The legal difficulties awaiting General (Ret.) Brady

The indictment on Wednesday the 4th for the crimes against the detainees from La Moneda deeply affected the former Minister of Defense of the dictatorship, General (Ret.) Herman Brady Roche. It occurred in the month of his birthday.

On February 10, he will turn 83. Until now, Brady had never been reached by any case regarding human rights violations. One of the two summer chambers of the Santiago Court of Appeals will rule today on his provisional release, after Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia, who indicted him, granted it.

His lawyer, Francisco Zúñiga, alleges his absolute innocence, arguing, among other reasons, that Brady did not have command of troops in September 1973.

The plaintiff lawyer for some of the relatives of the La Moneda victims, Nelson Caucoto, valued the prosecution of Brady, explaining that it demonstrates that the fate suffered by the detainees in Santiago at that time was decided by the highest ranks of the Army, including the former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

However, according to court sources, more awaits Brady. Probably in March or April, he would be the first to be indicted as a perpetrator in the murder of the American journalist Charles Horman. And in Paris, and especially after his indictment on Wednesday, he could be convicted this year in absentia for the kidnapping and disappearance of the psychiatrist and advisor to President Salvador Allende, Georg Klein Pipper.

Klein is one of the five Franco-Chilean citizens who were forcibly disappeared, for whom a trial is being instructed in Paris that was initially handled by Judge Roger Le Loire. Klein is on the list of twelve victims from La Moneda murdered on September 13, 1973, in Peldehue, whose bodies were exhumed and thrown into the sea in 1978.

For these crimes, Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia indicted Brady on Wednesday as an accomplice.

To all this, it is added that Brady appears on the list of 38 military and civilian personnel against whom the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón issued an international arrest warrant in 1998, despite the fact that the Criminal Chamber of the Spanish National Court challenged Garzón in 2002 regarding his charges against Brady for the 1976 crime of the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria at the hands of the DINA.

The supreme chief

To his regret, on the day of the military coup, Brady, already a general, held the position of Commander-in-Chief of the II Army Division, based in Santiago, and was simultaneously the commander of the capital's garrison.

As such, he was also the military judge of Santiago. Immediately after September 11, 1973, he added to those positions, in parallel, that of Chief of the Emergency Zone, after the state of siege and internal war was declared. In other words, Brady was the highest military authority in Santiago after General Augusto Pinochet.

In the investigation into the crimes against the La Moneda detainees on the day of the coup, there is no longer any doubt that the order to kill the La Moneda detainees taken to Peldehue was given by the commander of the Tacna Regiment, Joaquín Ramírez Pineda.

Two of those who participated by shooting and guarding in that operation confirmed this to La Nación some time ago. But Ramírez delegates the responsibility to Brady, because he maintains that he consulted him that morning, as the highest military authority in Santiago, on what he should do with the detainees, after 17 officials from the Investigations police, also detained at La Moneda, were released by Brady's order.

But the former Minister of Defense denies having ordered them to be killed in Peldehue.

Urrutia believed Ramírez and not him, and that is why he indicted him as an accomplice. Another person who confirms in the proceedings the power Brady had over the fate of the detainees is the former FACH counterintelligence agent, Rafael González Verdugo, who is until now the only person indicted, as an accomplice, for the crime of Charles Horman.

At the home of ‘Mamo’ Contreras

Herman Brady arrived at the Ministry of Defense as a consequence of the strange helicopter accident in which the Minister of Defense, General Oscar Bonilla, died on March 3, 1975. Brady replaced him. He remained in that position until April 1978, when he took over as Minister of the National Energy Commission.

Much was said about Brady's disagreements with Pinochet and his discrepancies with the DINA's policy of brutal repression. But others maintain that this did not go beyond small arguments. In fact, Brady is another of the great “sworn-to-secrecy” figures who has never provided a single piece of information in cases of human rights violations.

On the night of March 20, 1978, when Pinochet dismissed General Manuel Contreras from the Army due to the complication of the Orlando Letelier crime and the growing pressure from the United States, Brady was one of those who filled ‘Mamo’s’ house on Príncipe de Gales street to pat him on the back.

