The Court of Appeals is about to rule on the expansion of the indictment for "illicit association" against 13 former CNI agents involved in the execution of seven MIR members in 1984—murders that were presented at the time as "clashes." The judge presiding over the case only indicted two of the accused for "illicit association": Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

The following text was sent to CIPER by the victims' families and reconstructs the events based on statements contained in the judicial file. Its authors aim to demonstrate that the "illicit association" included all the agents who acted in these operations.

The method of staged "clashes" to eliminate opponents was a common practice used by the National Information Center (CNI), the military government's repressive agency. The detention, execution, and disappearance of prisoners—which was used intensely and massively by the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the CNI's predecessor, during the early period of the dictatorship—was replaced in later years by the public execution of "internal enemies" and their subsequent presentation as a clash by the CNI.

The latter would detain and eliminate opponents in chosen locations, where the scene of the alleged clash was later staged. Alternatively, opponents were executed in ambushes prepared in advance. In both circumstances, the press covered the episodes with complicit enthusiasm.

The courts of justice ignored the investigations demanded by the victims' families or processed the cases in a foolish and negligent manner; in any case, the country has had to endure decades of proceedings to achieve judicial progress.

What follows accounts for the responsibility of the courts of justice in clarifying the murder of seven MIR members in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles, which occurred on August 23 and 24, 1984, within the framework of Operation Alfa Carbón 1 or, as it has been called, the "Southern Albania," in allusion to the well-known Operation Albania or Corpus Christi Massacre, in which the CNI murdered twelve members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front in June 1987.

The background information presented below does not constitute, according to the visiting judge presiding over the case, Carlos Aldana Fuentes, sufficient evidence to establish well-founded presumptions that the accused and defendants Hugo Salas Wenzel, Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, Jorge Andrade Gómez, and Aquiles González Cortés, among others, bore responsibility and participation as authors of the crimes committed under the charge of criminal illicit association.

Aldana also dismisses the responsibility as accomplices and accessories after the fact of Miguel Ángel Parra Vásquez, then a CNI lawyer responsible for instructing agents to provide false statements to the courts after the events occurred.

According to Aldana, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that these agents participated as authors, accomplices, or accessories in the crimes attributed to them, as required by Article 274 No. 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

On August 23, 1984, the CNI team led by Luís Hernán Gálvez Navarro began the second stage of Operation Alfa Carbón 1. At around 11:00, several CNI teams and a Televisión Nacional crew arrived in Hualpencillo, now Hualpén.

Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, a MIR leader in the Southern Theater of Operations, lived at 3346 Nápoles Street. After midday, at the intersection of Grecia and Nápoles, agents Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz and Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, along with Gálvez Navarro, got out of the vehicles in which they had been following him for months, shot him in the back, and finished him off on the ground.

Finally, according to witnesses, "after a while, many vehicles began to arrive; they checked his pockets, placed two small weapons near his body, some pamphlets, and some black objects like grenades" (fs. 3907, case file 746-84).

Alfa Carbón 1 had begun at the start of 1984—or perhaps earlier—when Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, head of the CNI in Concepción, informed his superior, Marcos Spiros Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI's Regional Division, that there was sufficient data to confirm the presence of a subversive structure in the area: the Southern Theater of Operations (TOS) of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (+), Derpich's second-in-command in the Regional Division, had directed the intelligence work for what would be the definitive dismantling of the MIR leadership in southern Chile.

Derpich and Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, then head of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Division (DAS), based at the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, were to command the operation. The report submitted by Mandiola included names, addresses, and organizational charts of the MIR members, among which was Aedo's information.

The autopsy report performed by forensic doctor César Reyes Contreras on August 24, 1984, at 8:30, confirmed that Luciano Aedo received seven bullet impacts: four in the back, head, left wrist, and left foot.

It defined the precise and necessary cause of death as a projectile fired from a distance of more than fifty centimeters that entered through the back and exited through the chest, compromising the heart and lungs (fs. 234; 292).

Likewise, in his statement on September 13, the doctor noted that the trajectory of the projectile suggests that Aedo was leaning forward, "as when one runs," and that the wounds in the back must have been inflicted when the thorax was highly inclined, "almost horizontal to the ground" (fs. 17954). Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias was 34 years old, a father of four, and a member of the MIR.

Later, at around 16:00, in front of the Vega Monumental in Concepción, the driver Pedro Aguayo Aguayo was forced to stop his minibus. About thirty CNI agents and Carabineros personnel had surrounded the area.

In Talcahuano, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, military head of the TOS, and Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, political-military head of the TOS, had boarded the bus. A Televisión Nacional team was also taking positions.

Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, a former Army officer hired as a civilian employee of the CNI and second-in-command of the Special Brigade, ordered the passengers to get off. Only the driver did so. Faced with this, the officers began throwing tear gas canisters inside the vehicle, where about twelve people remained.

Ten got off. After a few minutes, Mario Lagos descended through the back door with his arms raised. Egon Antonio Barra Barra, a Carabineros corporal and member of the CNI's Special Brigade, got out of the vehicle in which they had followed the minibus, carrying an AK rifle.

Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, a Carabineros corporal and member of the CNI's Special Brigade, did the same. As recorded on fs. 3646, both fired several shots, "the subject falling face down and dying in that place." They acted under the orders of Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner, then an Army lieutenant and team leader, in front of the stunned gaze of about 500 witnesses.

