Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, married, father of 6, merchant, and Socialist militant, was detained on September 17, 1973, at approximately 10:00 PM at his home, located at the "El Aromo" recreation center, which he owned, in the town of Polcura.

The apprehension was carried out without any judicial warrant by Carabineros from the local police station in the presence of his partner, Elena Mora Bustos, and her daughter. The victim attempted to resist arrest and was tied up using the cords from the commercial establishment's window blinds.

He was taken in a pickup truck to the Polcura police station and later to the El Abanico police station.

In his political activities, the victim had used his vehicle to distribute propaganda during the presidential campaign and also in the days leading up to the military coup.

His spouse, Inés Mercedes Uribe Molina, went to the Regiment and the International Red Cross office in Los Angeles to inquire about her husband's whereabouts without success; the Military Prosecutor's Office did not acknowledge the detention, limiting their response to informing her of the victim's political background.

Since his detention, Bernardo Meza Rubilar remains forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 8, 1979, his spouse filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) on his behalf, case file 4425, in the Court of Appeals of Concepción.

Relevant inquiries were made to the Bío-Bío Military Prosecutor's Office, the Regional Intendancy, the No. 17 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Los Angeles, and the Ministry of the Interior, all of which reported having no records regarding the victim's detention or any warrant against him.

For their part, both the Chief of the Polcura police station and the Prefect of the Bío-Bío Carabineros Prefecture No. 20 reported that no detention record existed, as the logbooks corresponding to that period had been incinerated in accordance with regulations; they further stated that on September 17, 1973, the Polcura station was unstaffed, as personnel had been ordered to relocate to the former Abanico police station on September 14.

Based on this information, the Court dismissed the writ of amparo, deeming that the victim was not in custody and that no warrant existed against him. It requested that the records be sent to the appropriate court to initiate a summary proceeding for the alleged disappearance of Bernardo Meza.

A complaint for "presumed misfortune" (presunta desgracia) was processed, case file 21,290, in the 2nd Criminal Court of Los Angeles, for which no further information is available.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The ruling left in limbo by the Court of Appeals of Concepción against Klug Rivera—convicted as an accomplice in the disappearances and homicides of 23 Endesa workers in Los Angeles, and who is currently in preventive detention at the Chacabuco Regiment—is still pending, but this concerns the case of the disappearance of university student Luis Cornejo Fernández during the dictatorship.

Walter Klug Rivera will begin serving his ten-year-and-one-day prison sentence for human rights violations committed during the Pinochet dictatorship at the Punta Peuco Special Penitentiary Detention and Compliance Center, better known as Punta Peuco Prison.

Gendarmerie personnel will arrive this Monday at the Chacabuco Regiment, where the former uniformed agent of the military dictatorship has been held in preventive detention since his expulsion from Argentina.

From the military facility located in Concepción, he will be taken to the office of Minister Paola Plaza, the judge in the Endesa case, who will notify Klug of the sentence and order his entry into Punta Peuco.

It should be recalled that Walter Klug, who pursued a military career in the army and, following the coup, engaged in the repression, persecution, torture, and murder of supporters of the ousted Allende government in the Bío Bío province, was arrested in 2019 in Europe, where he had fled in 2015 prior to the notification of the ruling that convicted him as an accomplice in the disappearances and homicides of 23 Endesa workers in Los Angeles.

Klug Rivera was extradited, but not for that case; rather, he was processed for the disappearance of a student from the University of Concepción, an investigation in which he was ultimately acquitted, regaining his freedom. This allowed him to carry out a second escape to Argentina, where he was arrested and returned to Chile exactly one month ago.

Having not been extradited for the Endesa case, the Judiciary had been unable to notify him until now of the final prison sentence handed down in 2015 by the Supreme Court.

A few days ago, the court reviewed the case of university student Luis Cornejo Fernández, for which the Human Rights Program is requesting that the acquittal be revoked and that Klug be convicted as an accomplice to the crime of aggravated kidnapping, which could increase the prison time for the man who was a member of Army Intelligence during the dictatorship.

Source: elmostrador.cl 7/31/2021

Date: 07-31-2021

Former Chilean military officer Walter Klug was arrested in the Italian city of Parma (north) and is awaiting a decision on his extradition to Chile, where he was convicted of kidnapping and homicide following the 1973 military coup by Augusto Pinochet.

The arrest operation began at a hotel in Parma where the 69-year-old convict, who holds a German passport, was staying with his partner, also Chilean, police sources told Efe.

Klug resided in Germany but was in Italy accompanying his partner, an engineer who was scheduled to participate in a conference. At the time of his arrest, he remained calm and offered no resistance, according to the same sources.