In the 1990s, Brady partnered with intelligence analyst Lenin Guardia in a security firm. Guardia is serving a 12-year sentence in Punta Peuco for the letter-bomb attack on the United States Embassy.

Court grants bail to General (Ret.) Herman Brady The First Summer Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals granted bail to Army General (Ret.) Herman Brady, who was indicted just two days ago for the crime of qualified kidnapping as an accomplice in the death of 12 collaborators of former President Salvador Allende who were at the La Moneda Palace on September 11, 1973.

In this way, the appellate court confirmed the resolution of the judge with exclusive dedication to investigate the disappearance of the members of the GAP, Juan Carlos Urrutia, who yesterday granted provisional release to General (Ret.) Brady.

In a unanimous decision, the ministers Carlos Cerda, Juan González, and Raimundo Díaz granted the benefit to the general (ret.) upon payment of a 300,000 peso bail.

According to the indictment, two days after the military coup, the general (ret.) allegedly ordered the commander of the Tacna Regiment to have the 12 detainees taken to the Peldehue fields where, it is presumed, they were executed by firing squad.

Source: La Nacion, February 6, 2004

Indictment of General (Ret.) Brady increased

In a unanimous vote, the Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals hardened the legal criteria in the case of the former Minister of Defense of the military regime, General (Ret.) Herman Brady, and increased his indictment from accomplice to perpetrator of the crime of kidnapping twelve forcibly disappeared persons from La Moneda.

Brady, who at the time of the military coup was the commander of the II Army Division in Santiago, Chief of the Emergency Zone, and military judge, had been indicted in February by the judge of the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago, Juan Carlos Urrutia, as an accomplice to the kidnapping of these twelve detainees.

However, the ministers Jorge Dahm, Alejandro Madrid, and the member lawyer Sandra Pinto, after hearing the arguments of the parties' lawyers, decided that, due to the position he held, Brady should be charged as a perpetrator.

Furthermore, considering that the former commander of the Tacna Regiment himself, where the La Moneda detainees were taken, the current General (Ret.) Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, accused him of giving him the order on how to proceed regarding these prisoners.

Source: La Nación, May 12, 2004

French judge asks to interrogate generals (ret.) regarding execution

A French judge requested the Chilean Supreme Court to interrogate eight people, including three retired generals, regarding the execution of Enrique Ropert on September 11, 1973, in Santiago, judicial sources reported today.

The French magistrate Gerard Caddeo requested that testimony be taken from retired generals Sergio Arellano Stark, Herman Brady, and Javier Palacios, in addition to other former officers and civilians who were authorities during the regime of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

The judge demands that those requested provide information regarding the death of Enrique Ropert, 20, a socialist militant, son of a French father and Miria Contreras, secretary to former President Salvador Allende.

The request, according to judicial sources, is in the hands of the acting prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Carlos Meneses, who must rule before the highest court on whether the request from the French justice system should be accepted or rejected.

Ropert was detained at La Moneda, the seat of the Chilean government, on the same day as the coup d'état led by Pinochet and transferred to the Intendencia, from where he was taken to the Sixth Police Station of Carabineros in Santiago, according to the Rettig Report.

That Carabineros facility was the last place he was seen alive. Days later, his body was found on one of the banks of the Mapocho River, under a bridge.

Prosecutor Meneses requested the background information on this case from Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia, who is in charge of the case regarding the disappeared and murdered persons from La Moneda.

The Chilean lawyer Sergio Corvalán, representative of France for these purposes, confirmed the arrival of the request and said they are awaiting the prosecutor's report so that the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court can rule.

The jurist made special mention that, although there is no bilateral treaty on judicial assistance with France, there is a history of collaboration between the courts of both countries.

The Santiago Court of Appeals indicted Army General Herman Brady, former Minister of Defense, last April as the alleged perpetrator of the kidnapping and murder of twelve people detained at the La Moneda presidential palace on September 11, 1973.