The autopsy report for Mario Lagos Rodríguez revealed that he received two bullet impacts fired from more than fifty centimeters away: one in the left axillary area—which proves he had his arms raised at the moment of impact—and another in the posterior part of the right thigh. Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez was 34 years old, a father of three, and a member of the MIR.

Upon seeing him on the ground, Nelson Herrera tried to flee but was intercepted. The driver, Pedro Aguayo, stated on September 10, 1984: "I went toward him and was a meter away from him. At that same moment, two agents arrived who lifted him by the arms.

The fallen man opened his eyes and looked at me directly. He had no blood anywhere on his body, except for a scrape on the temple, which could have been caused by the fall or the graze of a bullet [...] The two men who had approached him took him firmly by the arms, lifted him up, and said he was wounded and had to be taken to the hospital" (fs. 18345).

José Abel Aravena Ruiz, a Carabineros non-commissioned officer and member of the Blue Brigade, commanded the team in charge of following Herrera and, together with Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, a civilian Army agent and member of the Concepción regional Anti-Subversive Division; Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, a Carabineros corporal and operational guard at the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño; and a fourth agent not yet identified, whose alias was "Cárdenas," put him in a car and drove him toward Santa Juana.

There, in a vacant lot, Luis Andaur Leiva fired a shot into his forehead.

The autopsy of Nelson Herrera concluded that the cause of death was a cranio-cerebral wound resulting from a shot fired at point-blank range, which penetrated through the middle nasofrontal region and whose star-shaped appearance indicates it was inflicted from a distance of two or three centimeters.

Furthermore, it revealed the presence of bruising with blood infiltration on his wrists, indicating they were tied at the time of death. Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros was 30 years old, a father of one daughter, and a member of the MIR.

As recorded on fs. 4601—and established on fs. 3089, 3419, 2700, and 2557—the day before the operation, "a meeting was held in which it was said who had to be detained and who had to be eliminated. In that meeting, photographs were placed, and those who had to be eliminated were marked with a cross; among these were Herrera and Lagos." The meeting was led by Derpich and Mandiola, and the entire command participated, meaning, in addition to them: Corbalán, Gonzales Cortés, Krantz Johans Bauer Donoso, and "the CNI officer known at Cuartel Borgoño specifically as 'don Oscar,' who corresponds to Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez." Krantz Bauer (+) was to be in charge of the teams that were to operate in Los Ángeles, and for that reason, he moved that night to the regiment in that city.

At around 17:00 on August 23, Bauer Donoso received the order to operate and informed the teams under his command to proceed with the planned actions. Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, an Army non-commissioned officer and member of the Concepción DAS; José Artemio Zapata Zapata, a civilian Army agent and member of the Concepción DAS; and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, a civilian Army agent and member of the Caupolicán, Red, and Blue brigades, arrived at 841 Bombero Carlos Vyhmeister Street in the Orompello neighborhood, where Mario Mujica Barros, a MIR leader and member of the TOS, lived.

As stated in the file, the three members of the team commanded by Soto Aravena had arrived in the city of Los Ángeles the first week of August to follow him. On the day of the events, the team waited for him to leave his home, but Mujica did not move.

About twelve agents positioned themselves in front of and on the sides of the house, and once the perimeter was secured, the team initiated the attack by entering the home. Simultaneously, the other teams fired into the air to give the impression of a clash.

But, as recorded on fs. 309, Mario Mujica was subdued inside his home, forced to his knees, and executed with a point-blank shot. Subsequently, and to continue the facade, the agents continued firing, climbing onto the roofs of neighboring houses and stationing themselves in the rear alley, while a large number of Carabineros provided perimeter support (fs. 146; 191).

The autopsy report for Mario Mujica indicated as the cause of death a bullet wound to the neck with involvement of the trachea and blood vessels, hemorrhage, and anemia. Likewise, Police Report No. 44 of the PDI's Criminalistics Department indicated that at the moment of receiving the homicidal impact, Mario Mujica could have been at a lower height than the person who fired the shot, either crouching or on the floor, or partially with his back turned, with his head and neck inclined (fs. 390).

Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros was 32 years old, a father of one son, and a member of the MIR.

As in Concepción, and as recorded on fs. 392; 291, on August 22, 1984, a meeting was held in Valdivia to plan the operation in that city. The meeting was led by Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, an Army lieutenant and second-in-command of the Yellow Brigade; Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, an Army captain and head of the CNI in Valdivia; and Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, an Army captain and head of the CNI in Puerto Montt.

There, the teams that would operate the following day and the day after in the city were assigned.

On August 23, 1984, around midday, the three teams led by Patricio Castro detained Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, MIR leaders and members of the TOS, in the center of Valdivia.

The three groups formed a caravan along with two other teams, one of which was commanded by Moraga Tresckow, and headed along the route to Niebla to the Estancilla Bridge, where they stopped in the middle of an open field.

A red van was also in the caravan. There, one of the vehicles moved about two hundred meters toward Niebla to cut off traffic, while another did the same with the flow coming from Valdivia. The detainees, tied, blindfolded, and gagged, were forced to get out and were immediately murdered by about five or six shooters, the first of them being Patricio Castro.

He was followed by "Miguel Aliaga," Gerardo Meza Acuña, Francisco Orellana Segel, Fernando Ramírez Romero, Alberto Moraga Tresckow, and another agent not yet identified. Subsequently, these same agents fired at the red van that had parked nearby to simulate a clash.

