it was adequately and timely assessed regarding its endotoxin (LPS) content.

If a drug is sent from the U.S. to Chile, it obviously should have been assessed for human use, but since it was an experimental product, it was of central importance to have had the certification of this assessment on hand.

This requirement, unavoidable even for medications for animal use, is even more critical for its use in a person in critical danger of entering shock… The balance could, regarding endotoxins, tip negatively if, as a result of the contamination of a supposedly medicinal product, additional quantities of LPS are introduced systemically into the patient, no matter how small they may be.

Doctor Hurtado confirmed Ferreira’s assessment: “Lipo-Polysaccharides (LPS) are found in Gram-negative bacteria; in their primitive and unpurified form, they can be toxic and exert an opposite effect, that is, immunosuppressive.” Another of the doctors who examined him, Tomás Walter Klimunda, helped confirm what happened to Frei’s immune system: “Lipopolysaccharide or LPS, a component of the bacteria’s body, is one of the toxins capable of producing septic shock.” There was another fact that helped weaken his immune system.

The review of the clinical records established that on December 6, only hours after the operation directed by Doctor Silva Garín—from which he never recovered—Frei lost a significant amount of blood due to an error with the nasogastric tube.

A nurse, María Elena Zamorano, found him alone, “sweaty, decompensated, his blood pressure low, the IV line was out of the vein, and his bed was soaked with blood; he had lost a lot of blood.” The Madrid ruling notes that at those same moments, the entry of Doctor Pedro Valdivia into Frei’s room was recorded, even though he had no involvement on that floor.

The record of the incident bears the signature of Doctor Bernal, but the person who caused the rupture of the tube has not been identified to this day. Frei had to undergo a one-liter blood transfusion in extreme urgency, but the massive loss of the vital element, as noted by the doctors, accentuated the destruction of his immune system and aggravated the symptoms of septic shock.

Irreversible damage. It was only then that the former president was moved to a special room in the Intensive Care Unit. Silva Garín has no explanation for this. He also provides no answer for another strange event reported by a nurse at the clinic.

The professional showed the medical and nursing control sheet corresponding to December 29, 1981, which indicates that samples of magnesium and zinc from Eduardo Frei’s blood were sent to the Military Hospital, under circumstances where that specific test was always performed at the Clínica Santa María laboratory.

Regarding the traces of Thallium and sulfur mustard found in his organism, scientific expert reports established that they date from “three months before his death, that they were applied in low doses and very probably intravenously, which determined cellular and DNA damage, expressed in multisystemic compromise, alterations in the lymphocytes' ability to defend against opportunistic germs, which determined his death due to a septic condition” (from the ruling of Judge Madrid).

Doctor Carmen Cerda was precise when analyzing the traces of Thallium and sulfur mustard: “They do not correspond to either the food or the medications that Mr. Frei received during his hospitalization.

Furthermore, it is possible to establish that they were administered to him on at least three different occasions. Due to that sequential and simultaneous type of supply, the effect of the products was potentiated, making it possible that, with smaller doses, the final effect was equally lethal.

All of the above allows us to rule out a form of accidental ingestion… Consequently, it is appropriate to state with reasonable certainty that this is a forensic form of death classifiable as homicide.” Frei Montalva passed away on January 22, 1982, when misery and the severe economic crisis were wreaking havoc on the streets.

One month later, on February 25, 1982, the president of the National Association of Fiscal Employees (ANEF), Tucapel Jiménez, had his throat slit by a team from the DINE and the CNI, coordinated based on a secret decree by Pinochet in the Anti-Terrorist Unit (UAT).

Thus, the political leader and the union leader who in those days could have unified the opposition to the dictatorship in the organization of a great national strike in the making, were eliminated. The investigation carried out by Alejandro Madrid and his police team proves, once again, the use of chemical weapons for the elimination of dissidents of the Pinochet regime.

The scientific methodology has allowed for the clarification of a crime destined to remain in impunity. But there are still loose ends to tie. And one of them is who received the Transfer-Factor in Chile and if it was the same product that Doctor Hurtado requested that was finally inoculated into Eduardo Frei Montalva. Punto Final December 11 to 24, 2009

The horrors of the military dictatorship: The assassination of Frei Montalva

The decision of the Santiago Court of Appeals minister, Alejandro Madrid Croharé, to prosecute six people for the assassination of the former President of the Republic Eduardo Frei Montalva in January 1982, while he was recovering from a second surgical intervention at the Clínica Santa María, reopened the door to the horrific crimes committed by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Judge Madrid accused four doctors, the former president’s driver, and an agent of the dictatorship’s intelligence services—DINA, DINE, and CNI—as authors, accomplices, and cover-up agents of the conspiracy to eliminate Frei by poisoning him with repeated doses of mustard gas and thallium.

The magistrate reached the conclusion that the former head of state, who at the time of the assassination led the opposition to the dictatorship, was inoculated with these pathogenic elements, bypassing the controls established by the clinic, the family, and friends of the former president who tried to protect him.

Detained as authors of the homicide were Doctor Patricio Silva Garín, a retired colonel of the Army Health Service and current head of the Comptroller’s Department of the Military Hospital; Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, Frei’s former driver; and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, a former agent also accused of the assassination of the chemist Eugenio Berríos, who was murdered in Uruguay.

Becerra was an informant for Lillo, the agent that the DINE had assigned to spy on the movements of the former president. Doctor Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto, a former DINA and Clínica Santa María doctor, was prosecuted as an accomplice; the doctors Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González, pathologists at the Catholic University who performed the autopsy of the former ruler who opposed Pinochet, were identified as cover-up agents.

A key proceeding in the investigation was carried out by Judge Alejandro Madrid on November 28. At the Clínica Santa María, he reconstructed the moments prior to the death of Frei Montalva on January 22, 1982, and the mysterious autopsy performed in the same room where he died, the results of which remained hidden for more than twenty years in the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the Catholic University’s Faculty of Medicine.

Various expert reports on Frei’s remains, exhumed at the General Cemetery, confirmed that he was poisoned with thallium and mustard gas.

The enemy at home

The opportune moment for the crime, according to the judicial investigation, was facilitated by the driver Luis Alberto Becerra to agent Raúl Lillo, a member of a DINE brigade that tapped Eduardo Frei Montalva’s telephones and maintained strict control over all his movements.

Judge Madrid revealed that to the aforementioned toxic substances, “the application of an unauthorized pharmacological product called Transfer Factor was added, and the occurrence of various anomalous situations that could be disguised as oversights or negligence, which gradually deteriorated his immune system and facilitated the appearance of opportunistic bacteria such as those called bruteo pyulgalis and candida altas.” These “turned out to be the final cause of his death and gave the appearance that his passing occurred due to complications derived from the surgical interventions to which he was subjected, making the intervention of third parties in his death imperceptible,” says the magistrate’s resolution. Frei Montalva entered the Clínica Santa María on November 18, 1981, to undergo surgery for an esophageal hernia. The reflux of stomach acids did not allow him to lead a normal life. He had to diet, sleep semi-seated, and consume antacids. After consulting about the risks of an intervention, he decided to have the surgery. His primary doctors, Alejandro Goic and Patricio Silva Garín, told him it was not necessary to do it abroad. The intervention was performed by Doctor Augusto Larraín Orrego, one of the best specialists in the country. The recovery was normal, and he was discharged a few days later. But ten days later, he started feeling ill; he suffered from stubborn constipation. Goic and Silva concluded that he had an intestinal obstruction and that he had to be operated on again. They did so on December 6, 1981. Silva operated with Goic present. It seemed simple, but they found large adhesions, and it was necessary to cut a piece of intestine.

Drama at the Clínica Santa María

The greatest danger was that microbes from the intestinal tract would pass into the peritoneal cavity and start an infection. The medical team performed a thorough cleaning and closed the wound. The post-operative period seemed favorable.

Two days later, the nurse María Victoria Larraechea, sister of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle’s wife, and the doctor Juan Luis González visited Frei Montalva and found him with an open catheter and bleeding profusely.