He was subsequently held in the Parma prison, where he awaits the decision of the competent authority regarding his extradition, which in this case is the Bologna Court of Appeal, in accordance with the Italian Ministry of Justice.

Walter Klug was sentenced to ten years and one day in prison in Chile, and an international arrest warrant had been issued for him after he managed to escape justice.

He is one of three retired Chilean Army officers whose convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court on October 23, 2014, for their participation in the kidnapping and homicide of workers following Pinochet's uprising in 1973.

Specifically, they were convicted for participating in the execution and disappearance of 21 workers from two hydroelectric plants in the mountainous sector of Los Angeles, in the southern Bío Bío region, between September 11 and November 17, 1973.

Following Pinochet's coup, the workers, who were supporters of the ousted president Salvador Allende, were persecuted and detained by state agents under the pretext that they intended to attack detention centers to free opponents of the regime, according to the 2014 judicial ruling.

Brave soldier Walther Ludwig Klug Rivera, army lieutenant and SIM agent, attended the School of the Americas from January 8 to February 9, 1973. In the days following the coup d'état, he organized the Prison Camp in the stables of the No. 3 Mountain Infantry Regiment "Los Ángeles" (currently the No. 17 Mountain Infantry Regiment "Los Ángeles"), where political prisoners from the region were tortured, murdered, and forcibly disappeared.

Klug Rivera entered the Military School in 1966, graduating in 1970 with the rank of Artillery Sub-lieutenant. In 1971, he was assigned to the No. 3 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Los Angeles, where he remained until mid-1975.

Subsequently, he was assigned to the Artillery School in Linares for a year and a half with the rank of lieutenant; he was then assigned to the Arica Garrison, where he spent seven years dedicated to Military Intelligence and, for some periods, to functions in the artillery branch of the Dolores Regiment. Later, he entered the Polytechnic Academy with the rank of Major, before being discharged.

Initially, detainees were taken to the Los Angeles Men's High School, which was under the charge of Health Major Hugo Segura Brandt, but according to Walther Ludwig Klug Rivera, an order arrived from Santiago to arrest that Major, as he was supposedly a "MIR" infiltrator.

Later, the detained individuals were taken to the No. 3 "Los Angeles" Regiment by officials from the Carabineros stations in the areas of the Endesa power plants in the foothills of Los Angeles and by military personnel who installed themselves in the area after September 11, 1973.

The then-lieutenant Walther Klug Rivera constantly visited the local jail looking for prisoners to transfer to the regiment, where they were tortured, murdered, and disappeared. A surviving prisoner recalls: "On the morning of that day, we arrived at the Carriel Sur airport in Concepción, as we realized, when Lieutenant Walther Klug Rivera—the most ruthless, sadistic, cruel, and murderous guy in the Bío Bío province—removed our wire ties and allowed us to urinate.

At that moment, we agreed that they were taking us to Chacabuco."

In October 2013, Walther Klug Rivera was sentenced to 10 years and 1 day in prison, without benefits, for the crimes of aggravated homicide against Juan Miguel Yáñez Franco; Cesar Augusto Flores Baeza; Víctor Jerez Meza; Mario Belmar Soto; Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez; Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino, and the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of José Abel Coronado Astudillo; Abel José Carrasco Vargas; Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa; Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez; Plutarco Coussy Benavides; Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira; Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo; Domingo Norambuena Inostroza; Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso; Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo; José Oscar Badilla García; Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera; Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda and Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar.

Walther Klug's involvement in the disappearance of Jaime Araya Palominos has also been investigated; on September 18, 1973, he was kidnapped from his residence in the city of Los Angeles by a patrol composed of Chilean Army soldiers and civilians belonging to the terrorist group "Patria y Libertad."

In May 2014, the retired army colonel was prosecuted for his role in the disappearance of topography student Luis Cornejo Fernández, a militant of the Communist Youth and president of the Student Center of the Los Angeles branch of the University of Concepción.

Luis Cornejo Fernández was detained on September 18, 1973, and taken to the No. 3 Regiment of Los Angeles, where he was brutally tortured according to numerous witnesses, and his whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Klug Rivera was rapidly promoted through the ranks of the army, reaching the rank of Colonel at the time of his retirement.

In October 2014, the Supreme Court issued a final sentence against Walther Ludwig Klug Rivera for the kidnappings and homicides of 23 workers from the El Toro and El Abanico power plants.

Source: cambio21.cl 06/04/2019

Date: 06-04-2019

State ordered to pay compensation to family members of Endesa worker executed in 1973

The Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the State of Chile to pay a total indemnity of $260,000,000 (two hundred and sixty million pesos) to the spouse and children of Víctor Jerez Meza, a worker at the El Abanico hydroelectric plant, owned by Endesa, who was executed on September 22, 1973.