Ernesto Arnoldo Barría Ordoñez, captain of the ferry Caupolicán, which followed a route on the Valdivia River, noted that on that August 23, from midday, many vehicles with Santiago license plates began to pass, crossing from Las Mulatas toward Torobayo, and that in the afternoon, some people in civilian clothes approached him, claiming to be from the CNI, accompanied by several Carabineros.

They asked him to suspend service, and since there were orders from the Maritime Governorate, he had to obey. After approximately an hour and a half, a Carabineros chief told him to cross to pick up a hearse to transport the bodies of two MIR members who had been killed in a clash. "The hearse was black, but it had the Carabineros logo.

I asked a known Carabinero for authorization to see the bodies." There he recognized Barrientos, because they lived in the same neighborhood (fs. 287).

The autopsies confirmed that Rogelio Tapia received six bullet impacts to the face, thorax, and abdomen, and Raúl Barrientos, three impacts to the head and thorax. Rogelio Tapia de la Puente was 31 years old, a father of two daughters, and a member of the MIR. Raúl Barrientos Matamala was 23 years old and a member of the MIR.

The execution of Operation Alfa Carbón 1 culminated on August 24 at 643 Rubén Darío Street, in the Corvi neighborhood of Valdivia. The previous day, most of the teams that had moved to Valdivia were watching the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, a MIR leader and member of the TOS, waiting for him to leave so they could execute him.

Among them were the chiefs Boehmwald Soto, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, and Luís René Torres Méndez. However, Boncompte did not leave that day. The agents returned on the 24th with the order to enter his home.

Patricio Castro Muñoz entrusted Boehmwald Soto to lead the operation after midday. The team leaders, in addition to agents Patricio Castro, Pedro María Rojas Vásquez, Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, Aquiles Poblete Palominos, and Carlos Alberto Ejía López, among others, entered through the main door, while several teams surrounded the house and the entire block.

Eladio Washington Ilabel Poblete, a neighbor in the sector, noted that on the day of the events, he saw a black taxi park in front of Boncompte's house. Four individuals got out, knocked on the door, and entered.

After one or two minutes, he heard several shots: "Out of curiosity, I climbed onto the roof of my house and observed a man running toward the lot (backyard) and he was riddled with bullets by several people, as many were coming from the front of the house.

I also remember that an armed woman approached the body of the shot person and lifted his nose, and I heard her say: 'He was a pretty guy,' as if laughing, and then she fired at him with her weapon" (fs. 286).

According to the autopsy, Boncompte had 22 bullet impacts: nine in the thorax, four in the arm, and two in the right forearm; three in the right thigh, three in the left leg, and one in the face. Juan José Boncompte Andreu was 31 years old, a father of two children, and a member of the MIR.

Narda Flandes, also a neighbor of Boncompte, noted on fs. 279 that one of the subjects who shot him turned him over with his foot so he would be face up, and together with others, "threw his body into a bag. I left the place, running toward the corner to keep watching. In that interval, I saw when they took out a pregnant girl and put her in the van."

In the statement she provided on October 5, 1990, for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Inés Díaz Vallejos stated:

I, Inés Díaz Vallejos, born in Quillota, Chilean citizen, with date of birth April 25, 1952, identity card 7.152.059-5, Santiago, by profession a teacher, with current address at Sodra Ledningsgatan 39, Lilla Edet, Sweden, come to declare that:

1) Approximately at 16:00 that day, a group of people dressed in civilian clothes appeared at our home. Some wore a bracelet that identified them as members of the Army. Those people entered our house when I opened the door.

My partner, Juan José, remained in the bedroom. I was assaulted by four or five of the people who entered and was thrown to the floor of the living room. While lying there, I heard firearms being fired inside the house.

At those moments, I was subjected to mistreatment by a group of those individuals. They demanded answers to questions about where there might be weapons, explosives, etc. I replied that I had no knowledge about those things.

These people insisted that I answer, and for that, they subjected me to blows and kicks all over my body. I must highlight that when this happened, I was 28 weeks pregnant. I lived with Juan José, and he is the father of my daughter.

After a while, I was removed from the house and taken to police facilities in Valdivia. That same day, almost at nightfall, I was transferred again, this time to the men's prison in Valdivia. There I remained, always incommunicado. This lasted six days (although I remained) detained until the week of the birth in November 1984, without being accused or convicted.

2) On November 28, 1984, my daughter Javiera was born, affected by generalized spastic tetraparesis. This implies a state of total physical impairment that is irreparable. My daughter is not in a condition to use her legs or arms, nor can she speak.

The impairment is physical in nature. My daughter's mental capacity is intact, with an evident degree of intelligence. All medical evaluations indicate without a doubt that the physical disability is due to the mistreatment I received on August 24, 1984.

The judicial history of this case begins on that same August 23, 1984, in the military prosecutor's offices of Concepción and Valdivia with proceedings against the 16 MIR members detained in both cities and those responsible for the "unnecessary violence" that caused the death of Luciano Aedo, Mario Lagos, Nelson Herrera, Mario Mujica, Rogelio Tapia, Raúl Barrientos, and Juan José Boncompte.

