Case File 2.182-98: “Colombo Case” Episode, aggravated kidnapping of Zacarías Antonio Machuca Muñoz

21-) Statement by DINA agent Sergio Burgos Vidal, who stated on page 4977 that as a Navy official at the Londres N°38 barracks, they were received by Army Captain Manuel Carevic Cubillos, and that Hermán López Bernal, Pedro Suci Gallardo, and Alfredo Moya Tejeda were placed under his command.

In April 1974, he was sent to the DINA; he only had to stand guard at the barracks on one occasion, and on that occasion, he served as a doorman and had to control access to the barracks. He remembers that the head of the guard was a Carabineros officer with the surname Duarte.

He does not remember who the other guards were. The guard detail was formed by a head of the guard, the doorman, and another guard dedicated to the custody of detainees. The detainees were brought in by different groups operating within the barracks, which generally had their offices on the first floor, where officers he did not know worked, and whom he later learned were named Major Moren, Captain Urrich, Miguel Krassnoff, Lieutenant Ricardo Lawrence, Miguel Hernández, and others.

For the entry of detainees, from what he saw, vehicles would park on the street in front of the barracks door and take out a screen that they would place on the sides to block visibility of the entrance from the sidewalk.

The detainees were made to go up to the second floor and were interrogated in a room that also had a bathroom accessible from the main hall. They were interrogated by senior personnel he did not know, who belonged to the various units assigned to the barracks.

The detainees were interrogated under duress; they were beaten and subjected to electric shocks, which he knows for a fact because he heard it, though he did not see it, as the guards did not have access to the interrogation room.

The detainees remained in those rooms blindfolded, and they always remained in the barracks that way, sitting on the floor. Among the detainees were both men and women, without having separate or distinct facilities, and they were not segregated.

It was an indecent and unsanitary place, and wherever one leaned, one would get dirty. He could not specify the number of detainees at the Londres N°38 barracks; the number varied day by day, it could be 10 or 12 detainees, and regarding the length of time they remained deprived of liberty, he does not know, because there was no control over the people who arrived and the people who left.

There were people from other groups who would take detainees out of the barracks, and he is unaware of the registry that was kept of the detainees. The personnel who worked in the barracks were those in charge of the detainees; it was a fairly large group, normally there were between 10 to 20 people roaming the area.

Source: Judiciary, September 11, 2015

Conviction confirmed for the disappearance of Newton Morales Saavedra

On February 4th, Judge Leopoldo Llanos sentenced Manuel Contreras, Marcelo Morén Brito, Miguel Krassnoff, and Basclay Zapata to 10 years and one day in prison for their role as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping, a ruling ratified today in the second instance.

The Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, presided over by Judge Juan Escobar and composed of Judge Marisol Rojas and attorney María Cristina Gajardo, ratified Judge Llanos's sentence regarding the disappearance of Newton Larrin Morales Saavedra.

Morales, 34, an electrical engineer, a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and a retired Navy non-commissioned officer, was detained on August 13, 1974, around 9:30 PM, at his home located in Ñuñoa by DINA agents under the command of Osvaldo Romo.

During the trial, Mario Aguilera testified as a witness; he had been detained a day earlier, also by Romo and Luz Arce, a former member of the Socialist Party who later became a DINA collaborator. Aguilera was taken to the torture and extermination center of Londres, where some 40 to 50 people were being held.

There, he was next to Newton Morales, who indicated to the witness that he “was called by that name, asking him to remember his name; he learned in this way that he was a former sailor to whom the facility's guards showed some degree of consideration, even calling him ‘my sergeant.’” According to the first-instance conviction, it fell to Aguilera on more than one occasion to “give water to Morales Saavedra, since he was unable to drink by himself the water provided by the guards.” “He remembers that Morales Saavedra had a military rapport with the guards and they had accepted that situation; even in the first days that the declarant was with this detainee, he showed a certain power of command over the guards, but this situation changed substantially as the days went by, as Morales Saavedra appeared more affected and broken by his detention and by his condition of being handcuffed, which the other detainees interpreted as a security measure because he was considered ‘dangerous.’”

Union leader Another testimony collected by the justice system is that of Cristian Van Yurick Altamirano, who was detained on July 12, 1974, by DINA agents, including Miguel Krassnoff, Osvaldo Romo, and Basclay Zapata, and taken to Londres 38, a place where he was interrogated and tortured.

Regarding Newton Morales, he indicated having seen him “in the large room of Londres 38; I knew him from before, as he was a union leader at Yarur Sumar.” He later specified that “I remember him at Londres 38, in July or August, in the same large room I spoke with him; he had belonged to the Navy and that fact was pointed out to him; he looked quite bad as a result of the torture in which Romo and Krassnoff participated.” Likewise, Londres 38 survivor Erika Hennings, detained on July 31, 1974, declared that she knew of the presence of several detained people, among them Newton Morales.