Along with Brady, the magistrate indicted 11 other former Army and Air Force officers and non-commissioned officers.

The twelve forcibly disappeared persons from La Moneda on the day of the cruel coup d'état were taken to the Tacna Regiment and transferred two days later to an Army military camp in Peldehue, 30 kilometers north of Santiago, where they were executed.

Among them are government officials, collaborators of Allende, and friends of the socialist president who died on September 11, 1973, at the seat of government.

Source: Lanacion.cl, May 8, 2008

Court indicts ten former uniformed personnel for crime against former GAP

The Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals indicted ten former uniformed personnel, including General (Ret.) Herman Brady, for the crime of qualified kidnapping committed against the former GAP member, Luis Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme.

The resolution states that Luis Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, Servando Elías Maureira Roa, Jorge Iván Herrera López, Teobaldo Segundo Mendoza Vivencio, Eliseo Antonio Cornejo Escobedo, Bernardo Eusebio Soto Segura, Juan de la Cruz Riquelme Silva, Jorge Ismael Gamboa Alvarez, General (Ret.) Herman Julio Brady Roche, and Brigadier (Ret.) Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo participated in the crime.

The ruling states that “there are well-founded presumptions to estimate that each one participated as a perpetrator in the described crime (...) since the first of those named (Ramírez Pineda), in his capacity as Commander of the Tacna Regiment, with the rank of colonel, ordered the transfer of the prisoners to Peldehue and presumably also gave the orders for their execution by firing squad, while the second through the eighth of those named executed said orders, without there being any background information that would allow us to estimate that said subordinates were in a situation where another conduct was required of them.”

The ruling adds that the tenth (Espinoza Bravo) also arrived at the place where they unloaded the prisoners and, with command authority, arranged what was pertinent so that they would presumably be executed by firing squad, and the ninth (Brady Roche), having a higher command position than the first of those named (Ramírez Pineda), arranged or allowed the transfer of the victim to Peldehue, where he disappeared.”

Luis Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme was part of the Group of Friends of the President (GAP) and was detained on September 11 at La Moneda. On September 13, around noon, by order of the Commander of the Tacna Regiment (Ramírez Pineda), they were tied with wires at their hands and feet and transported aboard a Pegaso truck, covered with a tarp, toward Peldehue.

At this location, information about the detainee is lost, with the presumption that he was riddled with bullets.

Source: Lanacion.cl, May 8, 2008

Nine officers (Ret.) indicted for La Moneda disappeared persons

The former director of Investigations, Eduardo “Coco” Paredes, and Allende’s personal physician, Enrique Paris, are two of the eight victims for whom the Army officers (Ret.) were indicted.

The visiting minister Juan Fuentes Belmar indicted General (Ret.) Herman Julio Brady and eight other retired Army officers yesterday for the forcibly disappeared persons from La Moneda, including Dr. Enrique Paris and the former director of Investigations, Eduardo "Coco" Paredes.

This is the second indictment affecting Brady and the other officers for the detentions carried out at the government palace on September 11, 1973, which later turned into disappearances. For this reason, they were classified as qualified kidnappings of political prisoners.

Along with Brady, Brigadier (Ret.) Pedro Espinoza Bravo (who would later be the second in command of the DINA) and former officers Servando Maureira Roa, Jorge Herrera López, Teobaldo Mendoza Vicencio, Eliseo Cornejo Escobedo, Bernardo Soto Segura, Juan Riquelme Silva, and Jorge Gamboa Álvarez were indicted.

On the day of the coup d'état, military troops entered La Moneda, where they detained nearly 50 people, including direct advisors, members of President Allende’s Group of Personal Friends (GAP), doctors, and Investigations officials, who were transferred to the Tacna Regiment and then executed. To date, their bodies have not been located.

In addition to Dr. Paris and "Coco" Paredes, Jaime Sotelo Ojeda (GAP), Sergio Contreras Contreras (Press Chief of the Intendencia), Héctor Pincheira Núñez (advisor to President Allende), José Freire Medina (GAP), Manuel Castro Zamora (GAP), and Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala (GAP) were detained at La Moneda.