His wound was infected. He presented with acute peritonitis, acute respiratory and renal failure, and an aggressive diarrhea that dehydrated him. Doctors at the clinic mentioned in the judicial process that Doctor Pedro Valdivia was present at various moments in the former president’s room, a situation the aforementioned individual could never explain, having claimed that he was on vacation during those days.

Valdivia is also being prosecuted by Judge Madrid in the crime of Corporal Manuel Leyton, assassinated with sarin gas in March 1977 at the London Clinic, a DINA facility where Valdivia provided services.

The Frei family lawyer, Alvaro Varela, has expressed that at some point, the DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos entered Frei Montalva’s room, probably the material author of the inoculation of poison into the patient.

Doctor Goic received an urgent call from the clinic. Frei’s blood pressure had dropped to near 0 and his fever was skyrocketing: he was suffering from septic shock caused by an infection. Doctor Sergio Valdés, an infection specialist, was called immediately, and the patient was given antibiotics and connected to a mechanical ventilator.

As he did not respond, a third intervention was opted for, this was on Tuesday, December 8, to perform a complete surgical cleaning. Upon leaving the operating room, the patient responded well: his temperature decreased and his blood pressure stabilized.

However, in the following hours, he presented new complications. The doctors opted to subject him to hemodialysis to alleviate the functioning of the kidneys, which were very complicated by the excess of antibiotics. Frei continued with drains and connected to mechanical ventilation.

White-coated assassins

On December 17, he was subjected to a fourth operation to clean the peritoneal cavity, which was invaded by purulent substances produced by an infection that was becoming uncontrollable. A select group of doctors—Vicente Contreras, Juan Luis González, Gonzalo Sepúlveda, Ramón Valdivieso, Juan Pablo Beca, Mauricio Parada, Carlos Zabala, and Juan Reyes—met at the clinic to decide the course of action.

Someone close to the family received a phone call claiming that a paramedic with the surname González was poisoning the former president. But there was no one with that surname, and today it is presumed that it could have been the false identity of the chemist Berríos.

The medical efforts were useless. Frei Montalva suffered progressive failures that culminated in his death at 17:00 on Friday, January 22, 1982, five days after turning 71. Minutes after his death, the Catholic University pathologists Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere, and the assistant Humberto Gallardo, arrived at the Clínica Santa María to embalm the body and perform an autopsy.

The team had been sent by Doctor Hernán Barahona, apparently at the request of the Frei family doctors, Patricio Rojas and Patricio Silva. Rosenberg assured Judge Madrid that they took samples of Frei’s liver, kidneys, and lungs, a task they finished around 9:00 PM.

Later, at the UC Clinical Hospital, they photographed the viscera and prepared samples to subject them later to electron microscopy. He added that, in mid-March 1982, after finishing the laboratory tests, he wrote a handwritten protocol that he delivered to Doctor Hernán Barahona.

Later, he met with Rojas and Silva to inform them of the gathered background, without them requesting other analyses. Frei’s autopsy remained lost for almost 20 years, until it was found in January 2003 in a UC archive, labeled as NN.

Judge Madrid concluded that the doctors Rosenberg and González were key in the cover-up of the homicide, after destroying the organs they extracted from the body during the autopsy. Judge Alejandro Madrid points out accusingly: “the lack of protection of the former president’s security by the governmental and police authority” which allowed the military regime to control his activities and the “infiltration into his closest circle of people who obeyed the aforementioned security agencies of the military regime and others who were active members of the Chilean Army.” The reference alludes above all to Doctor Patricio Silva Garín, who was Undersecretary of Health in the Frei Montalva government and who was his personal friend. Likewise, the magistrate recalls the assassinations of the former commander-in-chief of the army, General Carlos Prats González, and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert; of the former foreign minister Orlando Letelier del Solar and his assistant, Ronny Moffitt; and the attack on the former vice president Bernardo Leighton Guzmán and his wife, Anita Fresno, perpetrated in Buenos Aires, Washington, and Rome, respectively. They had caused such international commotion that it was impossible for the dictatorship to use explosives or firearms against Frei. That is why, the magistrate points out, the dictatorship opted for a procedure “that meant that the punishable act would be imperceptible to everyone, with the exclusion of those who participated in it, taking advantage of the circumstances of defenselessness in which the victim found himself as a result of his illness and prolonged stay in a hospital establishment.”

January 17, 2012

Frei Montalva Case: Lawyer asserted that key agent shows "deplorable" mental health

This concerns Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, who was in charge of leaks within the DC. SML report confirms problems of depression and dependence on medications. Lawyer Jorge Balmaceda asserted that his client, the key DINA agent in the case investigating the death of Eduardo Frei Montalva, has "deplorable" psychiatric health.

This concerns Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, head of the operational unit of the Ciervo Group, in the Purén Brigade, who was in charge of infiltrating people within the Christian Democracy, as published by La Segunda.

Lawyer Balmaceda stated that he has not seen Raúl Lillo lately. "He was in the Military Hospital for a long time, but in the psychiatric section, where he cannot have contact with other patients in the place, with deplorable health." An SML report, carried out on April 19, 2010, confirmed that the former civilian agent of the DINA and subsequently of the CNI "presents major depression, dependence on benzodiazepines, mild psycho-organic deterioration, and prolonged marital and family deterioration."

Paid by the CNI

Lillo was in contact with Genaro Cerda Weber, a DC militant and husband of the party secretary at the time of the 1988 plebiscite, Hilda Navarro Varas. According to the police report, Cerda Weber "was a PDC militant and paid by the CNI through Raúl Diego Lillo Gutiérrez, head of the Operational Unit of the Ciervo Group, in charge of contacting, penetrating, and infiltrating PDC agents in order to know their activities in the military government." In 2007, Hilda Navarro acknowledged the contact between Lillo and her husband; however, she rejected that Genaro Cerda had spied on the party.

According to the investigation by La Segunda, "her husband had provided data on Frei Montalva’s movements, just as his prosecuted former driver, Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, supposedly had."

Cambio 21 January 27, 2013

31 years after his death: Before poisoning him, they tried to kill Frei Montalva with a bomb Álvaro Varela, the family’s lawyer when the six accused of the crime were prosecuted, maintains that with the international prestige the former president had, “for the dictatorship, it represented a difficulty to eliminate him until they found the appropriate mechanism.” The death by poisoning of his body while he was convalescing from a hiatal hernia continues to be a topic of conversation.

Eduardo Frei Montalva passed away 31 years ago in a clinic in the capital, and upon the commemoration of that date, numerous followers, sympathizers of the Christian Democracy, as well as party leaders, headed by its president, Senator Ignacio Walker, gathered at the General Cemetery to remember the man who was the first president of Chile elected as a militant of the collective.

This time, however, there was a new piece of information hovering over the heads of those present: everything points to the fact that the assassination of the former President was hatched from within the Army.

In addition to the president of the falange, numerous personalities were present at the act, such as former president Patricio Aylwin, the president of the PS, Osvaldo Andrade; the DC senators Soledad Alvear and Ximena Rincón; and the brand-new presidential candidate recently elected, Claudio Orrego. "With great humility and conviction, we have placed ourselves in a position to build a future.

To be the basis of social justice, that was the legacy of Frei Montalva, and here, over his grave, we are here as DC to continue that commitment. We are Christian Democrats, without complexes of leftists or rightists," asserted Walker.

However, on the occasion, not only were the virtues of Frei Montalva spoken of, but also the circumstances in which his death occurred. Only now, 31 years after his passing, is there decisive talk of an assassination hatched by the military regime.

At the act, Frei Montalva’s son, the also former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, referred to the investigation into his father’s death, pointing out that Minister Madrid is getting closer and closer to delivering his conclusions on the case.

Frei Ruiz-Tagle added that as a family, they await the closing of the process so that "Chileans know exactly the truth that we already know." In this regard, he recalled that a few days ago "we have learned of the case of the assassination of Víctor Jara almost 40 years ago!

