Address: Villa Jaime Eyzaguirre, Block 1461, Apt. 34, Santiago Marital Status: Married, one child Occupation: Employee of the industry Schiaffino S.A. Political Affiliation: Militant of the Youth of the Partido Nacional Date of Detention: October 6, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Benjamín Jaime Videla Ovalle, married, one daughter, employee, and militant of the Partido Nacional, was detained on October 6, 1973, near the time of the curfew, along with other individuals in the area of Vicuña Mackenna and Avenida Matta.

The captors were Carabineros officers who initially transported him to the Orfeón de Carabineros facility, before he was taken to the 4th Police Station, located at the corner of Calle Chiloé and Victoria.

That night, he was removed to an unknown destination, and his whereabouts have remained unknown since. Between the months of September and October 1973, several people who had arrived at this same police unit as detainees disappeared, as occurred in the case of José Luis Astudillo Calderón, who was detained on September 17, 1973, and later executed in a canal in the Lo Hermida sector.

The spouse of Benjamín Videla Ovalle, Mrs. Guadalupe María Cristina Mundaca Tirapegui, states in her testimony that her husband was seen at 19:00 on the day in question, as he was leaving a soda fountain located at Vicuña Mackenna 1035, where he had left behind a briefcase containing documents related to his work, which were later delivered to his company by one of the waiters at the establishment.

Mrs. Mundaca adds in her testimony that, in her inquiries to learn of her spouse's whereabouts, she went to the Orfeón de Carabineros, a facility located near where the arrest had taken place. There, she was attended to by Captain Brenny, who said he remembered the detention of the affected individual because his glasses fell off when he was being loaded into the vehicle; the detainee was in a state of intoxication.

The officer indicated that all those detained on that occasion were transferred to the 4th Police Station by Lieutenant Hans Halverson. When the witness went to the latter station, the detention was confirmed by the guard on duty.

However, the officer who attended to her denied the detention and, upon being confronted with what the guard had stated, called the latter into another office, losing all contact with him. Finally, Mrs.

María Cristina Mundaca notes in her testimony that she carried out multiple efforts and inquiries to find her spouse's whereabouts, but all were fruitless. In her search, she went every other day to the Legal Medical Institute, where, in mid-November 1973, several corpses arrived in a state of decomposition, with skulls shattered and burst; she was unable to examine them, but she read the autopsy protocols, and one of them resembled her husband according to the characteristics described therein.

Days later, she returned to the Institute to perform a recognition, but the body had already been buried, and she was told that to proceed with an exhumation, she had to bring "an order from the Government Junta."

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On June 3, 1991, Mrs. Eliana Ovalle Valladares, the victim's mother, filed a criminal complaint before the 9th Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of kidnapping and alleged homicide perpetrated against Benjamín Jaime Videla Ovalle, case file No. 55935, in which the circumstances of his disappearance are set forth.

Likewise, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission placed the information in its possession at the disposal of the Court. As of December 1992, the case was in the summary investigation stage.

For her part, Mrs. Guadalupe María Cristina Mundaca requested information from the General of the Carabineros César Mendoza Durán, General Augusto Pinochet, and the Director of the Investigations Service, Mr. Ernesto Baeza, without obtaining any result from these requests.

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

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

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Solís, confirmed this Thursday the identities of the remains of three people unearthed from Patio 29 of the General Cemetery, adding to the other cases revealed by the magistrate.

The forensic examinations, carried out at the University of North Texas Health Science Center Laboratory (United States), which have a 99.99% probability of identification, allow for the establishment that the remains correspond to:

BENJAMIN JAIME VIDELA OVALLE

, Héctor Orlando Vicencio González, and Eduardo Emilio Toro Véliz.

The analyses were conducted following the scientific audit performed at the Genetics Unit of the Legal Medical Service and the designation in March 2007 of the so-called Panel of Experts, which included forensic doctors María Cristina de Mendoza and Francisco Etxeberría, and geneticist Rhonda Robby.

Videla Ovalle was detained in October 1973 at the age of 28 by Carabineros officers in the sector of Vicuña Mackenna and Avenida Matta, allegedly for violating a curfew.

Vicencio González was 24 years old when he was apprehended at his residence, around 11:00, on September 20, 1973, for not having his identity card. He was then loaded onto a military truck, and until now, there had been no further information regarding his remains in Patio 29.

Toro Véliz disappeared at the age of 42, on October 6, 1973, at approximately 21:00, in the vicinity of Plaza Italia, where he resided.

The identities confirmed today are in addition to those of Waldemar Segundo Monsalve Toledo; the member of the Communist Youth Pablo Ramón Aranda Schmied; and the political execution victim Nelson Omara Muñoz Torres, released in early December 2009.

At the end of the same month, Juan Carlos Díaz Fierro, Ricardo Octavio López Elgueda, and Adrián del Carmen Sepúlveda Farías were also identified.

Source: adnradio.cl 4/02/2010 Date: 04-02-2010

Minister Solís reveals the identity of three other victims exhumed from Patio 29

The visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Solís, confirmed this Thursday the identities of the remains of three people unearthed from Patio 29 of the General Cemetery, adding to the other cases revealed by the magistrate.

The forensic examinations, carried out at the University of North Texas Health Science Center Laboratory, which have a 99.99 percent probability of identification, allow for the establishment that the remains correspond to Benjamín Jaime Videla Ovalle, Héctor Orlando Vicencio González, and Eduardo Emilio Toro Véliz.

The analyses were conducted following the scientific audit performed at the Genetics Unit of the Legal Medical Service and the designation in March 2007 of the so-called Panel of Experts, which included forensic doctors María Cristina de Mendoza and Francisco Etxeberría, and geneticist Rhonda Robby.

Videla Ovalle was detained in October 1973 at the age of 28 by Carabineros officers in the sector of Vicuña Mackenna and Avenida Matta, allegedly for violating a curfew.

Vicencio González was 24 years old when he was apprehended at his residence, around 11:00, on September 20, 1973, for not having his identity card. He was then loaded onto a military truck, and until now, there had been no further information regarding his remains in Patio 29.

Toro Véliz disappeared at the age of 42, on October 6, 1973, at approximately 21:00, in the vicinity of Plaza Italia, where he resided.

The identities confirmed today are in addition to those of Waldemar Segundo Monsalve Toledo; the member of the Communist Youth Pablo Ramón Aranda Schmied; and the political execution victim Nelson Omara Muñoz Torres, released in early December 2009, and those of Juan Carlos Díaz Fierro, Ricardo Octavio López Elgueda, and Adrián del Carmen Sepúlveda Farías, released at the end of that same month.

Source: elmostrador.cl 4/2/2010