That same year, Monsignor José Manuel Santos, Archbishop of Concepción—whose denunciations were collected by the magazine Cauce in a report titled "I Accuse" (http://saladehistoria.com/Revistas/Cauce/pdf/Cauce021.pdf)—requested a visiting judge from the Court of Appeals and, faced with its refusal, presented all the information he could gather to the Supreme Court.

But the case remained in military justice, most of the time in charge of prosecutor Pedro Marisio, the same one who took statements from the detainees when they left the CNI barracks and went to prison.

Marisio interrogated six agents knowing they were using false names instructed by the lawyer Miguel Ángel Parra. Claudio Rodrigo Rozas Fernández, Antonio Martínez López, Jaime Marinovic Palma, Juan Machuca Fuenzalida, Ricardo Labórquez Maturana, and Raúl González López are the "aliases" they used.

In 1998, prosecutor Marisio dismissed the case, declaring that it was not possible to find the true identities of those responsible. The lawyer representing the families of the MIR members murdered in Concepción and Hualpencillo appealed, but the Martial Court confirmed the dismissal.

The lawyer then filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court, which ordered the investigation to continue. Only in 2003 did military prosecutor Fernando Grandón, faced with a new attempt at dismissal, request that the Fifth Department of the PDI be ordered to investigate.

It was the detectives of this brigade who found the first two names: Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner and Víctor Muñoz Orellana. Finally, in 2007, lawyer Magdalena Garcés took charge of representing the majority of the victims' families and succeeded in having the case transferred to civil justice.

In 2009, Judge Aldana reopened the case for the death of Mario Mujica—which had been dismissed in 1998—and in 2011, he consolidated the three cases (Valdivia, Concepción, and Los Ángeles) into one (12-2009 of the Concepción Court of Appeals) for qualified homicide and illicit association against Marcos Derpich, Álvaro Corbalán, and others.

On June 20, 2012, Judge Aldana resolved to indict only ÁLVARO CORBALÁN CASTILLA and MARCOS DERPICH MIRANDA for illicit association and, for qualified homicide, in addition to them, 13 agents (see list below).

At the beginning of 2013, Magdalena Garcés and Patricia Parra (a lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, who also became a party to the process) presented two requests to expand the indictment.

The lawyers' requests are for the judge to expand the indictment for the crime of illicit association and to indict: JORGE CLAUDIO ANDRADE GÓMEZ and AQUILES MAURICIO GONZÁLEZ CORTÉS as authors of the qualified homicide of all the victims; JORGE CAMILO MANDIOLA ARREDONDO as author of the qualified homicide of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, and Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; HUGO JOSÉ HECHENLEITNER HECHENLEITNER and EGON ANTONIO BARRA BARRA as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez; RAFAEL DE JESÚS RIVEROS FROST as author of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; FRANCISCO JAVIER ORELLANA SEGUEL and JORGE FERNANDO RAMÍREZ ROMERO as authors of the qualified homicide of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala; and agents CARLOS ALBERTO EGUÍA LÓPEZ, LUIS RENÉ TORRES MÉNDEZ, PEDRO MARÍA ROJAS VÁSQUEZ, ZINAIDA LENA VICENCIO GONZÁLEZ, and AQUILES POBLETE PALOMINOS as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu.

An illicit association composed of only two people, as Judge Aldana intends, is laughable in this context. Indeed, Article 292 of the Penal Code provides that any association formed with the object of attacking the social order, good customs, persons, or property constitutes a crime that exists by the mere fact of organizing.

Likewise, Article 293 of the Penal Code sanctions with the penalty of major imprisonment in any of its degrees the leaders, those who have exercised command, and their provocateurs when the agreement of wills has had as its object the perpetration of crimes, as occurs in this case.

Added to this, Judge Aldana has decided to prosecute only the "material" authors of the case, ignoring both the rationality and hierarchy with which the repressive apparatuses functioned in Chile, as indicated by the advances in jurisprudence in this regard.

To be able to judge the crimes committed by the Nazis, international jurisprudence replaced the distinction between material author and intellectual author with one that allowed for accounting for the way complex organizations operate.

Currently, a distinction is made between the immediate author and the mediate author, who is, in short, the one who gives the order and "has control of the act." For this reason, the fact that Hugo Salas Wenzel (second head of the CNI), Jorge Mandiola Arredondo (head of the CNI in Concepción), Jorge Andrade Gómez (second head of the Anti-Subversive Division commanded by Corbalán), and Aquiles González Cortés (head of the Blue Brigade in charge of the extermination of the MIR) are not being prosecuted in this case, when their participation in the crimes is proven, constitutes sufficient proof to affirm that the courts lack the will and conviction to effectively investigate and punish the State agents who committed criminal acts during the dictatorship.

The set of statements from witnesses, agents, and survivors is not sufficient for the judge, who seems to ignore that in human rights cases, obtaining the confession of the accused is almost impossible.

Therefore, the convictions in these cases are based not on conviction, but on the configuration of well-founded presumptions: the immediate and mediate authors have not confessed and will not confess their crimes, so if there are two or more statements indicating that an agent presided over a meeting and showed photographs marked with crosses; commanded a team and gave the order to execute; fired at a man who was in the street or inside his house, or occupies a place in the organizational charts that the agents themselves have created to map the operational command of the CNI—as happens throughout the 20 volumes that make up the case—that person should be prosecuted for both illicit association and qualified homicide.