The plaintiff lawyer in the case, Nelson Caucoto, said that "it is the first time, after 35 years, that these advisors to President Allende are beginning to glimpse justice. With this ruling, it has been demonstrated that justice is slow but it arrives."

Regarding General (Ret.) Luis Ramírez Pineda, former commander of the Tacna Regiment—whom the magistrate decided not to indict for the moment—lawyer Caucoto explained that his situation will be decided when the Supreme Court requests the extension of his extradition from the Argentine justice system.

Generals (Ret.) Pineda and Brady, along with the other officers, were already indicted last May for the disappearance (qualified kidnapping) of the former GAP member Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, who was also arrested at La Moneda. However, on that occasion, the Court of Appeals acted ex officio, given the refusal of Minister Fuentes Belmar in this case.

Brady was the commander of the Santiago garrison and the then-colonel Ramírez Pineda was the commander of the Tacna Regiment where the La Moneda detainees were taken.

From that place, they were taken out in a truck, tied hand and foot with wire, bound for Peldehue, where they were executed by firing squad. The entire operation was supervised by Pedro Espinoza, who was dressed in civilian clothes.

Enrique Paris and “Coco” Paredes

Juan Antonio Eduardo “Coco” Paredes Barrientos was married, had two children, and was a surgeon. He was a member of the PS and during the Allende government was director of the Investigations Service.

Enrique París Roa, also a doctor, was married, had 3 children, and was a member of the central committee of the PC. He advised President Allende on health matters.

Both were arrested while leaving the La Moneda Palace while it was being bombed. Along with the rest of the detainees, they were transferred to the Tacna Regiment, where they remained until September 13.

Source: La Nación, August 7, 2008

Soria Case: Spanish Prosecutor's Office asks to arrest former DINA agents

An arrest warrant against former DINA chief Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda and six other agents was requested yesterday by the National Prosecutor's Office of Spain from Judge Baltasar Garzón within the framework of the investigation opened in that country for the kidnapping and crime of the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, which occurred in July 1976 under the regime of Augusto Pinochet.

Prosecutor Vicente González Mota made the request because he is processing the complaint filed by the Spanish President Allende Foundation against fifteen former uniformed personnel.

In his opinion, Contreras Sepúlveda is "the person who, based on evidence, ordered the kidnapping, detention, and murder" of the then-official of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Spanish news agencies report.

The other arrest warrants point to former members of the DINA’s Mulchén Brigade: Captain Juan Delmas Ramírez (died in 1982), Brigadier (Ret.) Jaime Enrique Lepe Orellana; Sergeant Major (Ret.) José Ríos San Martín, and Colonels (Ret.) Guillermo Salinas, Pablo Belber, and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Patricio Quilhot Palma.

Regarding them, the prosecutor estimates that there is sufficient background information to attribute participation in the events to them, unlike other defendants, such as the former Chilean Minister of Defense Hernán Julio Brady Roche, against whom the necessary evidence has not yet been gathered. However, acting against them is not ruled out if their intervention in the crime is proven.

In Chile, in January of this year, Minister Alejandro Madrid issued indictments against Lepe and Quilhot for the diplomat's crime.

The investigation was reopened after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) recommended that the Chilean authorities punish those guilty of Soria’s homicide, despite the fact that amnesty had been applied to the case in 1996.

Source: La Nación, July 28, 2009

Generals and officers implicated in the murder of Carmelo Soria indicted in Spain

The Chilean Army Generals (Ret.) Hermán Brady Roche, Cesar Raúl Benavides Escobar, Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Jaime Enrique Lepe, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neuman Orellana; the former Undersecretary of the Interior, Navy Captain Enrique Montero Marx; the officers Jorge Remigio Rios San Martín; Guillermo Humberto Salinas Torres; Pablo Belmar Labbé; René Patricio Quilhot Palma; Rolf Wenderoth Pozo; and Ricardo Lawrence Mires have been indicted by the Central Investigating Court No. 5 of the National Court of Spain for their participation, mediate or immediate, in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of the diplomat Carmelo Soria.