He was assassinated by more than 40 shots. It has also been known what we all knew: that José Tohá had not committed suicide. It has taken many years, we have taken 31, hopefully we do not have to wait another ten years for justice to finish the case." With those words, the former president put some pressure and at the same time hopes on the investigation that Judge Alejandro Madrid Croharé has been carrying out for a decade.

"Special Operation" Just as Cambio21 made known in its last edition, the judge has ordered more than 50 new proceedings in charge of the PDI and special bodies to reinforce his conclusion that Frei Montalva’s death was planned within the framework of a "Special Intelligence Operation for Physical Elimination," which is how the Intelligence bodies of the Armed Forces code the assassination of enemy agents or relevant people.

This hypothesis collapses the assumption of a "conspiracy" against President Frei Montalva, which would have been hatched in a plan of civilians mixed with politicians, businessmen, and hitmen. The new line of investigation of Judge Madrid, according to exclusive information from Cambio21, reiterates that the assassination of Frei Montalva would be of similar execution to those of the union leader Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro and the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos Sagredo, that is, that the crime of the former president would have been perpetrated by the Army and not by the plot of a large group, as had been speculated until recently. The magistrate resolved not to give knowledge to the involved parties of the new proceedings decreed by himself, and in the inner circle of the Freis, they have chosen to speak as little as possible about the matter, awaiting the results of the new expert reports. Both the judge and the family of the assassinated president and those prosecuted in the case are aware of the crucial moment in which the process finds itself and that the new course of the process will depend on the result of such inquiries. To date, the doctors Patricio Silva Garín, Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto, Helmar Rosenberg Gómez, and Sergio González Bombardieri, and the agents of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) Raúl Diego Lillo Gutiérrez and Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia have been prosecuted.

The attack that was not

One of those who reacted to the facts made known by Cambio21 was Álvaro Varela, who was the lawyer for the Frei family when the six accused of the crime were prosecuted. For him, the information is not news, since it only reinforces what they had said from the beginning: "All lines of investigation pointed to this.

It is worth remembering that there is a link with the Berríos case in which the circle of military intelligence close to Pinochet is blamed," says the lawyer, who recalls that it was in that case that the former dictator received the fewest number of votes against him at the time of being stripped of his immunity.

Varela states that "I am not clear how far one can advance in specific responsibilities. The background shows that this was one of the most secret operations of the dictatorship and it was always sought not to discover it or discover its participants.

It was only possible to advance when the defense of the Frei family became involved in the trial." The lawyer also delves into the line of argument that, he says, "we maintained from the beginning." "I want to highlight that in its time, it had been requested to have the background of the Tucapel Jiménez trial in view.

Undoubtedly, the elimination of both (Frei and Jiménez) was part of a need of the dictatorship due to the danger they represented for it, and that is the center of the regime’s action," he emphasizes. Varela adds that the operation in the case of the former president was facilitated by the illness and by the help of his driver. "In the case of Frei, it was more difficult to eliminate him with an attack, although it was attempted years before.

However, at that stage of the process, there is no doubt that with the international prestige he had, for the dictatorship, it represented a difficulty to eliminate him until they found the appropriate mechanism," he adds.

Varela’s statements allude to an occasion in which an attempt was made on the life of the former President by means of a bomb. "It was before Townley’s attack on Letelier. On one occasion, Frei went to eat at the house of Oscar Pinochet De la Barra (former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs) and parked a little distance from the place he was going to and which diplomats of the time were also attending," says Varela.

The lawyer continues his unprecedented story: "They were eating and a neighbor called by phone to say that there were suspicious movements around the former President’s car. The diners went out to see and called the carabineros, who found a cup under the car, which contained a bomb." Varela concludes by commenting that, although he does not remember the name of the officer who was in charge, he was indeed a high-ranking member of military intelligence, who downplayed the event.

Varela’s position is reinforced by the President of the Christian Democracy, Ignacio Walker, who, when consulted by Cambio21, also emphasized the union between the crimes of the DC leader and the union leader. "We must never forget that the death of Eduardo Frei Montalva coincided with that of Tucapel Jiménez, the main political and social leaders against the dictatorship," says Walker.

The Christian Democrat leader asks to know the truth: "The case is labeled as homicide by poisoning and the Criminal Chamber indicted six people. The PDC and the Frei family have no hatred or resentment, only a desire for justice."

Source: La Nación, December 7, 2009

The traces left by the assassination of Eduardo Frei Montalva

After seven years of investigation, the death of former President Frei Montalva has been classified as a homicide. The judicial resolution attributes an active role to doctors and agents of the repression, who are accused of having participated in an operation that disguised the progressive poisoning of the former head of state with chemical substances as an illness.

They attempted to erase their tracks, but the discovery of clinical records, scientific analyses, and more than a thousand statements brought them to light 27 years later. The suspicious history of Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín and the unprecedented medical testimonies reinforce the thesis of the investigating judge, Alejandro Madrid. The encirclement of the Clínica Santa María by the CNI and the DINE finalized a picture that is chilling.

Lost in the accounting storage room of the Clínica Santa María were the clinical records that held the secrets of the final days of the life of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, the man who led the opposition to Pinochet in 1981.

These records, although incomplete, along with more than one hundred medical testimonies and sophisticated scientific analyses, allowed for the verification that he was murdered in 1981 by the security services of Augusto Pinochet by destroying his immune system, in a process similar to that which occurs in AIDS patients.

The traces of Thallium and nitrogen mustard recorded in his remains, exhumed on December 22, 2004, poisoned him and weakened his defenses, but the substance that acted as a lethal chemical weapon that triggered his death was Transfer-Factor, a product that was administered to him on four occasions despite never having international medical certification.

This accumulation of expert evidence, documents, and testimonies finished mapping out his death, allowing Judge Alejandro Madrid to establish the crime of homicide and prosecute four doctors and two former intelligence service agents as authors, accomplices, and accessories.

The investigation began seven years ago when the former president's daughter, Carmen Frei, requested an investigation into the cover-up and illicit association behind her father's death. And that illicit association included a tight net of telephone wiretaps, surveillance, infiltrators, and filming that included Frei's house, his movements inside and outside the country, and even the hallways of the Clínica Santa María.

The encirclement of the former president was executed by commanders of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) and the CNI, then directed by the man who had been a military aide during his term, showing him multiple gestures of appreciation and loyalty: General Humberto Gordón. He would not be the only trusted man to betray him.

The telephone wiretaps were in charge of Colonel Jorge Vizcaya Donoso (head of the division), who had under his responsibility the security of communications for La Moneda and also a secret Telephone Monitoring office, which did not appear on any organizational chart of the institution.

And it is understandable, because Luis Vargas worked there, who was an employee of the Telephone Company assigned to the CNI. His mission: to enable telephone connections to intercept and record the phones that the superior command ordered.

It is not strange, then, that two CTC employees appeared at Frei's house to change a device supposedly in poor condition. It would later be proven that what they actually did was install a tiny recorder inside it.

Before Frei was admitted to the Clínica Santa María, the operational team that prepared the elimination of Frei set another device in motion. A group of approximately seven retired military personnel arrived unexpectedly at the hospital establishment to perform the functions of "guard" and "butler."

Several members of the clinic's medical staff even recalled that the director at the time, Dr. Enrique Duval, complained about this imposition by his superiors. The new contingent remained under the orders of the establishment's administrative manager at the time, Ana María Benavente, sister-in-law of General Julio Canessa, who lived in the same house as the man Pinochet chose in 1982, shortly after the assassination of Frei, as Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

Among the new employees was Sergeant (ret.) José Miguel Ogalde, who took charge of the establishment's storage room, and Army Sub-officer Major (ret.) José Espinoza. It was that official who prepared the room (401) assigned to Frei when he arrived for surgery at the clinic on November 18, 1981, and in which he remained until December 7, after having been readmitted.

It was the same Espinoza who moved him to the X-ray room on December 6, when he had septic shock caused by the rupture of a probe.

