The former strongman for Augusto Pinochet and former institutional senator was indicted alongside former General Hugo Prado and active-duty Colonel Marcos Bustos for the death of five members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) in 1987.

Minister Mario Carroza indicted active-duty Colonel Marcos Bustos and former Generals Hugo Prado and Santiago Sinclair for the crime of qualified homicide regarding the disappearance of five members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez that occurred in September 1987.

The process, known as the "case of the five," is considered emblematic by the human rights community as it involves one of the final crimes of the dictatorship. In the case, the magistrate is investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, Julio Muñoz Otárola, Julián Peña Maltés, and Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, an investigation in which 18 other retired military personnel are also indicted, including the former head of the Central Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI), General (ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel.

The resolution highlights the name of General Sinclair, considered at the time to be Augusto Pinochet’s right-hand man, who even held the rank of Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Sinclair was appointed as an institutional senator representing the Army until 1997. La Nación Friday, July 18, 2008

Ruling establishes institutional responsibility of Army commanders

Minister Mario Carroza also indicted active-duty Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos as the perpetrator of the kidnapping of the five FPMR militants. The crime was coordinated between the Army leadership, its Intelligence Directorate, and the CNI.

The Army’s Aviation Command also participated in the operation. There are now 27 retired officers and non-commissioned officers declared defendants for this crime. An action coordinated between the Army’s Commander-in-Chief’s office, the Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia del Ejército (DINE), and the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), in addition to the institution’s Aviation Command, was the operation to eliminate five militants of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) in September 1987.

The high-level coordination was established in the judicial investigation by Ministers Hugo Dolmetsch, Haroldo Brito, and Mario Carroza, who have handled the case. The current magistrate in charge of the inquiry, Carroza, indicted yesterday the former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army and former member of the Military Junta, General (ret.) Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder; General (ret.) and former head of DINE, Hugo Prado Contreras; and the former member of the Batallón de Inteligencia Militar (BIE), current active-duty Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos Carrasco, who is the head of the Planning Department of the Army’s Logistics Division. The three were indicted as co-perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of the five FPMR militants. The two general officers and the senior officer were arrested and held at the Military Police Battalion in the commune of Peñalolén. With these three defendants, the number of retired officers and non-commissioned officers declared defendants for this crime reached 27. Within the framework of this coordinated operation, on September 21, 2006, Judge Haroldo Brito indicted the then-director of the CNI, General (ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel, and ten other former agents of that organization, including the operational chief Alvaro Corbalán and the head of the Anti-Subversive Brigade, Kranz Bauer Donoso. The investigation established that the five militants—Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola—were kidnapped between September 9 and 10, 1987, as potential exchange hostages for Army Colonel Carlos Carreño Barrera, who was kidnapped on September 1, 1987, by the FPMR. Carreño finally appeared on December 3, 1987, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, after 93 days of captivity. Judge Carroza maintains in his indictment order that the five militants were killed "once Colonel Carreño appeared." This detail is relevant, as the exact date they were murdered has never been determined. This information adds coherence to the legal thesis that the dictatorship kept the five militants alive for a possible exchange until the last moment and that their death was decided only after Carreño was released by his captors. It is at this moment that, according to the case records, General Santiago Sinclair began participating in the case, in his capacity as Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, or rather, as acting or executive Commander-in-Chief, given that Augusto Pinochet served as the self-appointed President of the Republic. Once Carreño was released, a meeting took place between Sinclair, who was conveying the voice of the dictator Pinochet, the head of DINE, Prado, and the director of the CNI, Salas Wenzel. In that meeting, Sinclair ordered that the five prisoners be made to disappear. The reason was that by that date, and due to the restructuring that had been carried out, the CNI could no longer keep prisoners in its barracks. The five militants had already been kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured for three months, and the case could become another weapon against Pinochet one year before the 1988 plebiscite. When Carreño was kidnapped, DINE, through its operational body, the Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército (BIE), formed a team in charge of investigating the colonel's kidnapping. The officers of that team, including current active-duty Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos and the then-head of the BIE, current General (ret.) Julio Cerda Carrasco, who is also indicted, maintained a close link with the CNI throughout Carreño’s captivity. Its members were even at the Borgoño barracks several times.

Sinclair's imprisonment

"My General, your Army is ready for whatever you need it for," General Santiago Sinclair told General Augusto Pinochet on the night of October 5, 1988, when it was internally known that the dictator had lost the plebiscite and would have to leave power.

That episode accounts for Sinclair’s close loyalty to his superior. At that time, just as when the death and disappearance of the five militants—for which he is now indicted and detained—was decided, Sinclair was formally the Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but in practice, he was its highest authority, because Pinochet occupied the nation’s highest office by the grace of his Constitution.

Hence, his indictment and detention are received in the human rights world as a signal that paves the way for other indictments of high-ranking commanders of that time. The news also has another institutional edge.

Another of those indicted is still in the service of the institution. This is Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos, head of the Planning Department of the Army’s Logistics Division. Minister Mario Carroza, in charge of the investigation, also indicted the then-director of the Dirección de Inteligencia del Ejército (DINE), Hugo Prado Contreras, as the perpetrator of the kidnapping of the five FPMR militants.