In the Order of November 17, 2009, which EL CLARIN will soon publish in full in the “Pinochet Case” section, the Judge and the Public Prosecutor’s Office have accepted the extension of the complaint filed on January 23, 2007, by the President Allende-Spain Foundation and the widow of Carmelo Soria.

They had also requested the indictment of the Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández, and the Minister of Justice, Mónica Madariaga, for having signed the 1978 Amnesty Decree, in the application of which the Supreme Court of Chile ordered in 1996 that this crime not be prosecuted in Chile.

The Spanish judge has denied the indictment of these Ministers of the Dictatorship “at this moment, because the fact that they signed the 1978 Amnesty Decree, which served to confer impunity on the perpetrators, accomplices, and cover-ups, is insufficient to do so, because for that same reason the other members of the government and all those who applied the rule subsequently would also have to be, especially after the pronouncement on such types of rules by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Therefore, and as long as a different participation in the events is not proven, the complaint against these two people cannot be admitted for processing.”

The Order of November 17, 2009, agrees, among other proceedings, to inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in application of Article 11 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons of December 14, 1973, of the admission of the complaint against the alleged perpetrators of the torture and murder of Carmelo Soria Espinoza, and that the final result will be communicated in due course.

Spain assumes jurisdiction to prosecute this crime by virtue of the principles of universal jurisdiction and avoiding impunity, after the Supreme Court has agreed that it cannot be prosecuted in Chile, a country whose jurisdiction Spain considers preferential by virtue of the principle of territoriality.

Source: El Clarin, November 20, 2009

Human Rights: General (Ret.) Brady pleaded insanity, but dismissal was denied

Unanimously, the Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals refused to grant the dismissal due to insanity of retired General Herman Brady, who was indicted for the disappearances and executions of former GAP members and advisors to President Salvador Allende after the 1973 military coup.

The former military officer, who at the date of the events was the commander of the Santiago Garrison, has been in the Military Hospital for 11 months.

His defense tried to avoid the trial, arguing that the former uniformed chief is not in a condition to face the trial, considering that the case is in the summary stage and “many years of investigation remain,” according to Brady’s representative, lawyer Carlos Cortés.

Cortés insisted on Brady’s impediment to continue under trial, pointing out that in a third report requested by the Court of Appeals, “the neurologists expressly indicated that he was not qualified to face this type of trial.”

However, the appellate court chamber dismissed these arguments and the investigation continues under the charge of visiting minister Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar.

On September 11, 1973, at La Moneda and its surroundings, nearly 40 people were arrested, most of them advisors and GAP members of Allende. The detainees were taken to the Tacna regiment and two days later about 20 of them were taken out in two trucks, driven to the Peldehue training camp, north of Santiago, and killed by machine-gun fire.

Source: La Nación, November 27, 2010

France convicts Chilean dictatorship military personnel in absentia

The French justice system convicted a dozen Chilean military personnel and one civilian, as well as an Argentine military officer, on Friday in absentia to sentences ranging from 15 years in prison to life imprisonment for the disappearance of four French citizens during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-90).

Retired General Manuel Contreras, founder of the feared National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the regime’s political police, currently imprisoned in Chile, was sentenced to life imprisonment by decision of the Paris Criminal Court presided over by Judge Hervé Stephan.

His number two in the DINA hierarchy, retired General Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, was sentenced to the same maximum penalty, the magistrate maintained when reading the sentence that puts an end to the trial in absentia for the disappearance of four French citizens during the Pinochet dictatorship.

George Klein, Etienne Pesle, and Alphonse Chanfreau disappeared in Chile, and Jean Yves Claudet disappeared in Argentina, all of them between 1973 and 1975.

Retired General Herman Julio Brady was sentenced to 30 years in prison, as were retired colonels Marcelo Luis Moren Brito and Miguel Krasnoff Martchenko.