Finally, even if Judge Aldana were to indict all the most obvious commanders and immediate authors, as requested by lawyers Garcés and Parra, the convictions would be insufficient. Operation Alfa Carbón 1 involved around one hundred agents from Santiago, Concepción, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and other cities in the south of the country in a massacre that ended the lives of seven people and for which only 15 individuals are currently being tried.

What do the judge and the Chilean justice system need to recognize the logic of extermination that prevailed in Chile between 1973-1990 and proceed accordingly?

Source: CIPER Chile, May 4, 2013

Concepción Court confirms sentence for 17 former CNI agents for the murder of resistance fighters against the dictatorship in Operation Alfa Carbón

In a resolution released today, the Court of Appeals of Concepción ratified the sentences against 17 agents of the National Information Center (CNI) who were convicted in a first-instance ruling issued in May 2018 by Judge Carlos Aldana.

After more than four years of unjustified delays and obstructive maneuvers introduced by the criminals' lawyers, this stage of the process, which had remained stagnant in the tangle of the courts, has been brought to an end.

Darío Núñez The case known as the "Vega Monumental Massacre" (docket No. 11-2009) substantiates the criminal investigation into the qualified homicides of seven militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) committed by agents of the defunct CNI on August 23 and 24, 1984, in a coordinated repressive action called "Operation Alfa Carbón," which took place in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia.

The repressive action culminated in the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, in the current commune of Hualpén; Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, in Concepción; Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros, in Los Ángeles; and Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente, Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, and Juan José Boncompte Andreu, in Valdivia.

In the ruling, the Sixth Chamber of the appellate court, composed of judges Rodrigo Cerda San Martín, Rafael Andrade Díaz, and Claudia Montero Céspedes, rejected the cassation appeals filed by the criminals' lawyers and confirmed the sentence convicting six former Army officers who operated as commanders in the CNI.

Former Army Brigadier Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, alias "Gitano," head of the CNI Regional Division at the time of the events, and former Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, alias "Faraón," head of the CNI Anti-Subversive Division, were sentenced to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrators of all the qualified homicides and to 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of illicit association.

Former Captain Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, alias "BJ," must serve a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison for the three homicides in Valdivia, and 5 years and one day as a co-perpetrator of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, at the time of the events the CNI regional head in Concepción, was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicides in Talcahuano, Concepción, and Los Ángeles.

However, he was acquitted of the crime of illicit association. Former Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, CNI regional head in Valdivia and material author of the crimes perpetrated at Puente Estancilla, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Former Major Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, CNI regional head in Puerto Montt, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Meanwhile, agents Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, alias "Petete," and Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, alias "Vitoco," were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Luciano Aedo Arias committed in Hualpén.

Meanwhile, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, alias "Muñeca," Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, alias "Guatón Órdenes," Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Nelson Herrera Riveros committed at Kilometer One of the Camino a Santa Juana, in the Idahue sector.

The only defendant and accused person whom Judge Aldana had decreed for the qualified homicide of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, committed at the Vega Monumental, the criminal Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, alias "Baretta," was acquitted by the judge.

Regarding Los Ángeles, the ruling states that Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, alias "Chico Pato," and José Artemio Zapata Zapata, alias "Huaso," must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros.

As for the events in Valdivia, Gerardo Meza Acuña, alias "Patitas," and Luis René Torres Méndez, alias "Negro Mario," were sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of two qualified homicides committed at Puente Estancilla, on the road to Niebla, against Rogelio Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Barrientos Matamala.

For this same act, Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow was sentenced to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release. Finally, Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto and Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, alias "Flaca Cecilia," were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, committed in the Población Teniente Merino.

Three of the criminals involved died in the period between the first-instance ruling and the Court's resolution; in September 2019, the convicted criminal José Zapata committed suicide; in July 2020, the also-convicted Gerardo Meza Acuña died; and in December 2021, "Baretta," Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, died, who, unusually, although he had not been convicted by Aldana, his acquittal was appealed by the plaintiffs' lawyers.

It should be noted that during the process, Judge Aldana refused to prosecute Moraga Tresckow and Boehmwald Soto for illicit association, and in his first-instance ruling, he did not convict Mandiola Arredondo for this crime—the CNI head in Concepción and the manager of the concerted action of surveillance, tracking, and preparation of the operation that culminated in the crimes of August, in which Mandiola participated actively.

Likewise, Judge Aldana refused to prosecute another dozen agents involved, a decision that was endorsed by the Concepción Court at the time. Tribute act for the murdered militants. Concepción. Photograph by Natalia Figueroa.

Alfa Carbón Precisely, during the investigation stage, Judge Aldana managed to establish that in 1984, the CNI head of Concepción, Army Major Jorge Mandiola, received information regarding the re-articulation of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in the area, managing to detect some of its leaders.

