On that same day, the 26th, MIR militant Francisco Javier BRAVO NUÑEZ was arrested at his home in the San Miguel commune. He was taken to the DINA facility at Cuatro Alamos, from where, according to witness accounts, he disappeared. The Commission is convinced that his disappearance was the work of State agents, who thereby violated his human rights.

Source: Rettig Report

His spouse provides the following account of the victim's arrest in the Amparo Appeal (Habeas Corpus) Case File 1.030-74: "I filed an Amparo Appeal on behalf of my spouse, Mr. Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez, and Mr.

Aurelio Carvajal, both residing at my same address, who were arrested in our home on August 26 of the current year (1974) by three individuals in civilian clothes who were traveling in a late-model Chevrolet pickup truck, license plate SJ-790, from La Reina, and who did not carry any arrest warrant issued by a competent authority." "Since that day, I have not heard from my spouse or from Mr.

Carvajal, who was a tenant we had, and about whom I have no further information." Subsequently, and in the same Appeal, the spouse adds that: "...the protected individual Aurelio Carvajal was released because there were no charges against him, after having remained in a place he does not know; Mr.

Carvajal was arrested in the same place as my spouse, Mr. Francisco Bravo Núñez, and by the same people who, as indicated in the Appeal document, were traveling in a late-model Chevrolet pickup truck, license plate SJ-790, from the Municipality of La Reina, so I have no doubt about the fact of my spouse's arrest." In the process of alleged disappearance followed on behalf of the victim before the First Criminal Court of Greater Santiago, the spouse, on page 18, ratifies what was previously transcribed.

On July 24, 1975, information from abroad was reproduced in the Chilean press—including the newspaper El Mercurio, of Santiago—in which the victim is mentioned as having died in a confrontation in the town of Salta, Argentina, along with 58 other people. However, both the relevant Chilean and foreign authorities stated that there was no serious evidence to confirm the news.

JUDICIAL ACTIONS

On September 2, 1974, an Amparo Appeal was filed on his behalf, which was rejected on January 31, 1975, by the Fourth Chamber of the aforementioned court, based on the negative reports from the authorities.

At the time of rejecting the Appeal, the court ordered the referral of the records to the First Criminal Court of the Pedro Aguirre Cerda department, so that the fate of the victim could be investigated.

On February 6, 1975, a summary proceeding, Case File No. 41.911-2, was ordered, and on March 31, 1975, based solely on the report from the Investigations police, the temporary dismissal of the case was ordered, without elevating this resolution for consultation before the Court of Appeals. To this date, he remains forcibly disappeared.

Source: His wife

Francisco Bravo was a MIR militant and a trade union leader of the FTR. There are testimonies that recognized him during his time at the torture house in José Domingo Cañas, and he was later reportedly transferred to Villa Grimaldi.

He remains a forcibly disappeared person. Although it is not easy to recognize him, he is the one who appears in the photo hitting a repressive Carabineros agent with a stick during a workers' demonstration in downtown Santiago in 1972.

We reproduce the photo below. Although, to be faithful to the historical fact, it must be said that almost immediately, a squad of "pacos" (police) cornered him and beat him with everything they had. (This entire sequence is filmed and can be seen in the film "Macho" (Story of a Poblador, Sthlm. 1977) by documentarian Boby Sourander).

Source: archivochile.com, undated

The Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced six former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez, an illicit act perpetrated starting August 16, 1974, within the framework of the so-called "Operation Colombo." In a split decision, the Seventh Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Jessica González Troncoso, Alejandro Rivera Muñoz, and acting lawyer Rodrigo Rieloff Fuentes—revoked the appealed sentence in the part that had acquitted Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, sentencing them to pay costs and to serve 10 years of effective imprisonment as authors of the crime, confirming the rest of the appeal with the declaration that the sanction imposed on César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann is reduced to 10 years of imprisonment as authors. In the civil aspect, the sentence was ratified with the declaration that the sum the State must pay to the two children is reduced to $50,000,000 for each. In the first-instance sentence, the investigating judge Hernán Crisosto Greisse established the following facts: "a) That on August 26, 1974, Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was arrested at his home located at Salesianos No. 826 in the commune of San Miguel, by agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who loaded him into a yellow Chevrolet C-10 pickup truck. b) That the following day, Aurelio Benito Carvajal Ayal, who rented a room in the same home from where Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez was taken, was arrested by the DINA and taken to the clandestine detention center of the DINA called 'Ollagüe,' where he was interrogated, among other things, about his relationship with Bravo Núñez.