Espinoza knew Dr. Patricio Silva Garín well, who headed the last three operations Frei underwent and has just been prosecuted as the author of his homicide. Espinoza's daughter, Rosa, worked at the Military Hospital, in the Diagnostic Imaging Department, under the direct orders of Silva Garín.

The orderly and butler had another peculiarity. His other daughter, Sonia, went from corporal in the Army's Permanent Staff to the Officer Corps, reaching the rank of captain in the intelligence specialty after successive courses and training.

She spent her entire career in those tasks, mainly in the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) and as an assistant to sub-director Gustavo Rivera Toro, until 1992.

With Madrid's ruling, it is clear that Dr. Patricio Silva Garín was also part of the encirclement that the security agencies raised around Frei Montalva. Only in this way can it be understood that he called Pinochet himself when he took command of the former president's second operation and everything related to his treatment.

Authors, accessories, and accomplices

Dr. Silva Garín claims to have never known about the use of Transfer-Factor on his patient Eduardo Frei, but the express record of its subcutaneous inoculation was registered in the clinical records discovered in Judge Madrid's investigation.

The product was applied to him after he was readmitted to the Clínica Santa María on December 4, 1981, following a surprise complication that arose after a routine hiatal hernia operation, performed on November 18 at the same clinic. From that December 4, Silva Garín was in charge of the three new interventions, treatments, and examinations.

Judge Alejandro Madrid imprisoned and prosecuted Silva Garín, current Director of Clinical Management at the Military Hospital and a member of the military staff since 1956, as the author of Frei's assassination.

Under the same charge, Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez was indicted—the man who directed the espionage encirclement of the former president, operational chief of the DINA, CNI, and later the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE) in the 90s, and custodian of the DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos during the days he was murdered in Uruguay in 1993 (See the report: All deaths lead to Berríos); and Luis Becerra Arancibia, the driver and trusted man of Frei for more than 20 years, who worked for the CNI.

Madrid also ordered the arrest and prosecuted Dr. Pedro Valdivia Soto as an accomplice to Frei's crime, who worked at the time at the Clínica Santa María and in parallel at the CNI's Clínica London, where Corporal Manuel Jesús Leyton was murdered on March 29, 1977, with sarin gas—a crime for which he is being prosecuted and is soon to be sentenced as an accessory (the Court annulled his prosecution as a member of the illicit association).

Until recently, Valdivia was a doctor at the Clínica Alemana.

As accessories to the magnicide, doctors Helman Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio Javier González Bombardiere, of the Clinical Hospital of the Catholic University, were prosecuted. Both physicians performed the secret and irregular autopsy on Frei's remains, in the same room where he died and only minutes after his death.

The reconstruction of the autopsy, carried out last Saturday, October 31, made it possible to verify that the procedures and elements used altered any possibility of subsequent toxicological examinations that could have evidenced the existence of lethal chemical substances inoculated into his body.

The autopsy, authorized and requested by former minister Patricio Rojas and his brother-in-law Patricio Silva Garín, was kept hidden for more than 20 years, until an anonymous call alerted authorities to its existence.

Madrid's resolution established that the crime of homicide—"sufficiently proven"—was caused "by the gradual introduction of unconventional toxic substances, the application of an unauthorized pharmacological product—'Transfer Factor'—and by the occurrence of various anomalous situations, which could be disguised as inadvertencies or negligence that gradually deteriorated his immune system and facilitated the appearance of opportunistic bacteria, such as those called 'proteus vulgaris' and 'candida albicans,' which turned out to be the final cause of his death and gave the appearance that his passing occurred due to complications derived from the surgical interventions to which he was subjected, making the intervention of third parties in his death imperceptible."

More than a thousand interrogations and police interviews, dozens of scientific expert reports in Chile and abroad, and more than 400 reports were accumulated to support Judge Madrid's ruling. All of this accounts for the exhaustive work carried out in several countries since 1999, when Judge Olga Pérez began the investigation into the kidnapping and homicide of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos, supported by the same police team that includes Prefect Nelson Jofré and Inspector Palmira Mella of the Investigations police.

THE MYSTERIOUS BROTHER-IN-LAW OF ROJAS

Dr. Silva Garín, Director of Clinical Management at the Military Hospital, was the brother-in-law and remains one of the closest friends of former minister to Frei and Patricio Aylwin, Patricio Rojas. Being part of the Army staff did not prevent Silva Garín from being appointed Undersecretary of Health by Frei Montalva.

From that position, in October 1969, he assumed important tasks outside his functions, becoming the manager of the solution to the serious crisis of the rebellion of the Tacna Regiment and other Army units, led by General Roberto Viaux, which was on the verge of leading to a coup d'état. The negotiation agreement that ended the conflict bears the signature of Silva Garín and that of Viaux.

Shortly after, when the terrorist attack that ended the life of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General René Schneider, occurred on October 24, 1970—a crime led by a group of nationalists and high-ranking military chiefs, including Viaux, which sought to prevent Salvador Allende from assuming the presidency—Silva Garín entered into action again.

The operational chief of that attack, the nationalist militant Juan Diego Dávila Basterrica (who passed away last March), stated in the Schneider trial that he had an interview with Silva Garín during the preparation of the attack. The episode, denied by Silva Garín until now but reaffirmed by Dávila, was also revealed at the time by the magazine Sepa.

Silva also hid the role he played after the attack on Schneider. In his service record, the commendation he received for attending to the head of the Army at the Military Hospital when he was admitted there in serious condition after the attack was recorded. Silva was then Director of the National Health Service (SNS). What was he doing at the Military Hospital examining General Schneider?

It was not the only death of a relevant figure that he registered in his medical and military career. In 1974, he went to look for General Augusto Lutz in Punta Arenas and operated on him at the Military Hospital after he suffered a sudden hemorrhage of unknown origin.

Just as happened with Frei, Lutz had an inexplicable problem with a "nasogastric tube," which caused a new hemorrhage. The anesthesiologist who accompanied him in the operation on Lutz was Pedro Cubillos, the same one who would assist him when he operated on Frei on December 6, 1981.

Lutz was head of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM, now DINE) from 1972 until two months after the 1973 coup. He did not drink or consume alcohol and died of septicemia at age 52, at the Military Hospital on November 28, 1974, twenty days after being hospitalized.

Days before getting sick, he had participated in the annual meeting of Army generals. In that meeting, he and Oscar Bonilla harshly criticized the repressive methods of Manuel Contreras and the DINA. The harsh confrontation ended abruptly when Pinochet cut off the discussion: "Generals, I am the DINA, does anyone else have any questions?"

At that time, Silva Garín was head of the Medical Department of the Military Hospital, where no record was kept of the entry of prisoners who arrived wounded from different secret torture centers. There, it was his duty to examine and follow the evolution of Allende's former Minister of the Interior, José Tohá, transferred from the Isla Dawson prison camp to the Military Hospital due to his state of health.

The official record says that Tohá committed suicide in that facility on March 15, 1974. But today there is new evidence and testimony that reveals it was a homicide.

Silva Garín's relationship with the Army command was close and formal (Report "DINA and CNI doctor operated on Eduardo Frei Montalva," published in CIPER on March 5, 2009). This is proven by the two courses he took in 1966 at the School of the Americas in Panama, an obscure training center for Latin American repressors.

With Pinochet in power, Silva increased those ties and also his penchant for "intelligence."

In 1974, he was a student in the "Information for Service Officers" course at the War Academy, where he had as a classmate Dr. Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, who after assuming command of the DINA's Clínica London was Director of Army Health and Director of the Bacteriological Institute of the same institution, until in 1990 he was found in the basement of the Army Intelligence Brigade (BIE).

In that same course were doctors Horacio Taricco Lavín and Vittorio Orvieto, both directors of the DINA's Clínica London; as well as dentist Sergio Muñoz Bontá, from the same establishment.

In 1981, Silva was not the doctor chosen by Frei to operate on his hiatal hernia. The first operation was performed by Dr. Augusto Larraín. Sixteen days later, Frei was admitted again to the Clínica Santa María and Larraín was displaced by Silva, who took charge of his treatment and the second operation (December 6), from which he would never recover.