After informing Army Colonel Marcos Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI Regional Division, and confirming the fact, they informed the CNI director, General Humberto Gordon Rubio (currently deceased), who determined that Army Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of the Anti-Subversive Division and the Regional leadership, should coordinate the operations to neutralize the members of the MIR who were operating between the Biobío and Los Ríos regions, naming these actions "Operation Alfa Carbón." As a result of the above, Corbalán Castilla ordered several teams, composed of agents from the different Brigades of the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, consisting of two or three people and with mobilization and financing provided by the Anti-Subversive Division, to move to Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, so that, in coordination with members of the CNI Regional units of those cities, they could carry out the tasks ordered by the various commands. Likewise, he ordered his subordinate Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz to establish himself in Valdivia, in charge of the teams brought from Santiago, to direct and carry out the operations in that region. In parallel, and with the same purpose, Marcos Derpich Miranda ordered that the head of the CNI Chillán barracks, Héctor Reinoso Muñoz, join his counterpart in Concepción; Mandiola and the head of Puerto Montt, Oscar Boehmwald, along with two agents from his unit, were to report to the head of Valdivia, Moraga Tresckow, to support the respective operations. Once in Concepción, the teams and commanders who arrived in the city, plus those from this region, met in the days leading up to August 23, 1984, at the CNI barracks located on Avenida Pedro de Valdivia, where they coordinated the actions to be developed, led by Álvaro Corbalán, Joaquín Molina (deceased), and Marcos Derpich. In that meeting, the decision was made to carry out various raids and arrests (without judicial orders or legal proceedings) and that the fate of the detainees would depend on the degree of danger they posed to the military regime prevailing in the country, assuming that some of them might end up dead. This operation included repressive actions in Talcahuano and Concepción as well as in Los Ángeles, Temuco, Valdivia, and other locations in the southern zone. The Facts On the morning of August 23, 1984, several CNI teams set up surveillance actions on three members of the MIR at the Plazoleta El Ancla, in Talcahuano. One of them, Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, boarded a public transport bus heading to the Hualpencillo sector, where he got off the vehicle and tried to flee on foot, being intercepted by CNI members—around noon—at the corner of Grecia and Nápoles streets, where agent Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro shot him with a firearm he was carrying, causing him to fall wounded to the ground, at which point agent Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices approached and finished him off with a burst from his AK-47 rifle in his back. The other two members of the MIR detected and watched earlier in Talcahuano, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, boarded another bus heading to Concepción, and were followed by other CNI operational teams, who coordinated with the Carabineros along the way to intercept the bus—which was carrying passengers—in front of the Vega Monumental. When the vehicle arrived at that location, the CNI members intercepted the bus and ordered everyone to get off the public transport vehicle, but since some refused, including those being pursued, they threw tear gas bombs. When they descended, they shot Herrera and Lagos, causing them wounds. Lagos Rodríguez tried to flee, so an agent shot him with the AK rifle he was carrying, causing his death on the spot. For his part, Herrera Riveros was apprehended by CNI agents Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Luis Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos, who put him into one of their vehicles and headed to the Regional Hospital of Concepción for the treatment of his wounds. However, during the trip, Derpich Miranda ordered his execution, so they took him to kilometer 0.9 of the road to Santa Juana, where they took him out of the vehicle and Aravena Ruiz ordered Andaur Leiva to execute the crime; he shot him with his revolver in the forehead, causing a craniocerebral gunshot wound, which caused his instantaneous death. Around 5:30 p.m. that same day, once the CNI agents from Concepción José Zapata Zapata and Bruno Soto Aravena, who were following Mario Mujica Barros, along with several teams led by the deceased Karl Johans Bauer, following the instructions of their boss Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, approached Mujica Barros's home in the Población Orompello in Los Ángeles. They entered the property by surprise and violently, shooting the victim in the head while he was on the ground, causing his death. Meanwhile, around 4:00 p.m. on August 23, 1984, CNI operational teams that had arrived from Santiago, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, arrested Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Jaime Barrientos Matamala near the Puente Las Ánimas, in the city of Valdivia. Subsequently, they crossed the Calle Calle River on a ferry and transported them to the Puente Estancilla, located on the road from Valdivia to Niebla, in the Torobayo sector, a place where traffic for all vehicles and people had previously been cut off by Carabineros, and in circumstances where the detainees had their hands tied and their eyes blindfolded, the agents proceeded to execute them, by order of Castro Muñoz, who shot, in addition to agents Luis René Torres Méndez and Gerardo Meza Muñoz and others not identified in the process. Likewise, the CNI regional head of Valdivia, Luis Moraga Tresckow, who had allegedly refused to shoot, upon the repeated order of Castro Muñoz, finished them off. The victims received multiple projectile wounds, some of which struck Tapia de la Puente and Barrientos Matamala in the skull and thorax. Subsequently, weapons were placed in the hands of the deceased to simulate a confrontation. The next day, August 24, 1984, around 3:00 p.m., several CNI operational teams, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, surrounded the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, located in the Población Teniente Merino in Valdivia, entering it to arrest Boncompte Andreu, who tried to flee from his captors, being wounded by shots from Oscar Boehmwald Soto, falling to the ground, where Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez shot him in the head with her firearm, causing his death.