c) That since the day of his arrest by DINA agents, the whereabouts of Bravo Núñez are unknown.

d) That the name of Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the Brazilian magazine 'O'DIA' on June 25, 1975, which reported that Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez had died in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal disputes among those members, and e) That the publications that declared the victim Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

Source: radioagricultura.cl, January 31, 2020

Date: 01-31-2020

Five ex-agents of Pinochet sentenced to 10 years for covering up disappearances

Santiago, Chile, Jan 31 (EFE) - Five former agents of the secret police of the Augusto Pinochet regime (1973-1990) were sentenced this Friday to 10 years in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of Francisco Javier Bravo within the framework of "Operation Colombo," a setup to cover up the disappearance of 119 political prisoners.

The Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals revoked in a split decision the acquittal of Miguel Krassnoff and Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, former agents of the feared National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and two of the military officers with the most convictions in Chile, and sentenced them to 10 years in prison.

The court also confirmed the 10-year sentence for former agents César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann and ordered the State to pay compensation of 50 million Chilean pesos (about 62,500 dollars) to the victim's family, according to the ruling published this Friday.

Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was arrested by the DINA, the dictatorship's secret police, at his home south of Santiago on August 26, 1974, and his whereabouts have been unknown since then.

His kidnapping is part of the so-called "Operation Colombo," a DINA setup to cover up the disappearance of 119 political prisoners with the support of the secret police of Argentina and Brazil. In both countries, unique editions of non-existent newspapers, Lea and O Novo Dia, were published, claiming that the disappeared had died in internal purges of the MIR that occurred in Argentine and Brazilian territory.

During the Pinochet dictatorship, some 3,200 people died at the hands of State agents, of whom 1,192 are still listed as forcibly disappeared, while another 40,000 were imprisoned and tortured for political reasons. EFE

Source: lavanguardia.com, 01/31/2020

Date: 01-31-2020

Operation Colombo: New charges filed for 23 victims

Investigating judge Hernán Crisosto filed charges against the DINA leadership for 23 crimes of aggravated kidnapping, within the framework of the investigation into "Operation Colombo." The victims were mostly MIR militants and all of them are today forcibly disappeared.

The extraordinary investigating judge for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto Greisse, issued charges on Friday the 15th, Wednesday the 20th, and Thursday the 21st of November for 23 crimes of aggravated kidnapping, illicit acts perpetrated starting in 1974 and 1975.

The prosecutions correspond to cases that the magistrate is investigating as part of the macro-investigation called "Operation Colombo," which consists of 37 episodes. The charges include the DINA leadership, headed by Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and a variable number of agents who operated in said clandestine detention centers.

The multiple charges are for the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of the following 23 people, all of whom have been forcibly disappeared since 1974 and 1975: – Héctor Cayetano Zúñiga Tapia; – María Cristina López Stewart; – Vicente Palominos Benítez; – Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez; – Víctor Manuel Villarroel Gangas; – Héctor Marcial Garay Hermosilla; – Juan Rosendo Chacón Olivares; – Stalin Arturo Aguilera Peñaloza; – Jorge Alejandro Olivares Graindorge; – Zacarías Antonio Machuca Muñoz; – María Angélica Andreoli Bravo; – Teobaldo Antonio Tello Garrido; – Modesto Segundo Espinoza Pozo; – Rubén David Arrollo Padilla; – Arturo Barría Araneda; – Luis Eduardo Durán Rivas; – Carlos Alfredo Gajardo Wolf and Luis Guendelman Wisniak; – Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Muller Silva; – Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo; – Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez, and – Eduardo Francisco Miranda Lobos. The majority correspond to militants of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), who, according to the accusation, "were kept in clandestine detention centers, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents who operated in said barracks with the purpose of obtaining information regarding members of their political group, in order to proceed with the arrest of the members of that organization."

Source: radio.uchile.cl 11/22/2013

Date: 11-22-2013