The French magistrate reaffirmed the validity of the arrest warrant issued by the French justice system in May 2005 against the convicted military personnel. José Octavio Zara Holger was acquitted from the initial list due to his death.

In the presence of a hundred relatives, mainly the children of the four disappeared, former colleagues, and legal experts who arrived from Chile, Spain, and France, a trial in absentia that began on December 8 concluded, 12 years after this case began in France in October 1998, just when Pinochet was arrested in London.

December 20, 2010

Radio Universidad de Chile Relatives of French citizens disappeared during the dictatorship value convictions of former Pinochet agents

Exemplary convictions that will be difficult to match in Chile were received by the former agents of the military dictatorship, including General Augusto Pinochet, in the trial that took place in Paris.

In total, there were 14 accused from the Chilean regime, who received a minimum of 15 years in prison.

Manuel Contreras, former head of the National Intelligence Directorate, the feared DINA, was sentenced to life imprisonment, the same sentence given to former Brigadier Pedro Espinoza.

35 years after the disappearances of 4 French citizens murdered during the dictatorship, a form of symbolic justice arrives for their relatives, as celebrated by Bernard Chanfreau, brother of Alphonse, a MIR militant who disappeared in 1974.

“I am very moved because a very hard period for us is ending, both for our family and for my brother’s wife, his daughter, the two sisters of Janet Claude. It is a very important total satisfaction. No conviction of those guilty will return our brother and our family to us,” Chanfreau pointed out.

The relatives of the disappeared valued that in these cases the action of justice was achieved, unlike what happens in our country, where, as they accuse, the system remains under the yoke of the dictatorship.

Lawyer Benjamín Serfati, representative of the Corporation for the Defense and Promotion of the Rights of the People (Codepu), highlighted that from this historic trial, extradition orders will emanate from France that our country must resolve.

“An extradition order will be issued by France directed at the Chilean authorities and we will see how the Chilean authorities will react regarding the convicts who are currently imprisoned in Chile. Regarding the cases of the free Chileans, it will be very interesting to follow the choice of the authorities in the sense of accepting or not the requests,” the jurist indicated.

The relatives and their representatives assured that beyond the fact that this trial may seem symbolic, legal arguments valid throughout the world were used, which will prevent the convicted former agents from leaving the country, for example, and the arrest warrants issued by the French government for the 14 defendants remain in force.

Source: AFP, December 17, 2010

Army reported the death of General (Ret.) Herman Brady

The uniformed officer was indicted for the disappearance of 12 advisors to Salvador Allende.

He served as head of the Santiago garrison during the coup d'état.

Former Minister of Defense Herman Brady Roche, who held the position during the dictatorship and was indicted for the disappearance of 12 advisors to President Salvador Allende, died at age 92 at the Military Hospital.

Army sources confirmed to EFE that Brady, a retired general, passed away last Monday at the military facility, where he had been hospitalized in a vegetative state for two years.

As a military judge, Brady ordered the transfer of people arrested at the La Moneda Palace on September 11, 1973, including those known as the Group of Personal Friends (GAP), in charge of Allende’s security.

In 2008, Brady was indicted for the disappearance of 12 advisors and government officials of the late president, and two years later, the Santiago Court of Appeals refused to dismiss the case opened against him due to insanity.

As established in the trial, Allende’s advisors were taken to an artillery barracks where they were tortured until the next day, when they were taken to a military camp and executed, and their bodies destroyed with grenades.

In 1978, the remains that had been buried were exhumed clandestinely, put into sacks, and thrown into the sea from military helicopters, in the so-called "Operation TV Set Removal," ordered by Augusto Pinochet to erase the traces of the crimes.

Brady, who was also head of the Santiago military garrison during the coup d'état, served between 1975 and 1978 as Minister of Defense, and later, between 1981 and 1990, as president of the Energy Commission.

In 2001, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón issued an international arrest warrant against Brady for the murder of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, which occurred in 1976, but the Chilean courts rendered that resolution ineffective. The remains of the former general are being waked at the Military Cathedral and his funeral will be held this Thursday.

Source: EFE, May 18, 2011