Víctor Jerez Meza, married, father of 3, a worker at the "El Abanico" plant of the Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (Endesa), president of the company's Union, and Regional General Secretary of the Partido Socialista, was detained on September 22, 1973, at the facilities of the "El Toro" plant union by Carabineros and Army personnel.

His whereabouts remained unknown until 1999, when his body was found buried as a John Doe (NN) in a mass grave at the Nacimiento cemetery.

In a split decision, the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of justices Marisol Rojas, María Luisa Riesco, and lawyer (i) Rodrigo Asenjo—upheld in its entirety the challenged ruling issued by the Seventh Civil Court of Santiago, which established the State's responsibility for the actions of its agents in the commission of a crime against humanity, which is imprescriptible in both criminal and civil matters.

"Now then, regarding the exception of the statute of limitations for the indemnity action, and finding it essential to clarify whether or not it is appropriate to affirm a statute of full imprescriptibility applicable not only in the realm of criminal liability, but also in the civil realm of indemnities regarding crimes against humanity, or if, on the contrary, it is incumbent to restrict imprescriptibility only to criminal actions, and consequently apply the statute of limitations to civil actions as regulated by private law, it must be pointed out that, in this instance, it is not a matter of an action of a merely patrimonial nature, but rather a reparatory action in the realm of human rights violations in crimes against humanity, which is governed by precepts of international law that enshrine imprescriptibility," the first-instance ruling maintains.

The resolution adds that "by a principle of legal coherence, imprescriptibility must govern both in the civil realm and in the criminal realm. The source of the State's obligation to provide reparation is founded not only on the Political Constitution of the Republic, but also on the general principles of humanitarian law and international treaties, which must take precedence over civil codes."

"On the other hand, the application of the statute of limitations of private law in this case would injure fundamental values, from a legal and moral point of view, since the aforementioned institution constitutes a protection for the state entity, and for the same reason, its application in the field of public law would mean ignoring the State's duty to fulfill its own ends, leaving individuals in a state of helplessness, which amounts to a denial of their fundamental rights to life and physical integrity by the very entity that is constitutionally obligated to safeguard them," the ruling concludes.

Víctor Jerez Meza (pictured), married, father of 3, a worker at the "El Abanico" plant of the Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (Endesa), president of the company's Union, and Regional General Secretary of the Partido Socialista, was detained on September 22, 1973, at the facilities of the "El Toro" plant union by Carabineros and Army personnel, and his whereabouts remained unknown from that moment on.

The victim's spouse stated in a sworn declaration that Carabineros Lieutenant Zacarías Hannover García Agüero, of the Abanico Station, participated in the detention, and that on that day, September 22, she went to the "El Toro" plant to request information about her spouse, who had been forced to leave the family home for security reasons following the coup d'état, as the house had been raided on repeated occasions by the military.

"When I was coming down the street by the union, I saw the military throwing an individual into the van, and I asked some men who were there who they were putting into the military vehicle, and they replied that they were taking the union president into custody. From that day on, the raids on our home ceased," the woman's statement notes.

Víctor Jerez Meza's spouse went to the Antuco and Abanico stations, and also to the Los Ángeles Regiment, in search of him, all without positive results in locating his whereabouts.

For its part, the report of the Rettig Report indicates that the victim was held along with other Endesa workers—Plutarco Coussy, Mario Olivares, and Wilfredo Muñoz—who remain forcibly disappeared to this day.

The information provided by police authorities to the family members was that they had been transferred to the Los Ángeles Regiment. And as in other cases, the local press reported on October 6 that the victim was missing after having been released on parole while proceedings were being completed, adding that he had not appeared for a new summons and that he should "face the consequences."

The report of said Commission also adds that on January 14, 1977, four years after the detention, information appeared in the local press indicating that Víctor Jerez Meza, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Mario Olivares Pérez, and Wilfredo Quiroz Pereira had been executed by firing squad. No circumstances were explained, there is no death certificate, and no official explanation for the deaths exists.

Finally, in 1999, the remains of Jerez Meza were identified among the bodies exhumed—buried as John Does (NN) in a mass grave—at the Nacimiento cemetery, following a procedure ordered by the then-special judge Juan Guzmán.

For the crime against Víctor Jerez and 22 other workers from the El Toro and El Abanico plants, the Supreme Court sentenced retired Army General Patricio Martínez Moena in 2014 to 20 years in prison, without benefits; retired Colonel Walter Klug Rivera to 10 years and 1 day in prison, without benefits; and officer Ismael Espinoza Silva to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

According to the high court, they were guilty of the homicides of Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino; as well as the aggravated kidnappings of Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, BERNARDO SAMUEL MEZA RUBILAR, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

Source: elciudadano.cl 4/08/2018

Date: 04-08-2018