Source: resumen.cl, June 10, 2022

Supreme Court confirms convictions of 15 CNI agents for crimes of Operation Alfa Carbón

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentences against 15 former agents of the National Information Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of seven militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) perpetrated on August 23 and 24, 1984, in a coordinated repressive action that took place in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, called "Operation Alfa Carbón" by the repressive organs, but popularly known as the "Vega Monumental Massacre." The repressive operation culminated on August 23 with the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, 34 years old, committed in the current commune of Hualpén; in Concepción, in front of the Vega Monumental, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, 30, and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, 34, were killed. The same day in Los Ángeles, Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros, 32, was murdered, and in Valdivia, Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente, 31, and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, 23, were executed. The following day, Juan José Boncompte Andreu, 31, was executed. In addition to this, as part of the repressive offensive, dozens of people, militants, and resistance members against the dictatorship were arrested in the aforementioned cities and in other towns and localities in the south. In a unanimous ruling (case Docket 75.716-2022), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of judges Haroldo Brito Cruz, Jorge Dahm Oyarzún, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, and lawyers (i) Leonor Etcheberry C. and Gonzalo Ruz L.—rejected the cassation appeals in form and substance filed by eight of the convicted criminals and ruled out any error of law in the challenged sentence, issued by the Court of Appeals of Concepción in June 2022 (docket 325-2019), which ratified the first-instance ruling issued in May 2018 (docket 11-2009) and convicted the accused for their responsibility in the crimes. The Criminals With this resolution, the Second Chamber confirms the sentence convicting the 15 former CNI agents; two other individuals convicted in the first instance died during the process. The convicted are six former Army officers who operated as commanders in the CNI: former Brigadier Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, at the time of the events head of the CNI Regional Division, and former Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, head of the CNI Anti-Subversive Division, who were sentenced to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrators of all the qualified homicides and to 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of illicit association. Former Captain Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, alias "BJ," must serve a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison for the three qualified homicides committed in Valdivia; and 5 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of illicit association. Former Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, at the time of the events CNI regional head in Concepción, was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicides committed in Talcahuano, Concepción, and Los Ángeles. Former Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, at the time of the events CNI regional head in Valdivia and material author of the crimes perpetrated at Puente Estancilla in Valdivia, was sentenced to five years of supervised release. Former Major Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, CNI regional head in Puerto Montt, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the qualified homicide perpetrated in the city of Valdivia against Juan José Boncompte Andreu. Meanwhile, agents Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro and Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices are sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Luciano Aedo Arias committed in Hualpén. Meanwhile, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Nelson Herrera Riveros committed at Kilometer One of the Camino a Santa Juana, in the Idahue sector. The only defendant and accused person whom the investigating judge Carlos Aldana had decreed for the qualified homicide of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, committed at the Vega Monumental, the criminal Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, was acquitted by the judge. Later, during the process, this individual died in December 2021. Regarding the crime committed in Los Ángeles, agent Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros. The other individual convicted in the first instance to the same sentence for this crime, José Artemio Zapata Zapata, committed suicide in September 2019. For the criminal acts committed in Valdivia, agent Luis René Torres Méndez was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the two qualified homicides committed at Puente Estancilla, on the road to Niebla, against Rogelio Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Barrientos Matamala. For this same act, agent Gerardo Meza Acuña had also been convicted in the first instance to the same sentence, but this individual died in July 2020. Finally, in addition to Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, committed in the Población Teniente Merino. It should be noted that during the process (case docket 11-2009), Judge Carlos Aldana refused to prosecute another dozen agents involved in the criminal acts, a decision that was endorsed at the time by the Concepción Court of Appeals. Likewise, Judge Aldana refused to prosecute the implicated officers Luis Moraga Tresckow and Oscar Boehmwald Soto for illicit association; and for this crime, despite having subjected him to the process, he did not convict Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, the CNI head in Concepción and manager of the concerted action of surveillance, tracking, and preparation of the operation that culminated in the crimes of August, in which Mandiola Arredondo participated actively. Furthermore, the convicted criminal Patricio Castro Muñoz attempted to question the legality of the judicial process and the conviction against him, and appealed last October to the Constitutional Court (TC), invoking vices of unconstitutionality in the trial and the conviction that affected him. However, on January 9 of this year, the TC ruled, declaring the appeal filed by the criminal and his representative inadmissible, rejecting the petition. Operation Alfa Carbón During the investigation stage, it was proven that at the beginning of 1984, the CNI head of Concepción, Major Jorge Mandiola, received information regarding the re-articulation of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in the area, managing to detect some of its leaders and a large number of militants and resistance members. After informing his superior, Colonel Marcos Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI Regional Division, and having confirmed the detection of the MIR organization in the south, they informed the CNI director, General Humberto Gordon Rubio (currently deceased), who determined that Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of the Anti-Subversive Division, should coordinate with the Regional leadership to carry out operations aimed at neutralizing the members of the MIR who were operating between the Biobío and Los Ríos regions, naming these actions "Operation Alfa Carbón." As a result of the above, Álvaro Corbalán ordered several teams, composed of agents from different Brigades of the Cuartel Borgoño (Blue, Yellow, Green, Brown, and Special) in Santiago, consisting of two or three people and