Two other new interventions followed, all of which he performed with a team composed exclusively of military personnel, including the CNI doctor, Rodrigo Vélez Fuenzalida.

What no one has been able to explain is why in Silva Garín's service record in the Army, he appears during that same period—from April 1980 to July 1982—on "extra-institutional commission to the Army General Command." It is not a trivial point. That is the figure that was used to hide the assignment of a military officer to the DINA or the DINE.

Despite the dark episodes that Silva Garín concentrated in his extensive military and political career, no one ever questioned him. Moreover, in 1990, with democracy restored, his brother-in-law, Minister of Defense Patricio Rojas, appointed him Executive Vice President of the National Defense Social Security Fund (Capredena), a position he held until 1995.

From there, he returned to the Military Hospital, where he remains to this day as Director of Clinical Management, one of the highest positions.

Silva Garín's loyalty to the Army reached directly to Pinochet. As he himself has acknowledged, it was the then-Commander-in-Chief whom he first informed that he would be in charge of Frei's second operation and all his medical care.

THE VACATION OF DR. VALDIVIA

Dr. Pedro Valdivia, prosecuted by Madrid as an accomplice to the former president's homicide, tried to prove during the judicial investigation that he was on vacation during the days Frei died and that he never visited him in his room.

The first was refuted by a clinical record of an operation performed by Valdivia on another patient in the same establishment. Regarding the second, he later clarified that he had examined him at the request of nurse María Victoria Larraechea, sister of the wife of Frei Montalva's son, who was also an employee of the clinic. The nurse flatly denied having interceded.

What ended up collapsing Valdivia's defense is that there were other professionals who did see him entering Frei's room. The key was provided by one of his university classmates, who certified that a clinical record was missing—the last one—where he left a record of the examination to which he subjected the patient on January 22, 1982, when Frei was about to die.

The point is vital because the name of the physician to whom the responsibility for the former president's body was handed over is there. And that was precisely Dr. Valdivia, who received the doctors who performed the autopsy that was kept secret for more than 20 years.

Valdivia not only confirmed Frei's death. There is also evidence that he gave notice immediately. On the other end of the line was one of Augusto Pinochet's aides.

THE LETHAL TRANSFER

One of the most difficult and extensive lines of investigation was the one carried out on the entire medical journey—examinations, rooms, treatments, indications, clinical and medical records—from the time Eduardo Frei was operated on November 18, readmitted to the Clínica Santa María on December 4, re-intervened on December 6, 8, and 17, until he died on January 22, 1982.

From there, a timeline emerged and, immediately, the need to monitor the evolution of his immune system. At the end of the journey, after hundreds of interrogations, interviews, and expert reports, the surprise was enormous. Judge Madrid's ruling describes it as follows:

"It has also been possible to establish that a product called 'TRANSFER FACTOR' was applied to the patient, which was in the experimental stage, and that, as noted by the immunologist and Doctor of Science from the University of Chile, Luis Ferreira Vigouroux, at page 8,729 and following, said product was not certified or authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, and although it was thought that it could favor the recovery of a depressed immune system, ultimately, by adding more endotoxins to those already pre-existing in the organism, this would induce the immune system to secrete molecules that mediate septic shock. All of this is corroborated by the text of a scientific study..."

Endotoxins are components of bacteria that trigger an immune response in the body. And Madrid concluded that the application of Transfer-Factor was decisive in Frei's death since it contained a level of endotoxins higher than normal, which instead of favoring a patient suffering from an infection (a disease that already produces a high degree of endotoxins), causes a decompensation that depresses the patient's immune system to a lethal extreme.

Dr. Silva claims to have never known about the Transfer or its use in the treatment of Frei. His statements do not correspond to what is in the clinical records, nor to what Dr. Sergio Valdés Jiménez, an intensivist, states.

According to more than one hundred testimonies of medical personnel interrogated in this investigation, if Frei remained alive until January 22, 1982, it was thanks to the efforts of Dr. Valdés, who did know about the inoculation of the Transfer, noting that in that decision "I had no competence."

It was the immunology specialist Dr. Rodrigo Hurtado who cleared up the mystery. He stated that it was Patricio Rojas who contacted him at the end of 1981 so that he could examine Frei at the clinic. He did so. And the examinations he requested evidenced a clear immune deficiency.

"Trying to correct this defect, I obtained from the Children's Hospital of San Francisco, California, a product called Transfer-Factor, which I do not specifically remember how it reached me in Chile, but once I obtained it, I indicated that it be administered according to my instructions," Hurtado stated.

Indeed, as recorded in the clinical record and the medical and nursing control sheet, the therapy with Transfer-Factor began on January 2, 1982. It also states that an ampoule of the product was introduced—subcutaneously—on January 2, 3, 13, and 20, 1982.

Dr. Hurtado's second observation when examining the clinical records deepens the mystery of the product used: "It strikes me that the treatment with Transfer-Factor was used two days in a row and then there was a lapse of ten days to place the third dose, even though it was customary to place it daily and that is how I must have prescribed it. I do not know why it was not done that way."

Although the accelerated deterioration in the patient's immune system was evident since he was operated on for the second time by Dr. Silva Garín's team, 19 days passed before an immunological study (December 23) on T, B, and DNCB lymphocytes was urgently requested.

World immunology expert Luis Ferreira Vigoroux was consulted about the application of Transfer-Factor. Having all the clinical records in view, he stated:

"If Transfer-Factor was used, it was fundamental to specify its exact origin, the procedure used in its preparation, and whether it was adequately and timely assessed regarding the endotoxin content (LPS).

If a drug is sent from the U.S. to Chile, it obviously should have been assessed for use in humans, but since it was an experimental product, it was of central relevance to have had the certification of this assessment in view.

This requirement, unavoidable even for medications for animal use, is even more critical for its use in a person in critical danger of starting shock... The balance could, regarding endotoxins, tilt negatively if, due to the contamination of a supposedly medicinal product, additional quantities of LPS are introduced systemically to the patient, however small they may be."

Dr. Hurtado confirmed Ferreira's assessment: "Lipo-Polysaccharides-LPS are found in Gram-negative bacteria; in their primitive and unpurified form, they can be toxic and exert an opposite effect, that is, immunosuppressive."

Another of the doctors who examined him, Tomás Walter Klimunda, helped confirm what happened with Frei's immune system: "Lipopolysaccharide or LPS, a component of the bacteria's body, is one of the toxins capable of producing septic shock."

There was another fact that helped weaken his immune system. The review of the clinical records allowed for the establishment that on December 6, only hours after the operation directed by Dr. Silva Garín—from which he never recovered—due to an error with the nasogastric tube, Frei lost a large amount of blood.

A nurse, María Elena Zamorano, found him alone, "sweaty, decompensated, blood pressure low, the IV was out of the venous path, and his bed was soaked with blood; he had lost a lot of blood." In Madrid's ruling, it is noted that at those same moments, the entry of Dr. Pedro Valdivia into Frei's room is recorded, who had no involvement on that floor.

The record of the incident bears the signature of Dr. Bernal, but the person who caused the rupture of the tube has not been identified until now.

Frei had to undergo a transfusion of a liter of blood in extreme urgency, but the massive loss of the vital element, as the doctors noted, accentuated the destruction of his immune system and aggravated the symptoms of septic shock. Irreversible damage. It was only then that the former president would be moved to a special room in the Intensive Care Unit. For this, Silva Garín has no explanation.

Nor does he provide an answer for another strange fact reported by a clinic nurse. The professional showed the medical and nursing control sheet corresponding to December 29, 1981, where it is indicated that samples of magnesium and zinc from Eduardo Frei's blood were sent to the Military Hospital, in circumstances where that precise examination was always done in the laboratory of the Clínica Santa María.

Regarding the traces of Thallium and sulfur mustard found in his organism, the scientific expert reports allowed for the establishment that they date from "three months before his death, that it was applied in low doses and very probably intravenously, which determined cellular and DNA damage, expressed in multisystemic compromise, alterations in the ability of lymphocytes to defend themselves against opportunistic germs, which determined his death due to a septic condition" (from Judge Madrid's ruling).