His sister, Flory Avalos Saavedra, in the incessant search for her brother Newton, “went in 1975 to Puchuncaví, where, through information from a conscript, she learned that he had been taken from Cuatro Álamos with that place as his destination, but that according to the version of another detainee who came with him, they had been separated on the road and nothing more had been heard of him.” Among the testimonies of Newton Morales's ordeal is that of the former militant who later became a DINA collaborator, Marcia Alejandra Merino Vega, known as la Flaca Alejandra.

In her judicial statement, she declared having been detained on May 1, 1974, taken to Curicó at the disposal of the Military Prosecutor's Office, and subsequently transferred to Santiago and taken to Londres 38.

La Flaca Alejandra was tortured there by, among others, Osvaldo Romo Mena; after a few days, she was transferred to Cuatro Álamos and later to José Domingo Cañas. There, she was able to see the victim.

Testimonies from DINA subordinates

“I knew Newton Morales. He belonged to the MIR military base, Military Political Group N° 1… he was a worker at Sumar…. I remember that they had taken me out of the detainees' room one day and taken me to the torture room, and they left me at the door of that room and took off my blindfold, and I could see Newton Morales completely naked, held by both arms by two DINA agents… apparently recently tortured, as he could not stand, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, an active Army officer, arrived at the place… he ordered that they take me out of there immediately… that was the only time I saw Newton Morales.”

Although the DINA leadership denies the detention and any information that would allow for knowing the final fate of Newton Morales before the courts, numerous subordinates assigned to the DINA recognize the Londres 38 torture center, among them Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas, whose testimony is eloquent.

He pointed out to Judge Leopoldo Llanos that he joined the Army at the end of December 1973 and was later assigned to perform guard duties at the “Londres 38” barracks. Valenzuela pointed out to the judge that “the detainees were locked in a large room located on the first floor and in a basement.

Men and women were locked up together… The detainees were interrogated by the same officials who had detained them… The detainees were subjected to electric shocks with a machine we called ‘Yiyi.’” Sergio Atriz Burgos Vidal, an official of the Chilean Navy assigned to the DINA and assigned to Londres 38, describes the environment of Londres 38: “When we entered this barracks, it was a dark, lugubrious place, with personnel who worked there sleeping on armchairs, foul-smelling, the bathrooms were unsanitary; in the winter, there were parts where it leaked, there was a lot of humidity.

When we arrived at the barracks, there were already people detained, both men and women.” Jorge Arturo Leyton Mella stated to the Justice system that he entered the Chilean Air Force in 1973 to fulfill his compulsory military service, and in the month of October or November 1973, he was assigned to Santiago, where he joined a special service and was taken to Rocas de Santo Domingo to undergo an intelligence course. “At the end of 1973,” the judicial file continues, “he was assigned to the Londres 38 barracks.

He points out that the head of the Londres 38 barracks was Army Commander Marcelo Moren Brito. I also remember Army officer Miguel Krassnoff, who performed operational duties. He also states: ‘…In the barracks, there was an office on a mezzanine that was used to interrogate the detainees.

I remember el Troglo and Romo as agents who interrogated the detainees of the place, and many times they would interrogate people wherever they were. The detainees were kept blindfolded, tied up; there were chairs for them to remain seated; to sleep, they would throw themselves on the floor; they had nothing to cover themselves with.

There were men and women who were morally deteriorated, exhausted from lack of food; they were in a deplorable situation. After the interrogations, they would arrive in very bad shape; on occasions, the agents who had interrogated the person would tell us not to give them water, so I would moisten their lips with saliva.

On occasions, they were given food, but not in the way they were supposed to eat. Among the methods the interrogators had to subject the detainees to torture, there was an old strap bed they called “the grill”; there was one located on the second floor of the place, going up the stairs I mentioned earlier on the right-hand side, the second office.

There was also the “wet sack,” where they would beat people with a wet sack so they would not be left with marks.’”

In his ruling, Judge Leopoldo Llanos, ratified by the Fifth Chamber of the Court of Appeals, ruled that the facts described “are constitutive of the crime of kidnapping contemplated in Article 141, subsections 1 and 4 of the Penal Code, and is qualified by the time the action was prolonged, that is, more than 90 days, and by the consequences of the same, resulting in serious damage to the person or interests of the victim,” and therefore sentenced the perpetrators to the penalty of 10 years and one day.

Source: villagrimaldi.cl, June 30, 2014