with mobilization and financing provided by the Anti-Subversive Division, to move to Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, so that, in coordination with members of the CNI Regional units of those cities, they could carry out the tasks ordered by the various commands. Likewise, Corbalán ordered his subordinate Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, deputy head of the Yellow Brigade, to establish himself in Valdivia, in charge of the teams brought from Santiago, to direct and carry out the operations in that region. In the same way, he ordered Krantz Johans Bauer, deputy head of the Special Brigade, to establish himself in Los Ángeles to take charge of the operational work, supported by joint teams from Santiago and the Regional units. In parallel, and with the same purpose, Marcos Derpich Miranda ordered that the head of the CNI Chillán barracks, Héctor Reinoso Muñoz, and agents from his unit, join his counterpart in Concepción, and that the head of Puerto Montt, Oscar Boehmwald, along with agents from his unit, report to the head of Valdivia to support the repressive operations. With the information accumulated through tracking, surveillance, and wiretapping, the CNI commanders decided to strike the final blow. In the days prior to the event, led by Álvaro Corbalán, Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (deceased), Marcos Derpich, and others, the commanders, chiefs, and teams that had arrived in the city, plus the local agents, met at the CNI barracks located on Calle Bahamondes at Avenida Pedro de Valdivia, in Concepción, where they coordinated the actions to be developed. In that meeting, the decision was made to carry out various raids and arrests (without judicial orders or legal proceedings regarding them) and that the fate of the detainees would depend on the degree of danger they posed to the military regime prevailing in the country. There, the CNI commanders established which MIR members would be eliminated and who would be arrested at the moment of "bursting" or executing the operation. This operation included repressive actions in Talcahuano and Concepción as well as in Los Ángeles, Temuco, Valdivia, and other locations in the southern zone. The Facts The date chosen by the CNI commanders was August 23, 1984. On the morning of the 23rd, in Concepción, several CNI teams set up surveillance actions on three members of the MIR, who converged at a restaurant located at the Plazoleta El Ancla, in Talcahuano. They were Nelson Herrera, Mario Lagos, and Luciano Aedo. Around noon, one of them, Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, boarded a public transport bus heading to the Hualpencillo sector where he resided, where he got off the bus upon noticing the obvious surveillance, and tried to flee on foot, being intercepted by CNI agents at the corner of Grecia and Nápoles streets. At that moment, agent Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro shot him with a firearm he was carrying, Luciano falling wounded to the ground; then agent Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices approached the fallen man and finished him off with a burst in the back from an AK-47 rifle. A couple of hours later, and without perceiving what was happening outside, the other two members of the MIR detected and watched at the restaurant in Talcahuano, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, boarded another bus heading to Concepción, and were followed by other CNI operational teams, who coordinated with the Carabineros along the way to intercept the bus—which was carrying passengers—in front of the Vega Monumental. When the vehicle arrived at that location, the CNI members intercepted the bus and ordered everyone to get off the public transport vehicle, but since some people refused, including those being pursued, they threw tear gas bombs inside the bus, forcing its evacuation. Once the passengers got off, the two MIR members descended from the bus with their hands up, but the CNI agents shot Herrera and Lagos on the spot, causing them wounds. Mario Lagos tried to flee, so an agent shot him with the AK rifle he was carrying, causing his death on the spot. For his part, Nelson Herrera Riveros was apprehended by CNI agents Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Luis Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos, who put him into one of their vehicles and—as part of the setup—announced aloud that they would head to the Regional Hospital of Concepción for the treatment of the detainee's wounds. However, they deviated from the route and took him to kilometer 0.9 of the road to Santa Juana, where they took him out of the vehicle and Aravena Ruiz ordered Andaur Leiva to execute the crime; he shot him with his revolver in the forehead, causing a craniocerebral gunshot wound, which caused his instantaneous death, just as Derpich Miranda had ordered them by radio. To finish the farce, the executioners headed with the murdered man to the Regional Hospital and admitted him through the emergency room, already deceased. The agents left Nelson Herrera at the hospital handcuffed behind his back. Later they returned to release and recover the handcuffs. Los Ángeles In Los Ángeles, around 5:30 p.m. on the same day, the 23rd, once the CNI agents from Concepción José Zapata Zapata and Bruno Soto Aravena, who were following Mario Mujica Barros, along with several teams led by the deceased Krantz Johans Bauer, following the instructions of their boss Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, approached Mujica Barros's home in the Población Orompello in Los Ángeles. They entered the property by surprise and violently, shooting the victim in the head while he was on the ground, causing his death. Valdivia Meanwhile, in Valdivia, around 4:00 p.m. on August 23, CNI operational teams that had arrived from Santiago, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, arrested Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Jaime Barrientos Matamala near the Puente Las Ánimas, in the city of Valdivia. Subsequently, they crossed the Calle Calle River on a ferry and transported them to the Puente Estancilla, located on the road from Valdivia to Niebla, in the Torobayo sector. In that place, where traffic for all vehicles and people had previously been cut off by Carabineros, and in circumstances where the detainees had their hands tied and their eyes blindfolded, the agents proceeded to execute them, by order of Castro Muñoz, who shot himself, in addition to agents Luis René Torres Méndez and Gerardo Meza Muñoz and others not identified in the process. Likewise, the CNI regional head of Valdivia, Luis Moraga Tresckow, who in principle had allegedly refused to shoot, upon the imperative order of Castro Muñoz, finished them off with shots from his weapon. The victims received multiple projectile wounds, some of which struck Tapia de la Puente and Barrientos Matamala in the skull and thorax. Subsequently, weapons were placed in the hands of the deceased to simulate a confrontation. The next day, August 24, around 3:00 p.m., several CNI operational teams, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, surrounded the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, located on Calle Rubén Darío, in the Población Teniente Merino in Valdivia, entering it to eliminate Boncompte Andreu, who tried to flee from his captors through the backyard of the house, being wounded by Oscar Boehmwald Soto. In the backyard, other agents were waiting in ambush and also shot him; once on the ground, agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez finished him off, shooting him in the head with her firearm, ensuring his death. Juan José Boncompte received 22 bullet impacts. by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, March 5, 2024