Dr. Carmen Cerda was precise when analyzing the traces of Thallium and sulfur mustard: "They do not correspond to the food or the medications that Mr. Frei received during his hospitalization. Furthermore, it is possible to establish that they were administered to him on at least three different occasions.

Due to that sequential and simultaneous type of supply, the effect of the products was potentiated, making it possible that, with smaller doses, the final effect was equally lethal. All of the above allows for the discarding of a form of accidental ingestion... Consequently, it is appropriate to state with reasonable certainty that this is a forensic form of death classifiable as homicide."

Frei Montalva passed away on January 22, 1982, when misery and the serious economic situation were wreaking havoc in the streets. One month later, on February 25, 1982, the president of the National Association of Fiscal Employees (ANEF), Tucapel Jiménez, had his throat slit by a DINE and CNI team, coordinated based on a secret decree by Pinochet in the Anti-Terrorist Unit (UAT).

Thus, the political leader and the union leader who in those days could unify the opposition to the dictatorship in the organization of a great national strike in the making were eliminated.

The investigation carried out by Alejandro Madrid and his police team proves, once again, the use of chemical weapons for the elimination of dissidents of the Pinochet regime. The scientific methodology has allowed for the clarification of a crime destined to remain in impunity.

But there are still loose ends to tie. And one of them is who received the Transfer-Factor in Chile and whether it was the same product that Dr. Hurtado requested that was finally inoculated into Eduardo Frei Montalva.

Source: ciperchile December 8, 2009

The horrors of the military dictatorship: The magnicide of Frei Montalva

The decision by the Santiago Court of Appeals judge, Alejandro Madrid Croharé, to prosecute six individuals for the assassination of former President of the Republic Eduardo Frei Montalva in January 1982, while he was recovering from a second surgical procedure at the Clínica Santa María, reopened the door to the horrific crimes committed by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Judge Madrid charged four doctors, the former president’s driver, and an agent of the dictatorship’s intelligence services—DINA, DINE, and CNI—as authors, accomplices, and accessories to the conspiracy to eliminate Frei by poisoning him with repeated doses of mustard gas and thallium.

The magistrate concluded that the former head of state, who at the time of the assassination led the opposition to the dictatorship, was inoculated with these pathogenic elements, bypassing the controls established by the clinic, the family, and the former president’s friends who attempted to protect him.

Detained as authors of the homicide were Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, a retired Army Health colonel and current head of the Comptroller’s Department at the Military Hospital; Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, Frei’s former driver; and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, a former agent also accused of the assassination of chemist Eugenio Berríos, who was murdered in Uruguay.

Becerra was an informant for Lillo, the agent whom the DINE had assigned to spy on the former president’s movements.

Dr. Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto, a former DINA and Clínica Santa María doctor, was prosecuted as an accomplice; doctors Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González, pathologists at the Universidad Católica who performed the autopsy on the former president and opponent of Pinochet, were charged as accessories.

A key investigative step was carried out by Judge Alejandro Madrid on November 28. At the Clínica Santa María, he reconstructed the moments prior to Frei Montalva’s death on January 22, 1982, and the mysterious autopsy performed in the same room where he passed away, the results of which remained hidden for more than twenty years in the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the Universidad Católica’s Faculty of Medicine.

Various forensic examinations of Frei’s remains, exhumed at the Cementerio General, confirmed that he had been poisoned with thallium and mustard gas.

The enemy within

The opportune moment for the crime, according to the judicial investigation, was facilitated by the driver Luis Alberto Becerra for agent Raúl Lillo, a member of a DINE brigade that wiretapped Frei Montalva’s phones and maintained strict control over all his movements.

Judge Madrid revealed that, in addition to the aforementioned toxic substances, there was “the application of an unauthorized pharmacological product called Transfer Factor and the occurrence of various anomalous situations that could be disguised as oversights or negligence, which gradually deteriorated his immune system and facilitated the appearance of opportunistic bacteria such as those known as bruteo pyulgalis and candida altas.”

These “turned out to be the final cause of his death and gave the appearance that his passing occurred due to complications derived from the surgical interventions to which he was subjected, making the intervention of third parties in his death imperceptible,” the magistrate’s resolution states.

Frei Montalva entered the Clínica Santa María on November 18, 1981, for surgery on an esophageal hernia. The reflux of stomach acids did not allow him to lead a normal life. He had to follow a diet, sleep semi-upright, and consume antacids.

After consulting about the risks of an intervention, he decided to have the surgery. His primary physicians, Alejandro Goic and Patricio Silva Garín, told him it was not necessary to do it abroad. The intervention was performed by Dr.

Augusto Larraín Orrego, one of the best specialists in the country. The recovery was normal, and he was discharged after a few days. But ten days later, he began to feel ill; he suffered from stubborn constipation.

Goic and Silva concluded that he had an intestinal obstruction and that he had to be operated on again. They did so on December 6, 1981. Silva operated with Goic present. It seemed like a simple procedure, but they found large adhesions and it was necessary to cut a piece of the intestine.

Drama at the Clínica Santa María

The greatest danger was that microbes from the intestinal tract would pass into the peritoneal cavity and trigger an infection. The medical team performed a thorough cleaning and closed the wound. The post-operative period seemed favorable.

Two days later, nurse María Victoria Larraechea, sister of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle’s wife, and doctor Juan Luis González visited Frei Montalva and found him with an open catheter and bleeding profusely. His wound was infected. He presented with acute peritonitis, acute respiratory and renal failure, and aggressive diarrhea that dehydrated him.

Doctors at the clinic mentioned in the judicial process that Dr. Pedro Valdivia was present at various times in the former president’s room, a situation the aforementioned individual could never explain, having claimed that he was on vacation during those days.

Valdivia is also being prosecuted by Judge Madrid for the crime of Corporal Manuel Leyton, murdered with sarin gas in March 1977 at the DINA’s Clínica London, where Valdivia provided services.

The Frei family lawyer, Alvaro Varela, has stated that at some point, DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos entered Frei Montalva’s room, likely as the material author of the inoculation of poison into the patient.

Dr. Goic received an urgent call from the clinic. Frei’s blood pressure had dropped to near 0 and his fever was spiking: he was suffering from septic shock caused by an infection.

Dr. Sergio Valdés, an infection specialist, was called immediately, and the patient was given antibiotics and connected to a mechanical ventilator. As he did not respond, a third intervention was chosen on Tuesday, December 8, to perform a complete surgical cleaning.

Upon leaving the operating room, the patient responded well: his temperature decreased and his blood pressure stabilized. However, in the following hours, he presented new complications. The doctors opted to subject him to hemodialysis to relieve the functioning of the kidneys, which were severely complicated by the excess of antibiotics.

Frei remained with drains and connected to mechanical ventilation.

White-coated assassins

On December 17, he was subjected to a fourth operation to clean the peritoneal cavity, which had been invaded by purulent substances produced by an infection that was becoming uncontrollable. A select group of doctors gathered at the clinic—doctors Vicente Contreras, Juan Luis González, Gonzalo Sepúlveda, Ramón Valdivieso, Juan Pablo Beca, Mauricio Parada, Carlos Zabala, and Juan Reyes—to decide on a course of action.

Someone close to the family received a phone call claiming that a paramedic with the surname González was poisoning the former president. But there was no one with that surname, and today it is presumed that it could have been the false identity of the chemist Berríos.

Medical efforts were futile. Frei Montalva suffered progressive failures that culminated in his death at 17:00 on Friday, January 22, 1982, five days after turning 71. Minutes after his passing, Universidad Católica pathologists Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere, and assistant Humberto Gallardo, arrived at the Clínica Santa María to embalm the body and perform an autopsy.

The team had been sent by Dr. Hernán Barahona, apparently at the request of the Frei family’s doctors, Patricio Rojas and Patricio Silva. Rosenberg assured Judge Madrid that they took samples of Frei’s liver, kidneys, and lungs, a task they concluded around 9:00 PM.

Later, at the UC Clinical Hospital, they photographed the viscera and prepared samples to later subject them to electron microscopy. He added that, in mid-March 1982, after concluding the laboratory tests, he wrote a handwritten protocol that he delivered to Dr.

Hernán Barahona. Afterward, he met with Rojas and Silva to inform them of the gathered findings, without them requesting further analysis.

Frei’s autopsy remained missing for almost 20 years, until it was found in January 2003 in a UC archive, labeled as NN.

Judge Madrid concluded that doctors Rosenberg and González were key in the cover-up of the homicide, after destroying the organs they extracted from the body during the autopsy.

Judge Alejandro Madrid points an accusing finger: “the lack of protection of the former president’s security by the governmental and police authority” allowed the military regime to control his activities and the “infiltration into his closest circle of people who obeyed the aforementioned security agencies of the military regime and others who were active members of the Chilean Army.” The reference alludes above all to Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín, who was Undersecretary of Health in the Frei Montalva government and was his personal friend. Likewise, the magistrate recalls the assassinations of the former commander-in-chief of the army, General Carlos Prats González, and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert; of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier del Solar and his assistant, Ronny Moffitt; and the attack on former Vice President Bernardo Leighton Guzmán and his wife, Anita Fresno, perpetrated in Buenos Aires, Washington, and Rome, respectively.

They had caused such international commotion that it was impossible for the dictatorship to use explosives or firearms against Frei. Therefore, the magistrate points out, the dictatorship opted for a procedure “that meant the punishable act would be imperceptible to everyone, with the exclusion of those who participated in it, taking advantage of the circumstances of defenselessness in which the victim found himself as a result of his illness and prolonged stay in a hospital establishment.”

January 17, 2012

Frei Montalva Case: Lawyer asserted that key agent shows "deplorable" mental health This concerns Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, who was in charge of leaks within the DC. SML report confirms problems with depression and medication dependency.

Lawyer Jorge Balmaceda asserted that his client, the key DINA agent in the case investigating the death of Eduardo Frei Montalva, has "deplorable" psychiatric health. This concerns Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, head of the operational unit of the Ciervo Group, in the Purén Brigade, who was in charge of infiltrating people into the Christian Democracy, as published by La Segunda.

Lawyer Balmaceda stated that he has not seen Raúl Lillo lately. “He spent a long time in the Military Hospital, but in the psychiatric section, where he cannot have contact with other patients in the place, with deplorable health.” An SML report, carried out on April 19, 2010, confirmed that the former civilian DINA agent and subsequently CNI agent “presents major depression, benzodiazepine dependency, mild psycho-organic deterioration, and prolonged marital and family deterioration.”

Paid by the CNI

Lillo was in contact with Genaro Cerda Weber, a DC militant and husband of the party secretary at the time of the 1988 plebiscite, Hilda Navarro Varas. According to the police report, Cerda Weber “was a PDC militant and paid by the CNI through Raúl Diego Lillo Gutiérrez, head of the Operational Unit of the Ciervo Group, in charge of contacting, penetrating, and infiltrating PDC agents in order to learn about their activities in the military government.” In 2007, Hilda Navarro acknowledged the contact between Lillo and her husband; however, she rejected that Genaro Cerda had spied on the party.

According to the investigation by La Segunda, “her husband allegedly provided data on Frei Montalva’s movements, just as his prosecuted former driver, Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, allegedly did.”

Cambio 21 January 27, 2013 31 years after his death: Before poisoning him, they tried to kill Frei Montalva with a bomb Álvaro Varela, the family’s lawyer when the six accused of the crime were prosecuted, maintains that with the international prestige the former president had, “for the dictatorship, it was a difficulty to eliminate him until they found the appropriate mechanism.” The death by poisoning of his body while he was convalescing from a hiatal hernia continues to be a topic of discussion.

Eduardo Frei Montalva passed away 31 years ago in a clinic in the capital, and upon the commemoration of that date, numerous followers, supporters of the Christian Democracy, as well as party leaders, headed by its president, Senator Ignacio Walker, gathered at the Cementerio General to remember the first president of Chile elected as a militant of the collective.

This time, however, there was a new piece of information circulating in the minds of those present: everything points to the fact that the assassination of the former president was orchestrated from within the Army.

In addition to the president of the party, numerous personalities were present at the event, such as former president Patricio Aylwin, the president of the PS, Osvaldo Andrade; DC senators Soledad Alvear and Ximena Rincón; and the newly elected presidential candidate, Claudio Orrego. “With great humility and conviction, we have placed ourselves in a position to build a future.

To be the foundation of social justice, that was the legacy of Frei Montalva, and here, over his grave, we are here as DC to continue that commitment. We are Christian Democrats, without complexes of leftists or rightists,” asserted Walker.

However, on the occasion, they spoke not only of the virtues of Frei Montalva but also of the circumstances in which his death occurred. Only now, 31 years after his passing, is there talk of an assassination orchestrated by the military regime.

At the event, the son of Frei Montalva, also former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, referred to the investigation into his father’s death, noting that Minister Madrid is increasingly close to delivering his conclusions on the case.

Frei Ruiz-Tagle added that as a family, they await the closing of the process and that thus “Chileans will know exactly the truth that we already know.” In this regard, he recalled that a few days ago “we learned of the case of the assassination of Víctor Jara almost 40 years ago!

He was murdered by more than 40 shots. It has also been known what we all knew: that José Tohá had not committed suicide. It has taken many years; we have taken 31. Hopefully, we will not have to wait another ten years for justice to finish the case.” With those words, the former president put some pressure and at the same time hope on the investigation that Judge Alejandro Madrid Croharé has been carrying out for a decade.

“Special Operation” As Cambio21 made known in its previous edition, the judge has ordered more than 50 new investigative steps in charge of the PDI and special units to reinforce his conclusion that the death of Frei Montalva was planned within the framework of a “Special Intelligence Operation for Physical Elimination,” which is how the Intelligence agencies of the Armed Forces code the assassination of enemy agents or relevant persons.

This hypothesis collapses the assumption of a “conspiracy” against President Frei Montalva, which would have been orchestrated in a plan of civilians mixed with politicians, businessmen, and hitmen. The new line of investigation by Judge Madrid, according to exclusive information from Cambio21, reiterates that the assassination of Frei Montalva would be of similar execution to those of union leader Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro and DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos Sagredo; that is, that the crime of the former president would have been perpetrated by the Army and not by the plot of a large group, as had been speculated until recently. The magistrate resolved not to make the new investigative steps decreed by him known to the involved parties, and in the inner circle of the Freis, they have chosen to speak as little as possible about the matter, awaiting the results of the new forensic examinations. Both the judge and the family of the murdered president and those prosecuted in the case are aware of the crucial moment in which the process finds itself and that the new course of the process will depend on the result of such inquiries. To date, doctors Patricio Silva Garín, Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto, Helmar Rosenberg Gómez, and Sergio González Bombardieri, and Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) agents Raúl Diego Lillo Gutiérrez and Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia have been prosecuted.

The attack that was not

One of those who reacted to the facts made known by Cambio21 was Álvaro Varela, who was the Frei family’s lawyer when the six accused were prosecuted. For him, the information is not news, since it only reinforces what they had said from the beginning: “All lines of investigation pointed to this.

It is worth remembering that there is a link with the Berríos case in which the circle of military intelligence close to Pinochet is blamed,” says the lawyer, who recalls that in that case, the former dictator received a smaller number of votes against him at the time of being stripped of his immunity.

Varela states that “I am not clear to what extent one can advance in specific responsibilities. The background information shows that this was one of the most secret operations of the dictatorship, and it was always sought not to discover it or its participants.

It was only possible to advance when the defense of the Frei family was involved in the trial.” The lawyer also delves into the line of argument that, he says, “we maintained from the beginning.” “I want to highlight that at the time, it had been requested to have the background information of the Tucapel Jiménez trial in view.

Undoubtedly, the elimination of both (Frei and Jiménez) was part of a necessity of the dictatorship due to the danger they represented for it, and that is the center of the regime’s action,” he emphasizes.

Varela adds that the operation in the case of the former president was facilitated by the illness and by the help of his driver. “In the case of Frei, it was more difficult to eliminate him with an attack, although it was attempted years before.

However, at that stage of the process, there is no doubt that with the international prestige he had, for the dictatorship, it represented a difficulty to eliminate him until they found the appropriate mechanism,” he adds.

Varela’s statements allude to an opportunity in which an attempt was made on the life of the former President by means of a bomb. “It was before Townley’s attack on Letelier. On one occasion, Frei went to eat at the house of Oscar Pinochet De la Barra (former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs) and parked a little distance from the place he was going to and which diplomats of the time were also attending,” says Varela.

The lawyer continues his unprecedented account: “They were eating, and a neighbor called by phone to say that there were suspicious movements around the former President’s car. The diners went out to see and called the Carabineros, who found a cup under the car, which contained a bomb.” Varela concludes by commenting that, although he does not remember the name of the officer who was in charge, he was indeed a high-ranking member of military intelligence, who downplayed the event.

Varela’s position is reinforced by the President of the Christian Democracy, Ignacio Walker, who, when consulted by Cambio21, also emphasized the union between the crimes of the DC leader and the union leader. “We must never forget that the death of Eduardo Frei Montalva coincided with that of Tucapel Jiménez, the main political and social leaders against the dictatorship,” says Walker.

The Christian Democrat leader asks to know the truth: “The case is labeled as homicide by poisoning, and the Criminal Chamber charged six people. The PDC and the Frei family have no hatred or resentment, only a desire for justice.”

Source: Punto Final, December 11 to 24, 2009

Frei Case: Judge sentenced those responsible for the assassination of the former President in 1982 to 10, 7, and 5 years

Magistrate Alejandro Madrid’s investigation lasted 16 years.

Patricio Silva Garín was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime against the former President. The death of Eduardo Frei Montalva was a homicide, the judicial inquiry concluded. Visiting Minister Alejandro Madrid sentenced Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, as the author of the homicide of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva. In a first-instance sentence, the judge also sentenced the former president’s driver and informant for Pinochet’s police, Luis Becerra Arancibia, and the civilian CNI agent, Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, to an effective penalty of seven years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree.

Dr. Pedro Valdivia Soto was also sentenced to an effective penalty of five years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree for being an accomplice to the crime. Finally, thanatologists Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere were sentenced to three years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree, as accessories, which they will be able to serve through conditional remission.

The ruling also questions the role of the current Undersecretary of Healthcare Networks, Luis Castillo, who, when he served as medical director of the Universidad Católica Clinical Hospital, knew that the former President’s remains were in said health facility; however, he did not notify the family of this and only ordered to wait for them to request the remains officially or judicially.

Minister Alejandro Madrid issues sentence for the homicide of former president Eduardo Frei Montalva Lawyer Luciano Fouillioux, a plaintiff in the Frei case, explained to Cooperativa that although they have only “digested” the conclusions of the sentence, due to its length exceeding 800 pages, “it is an extraordinarily important ruling for Justice and for democracy.” The professional added that the subsequent cover-up of this magnicide was necessary, “because the magnitude of the event was not measured on its merits, just as it was not measured in the case of General Prats, Foreign Minister Letelier, or the attack on Bernardo Leighton, etc. It was a culture of doing things, of self-defense.” Furthermore, he highlighted that this case constitutes the first magnicide in Chile. “It constitutes an unprecedented event, the effective configuration of a magnicide. Today, for the country’s history, it remains established that Frei Montalva was murdered. The vulnerability of the President’s inner circle, both by his driver and by his former undersecretary, plus their conciliation with the State agents who participated in this operation, other doctors, particularly, and informant agents have allowed the veracity of the facts to be configured,” he added.

Those convicted of the crime against Frei Montalva

Patricio Silva Garín, doctor, sentenced to 10 years in prison, as the author of the crime of homicide. Luis Becerra Arancibia, driver of the former President and CNI informant, sentenced to 7 years in prison, as a co-author of the homicide.

Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, CNI agent, sentenced to 7 years in prison, as a co-author of the homicide. Pedro Valdivia Soto, doctor, sentenced to 5 years in prison as an accomplice to homicide. Helmar Rosenberg Gómez, thanatologist, sentenced to 3 years in prison, as an accessory. Sergio González Bombardiere, thanatologist, sentenced to 3 years in prison, as an accessory.

Zaldívar: Justice is slow but arrives

For his part, Senator and former Minister of Finance in the Frei Montalva government, Andrés Zaldívar (DC), indicated that prior to this sentence, “for me, it was a personal conviction, but today it is confirmed in a ruling after 15 years of investigation that really, the death of Don Eduardo was a magnicide.” “As the popular saying goes, ‘justice is slow but arrives’,” affirmed the parliamentarian.

The former Secretary of State recalls that prior to the former president’s fatal intervention, he warned him not to have it done in the country: “When Don Eduardo told me he was going to have surgery in Chile, I told him ‘do not have surgery in Chile, you cannot trust them there’.” “I even committed to speaking in Europe and the United States so that he would have the intervention there, but he was absolutely confident.

He never thought of the magnitude of the evil with which the Pinochet regime proceeded against its opponents,” expressed Zaldívar. Regarding the future of this case in the judiciary, the parliamentarian pointed out that “we must continue to trust in justice.” “This is a first-instance ruling; it has two more instances, surely appeals, and it will reach the Supreme Court.

It is an issue that will not be resolved today, but a very transcendent and important step has been taken,” he stressed. This afternoon, the DC headquarters is adorned with photographs of the former president upon the arrival of a large part of the party’s important figures, such as Senator Carolina Goic and the head of the bench, Matías Walker, at the Alameda venue.

A delegation from the Socialist Party headed by Senator Isabel Allende also entered, while a candlelight vigil has been called at the Frei Montalva monument in the Plaza de la Constitución.

Source: cooperativa.cl, January 30, 2019

Supreme Court rules out homicide of former president Eduardo Frei Montalva and confirms acquittal of those convicted

The Supreme Court issued a final sentence in the investigation into the death of the former President of the Republic, Eduardo Frei Montalva, which occurred on January 25, 1982, at the Clínica Santa María in Santiago.

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled out the homicide of former president Eduardo Frei Montalva, who died on January 25, 1982, at the Clínica Santa María in Santiago. In 2019, Judge Alejandro Madrid sentenced Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín as the author of the homicide of the Christian Democrat. Likewise, five other people were found guilty as co-authors, accomplices, and accessories to the event that occurred in 1982.

However, the Santiago Court of Appeals acquitted all those involved in 2021. In that sense, the Frei Montalva family intended to challenge this last sentence. Now, in the sentence, the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and María Teresa Letelier—partially accepted the cassation appeals only in that part in which it pronounced itself on the acquittals of Patricio Silva Garín, Helmar Rosenberg Gomez, and Sergio González Bombardiere, who passed away during the processing of the case.

Furthermore, the ruling acquitted Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez and Luis Becerra Arancibia, convicted in the first instance as authors, and Pedro Valdivia Soto, convicted in the first instance as an accomplice.

In the remainder, the Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeals against the sentence that acquitted those convicted in the first instance, considering that there is no background information that allows for proving the homicide of the former head of state and eventual maneuvers to hide his poisoning.

Death of former president Eduardo Frei Montalva

It should be mentioned that yesterday, on the program “Elegidos, 50 años en primera persona” on Mega, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle referred to the moments prior to his father’s surgery. “With great emotion, I remember that before he headed to the clinic, I was with him in his office.

He insisted above all on what was happening and questioned his decision to have surgery in that place,” specified the former head of state. He also stated that “I regret not having had the strength and conviction to convince my father to have surgery outside of Chile. It was a mistake.”

Source: biobio.cl, August 18, 2023