The magistrate established that the crime was coordinated between the Army leadership, DINE, and the CNI, and that the institution’s Aviation Command also participated in the operation.

Aboard the Puma

The method chosen to make the five militants disappear was the same one used by the DINA to make its victims disappear: kill them and throw the bodies into the sea. Thus, through Sinclair and with Pinochet’s knowledge, the operation was authorized for a helicopter from the Army Aviation Command (CAE) to be used to drop the bodies into the sea.

They were murdered at Borgoño, and their bodies, properly bagged and tied to pieces of rail, were taken to the Peldehue military site, north of Santiago, where they were loaded aboard the CAE Puma helicopter commanded by officers Víctor Campo Valladares and Hugo Barría Rogers. The commander of the CAE in 1987 was Colonel Aquiles Navarrete Izanortegui, who is also indicted in the process.

The last forcibly disappeared

José Julián Peña Maltés: Single, 36 years old at the time of his kidnapping. He went into exile in France in January 1974. In 1985, his ban on entering the country was lifted. The exact date of his return to Chile is unknown, but he was in hiding at the time of his kidnapping.

He was last seen alive on September 9. His family learned of his disappearance on September 15, 1987, through a phone call from an unidentified woman. In November of that year, the Investigations police reported that he had no record of entry into the country, "so it is reasonable to assume that he has not yet returned." His amparo (habeas corpus) appeal was rejected.

Julio Muñoz Otárola: Separated, 27 years old at the time of his disappearance. He was married to Cecilia Magni, "Commander Tamara," a member of the commando that attempted to assassinate Pinochet in September 1986, who was later murdered in Los Queñes along with "Commander José Miguel," both of the FPMR.

According to Investigations, when he disappeared, he had two pending arrest warrants against him, "so it is presumed that he is in hiding trying to evade the action of justice." The amparo appeal in his favor was rejected.

Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda Sánchez: Married, 27 years old at the time of his detention. He lived in the commune of Ñuñoa, but his family resided in Valparaíso, where they last saw him on September 8. His friends saw him in Santiago on the morning of the 9th and agreed to meet him in the afternoon; he never arrived.

According to the CChDH at the time, some witnesses reported that he was detained on September 10 at Catedral and San Martín by civilians who forced him into a utility van. His amparo appeal was rejected.

Alejandro Pinochet Arenas: Single, 23 years old at the time of his disappearance. Also a resident of Valparaíso and passing through Santiago, he was supposed to return home on September 18, but that did not happen.

According to witnesses, he was kidnapped on September 10 while traveling on a public bus, from which he was forcibly removed by civilians at the corner of Compañía and Amunátegui. In 1986, he had been sought at his home in the port city by order of Prosecutor Torres in relation to the attack on General Pinochet that occurred on September 7, 1986, in the Cajón del Maipo.

Gonzalo Iván Fuenzalida: Single, 25 years old at the time of his disappearance. His girlfriend was the last person to see him, on September 8, when he stopped by a hardware store where she worked. They agreed to meet later at a restaurant in Estación Central, but they never saw each other again.

In those days, his girlfriend was also detained for a "case about which there is a prohibition to inform," maintained El Mercurio. It was later learned that it was Patricia Cancino, detained on October 4. His amparo appeal was also rejected.

Source: La Nación, July 18, 2008

Army list of former DINA agents includes active-duty military personnel

The list, requested after the LND report on the presence of former DINA agents in the ranks of the Army, also includes Colonel Marco Bustos, who is indicted in the case of the five FPMR militants. One of the "re-hired" personnel is General (ret.) Miguel Trincado, who is on trial for the exhumation and disposal of the 26 victims of the "Caravana de la Muerte" (Caravan of Death) in Calama.

The custodians in Uruguay of the murdered DINA chemist, Eugenio Berríos—non-commissioned officers Nelson Román Vargas and Marcelo Sandoval Durán—are part of the list of 13 indicted individuals that the Army delivered this week to Defense Minister Francisco Vidal, following the concern generated by the re-hiring of former agents by the military institution.

That is not all: the two uniformed men remain on the active-duty roster. In that same condition is Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos Carrasco, indicted by Minister Mario Carroza as one of the perpetrators of the kidnapping and disappearance of five militants of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) in 1987.

According to information obtained by LND, retired General Miguel Trincado Araneda, indicted in 2007 for the exhumation and disposal at sea of the bodies of the 26 people murdered by the Caravan of Death in October 1973 in Calama, is also among those 13 names as a re-hired official.

Both the list of permanent staff and that of contract employees remain "limited" from public access on the Army’s website, protected by "State Security and National Defense," by virtue of Article 436 of the Code of Military Justice.

The list has not been made public, but yesterday, Defense Minister Francisco Vidal, at a ceremony for Reservist Day at the Buin Regiment, said that he would go to Congress this week, accompanied by the Army Commander-in-Chief, Oscar Izurieta. "We are summoned on Tuesday and Wednesday to three commissions, the two Defense commissions and the Human Rights commission (of the Lower House).

The institution has conducted an evaluation, and the decisions that have been taken on this matter will be made known to the parliamentarians," he maintained.

Source: La Nación, September 6, 2009

Case Roll No. 39.122-C: Case of the Qualified Kidnapping of Julián Peña, Alejandro Pinochet, Manuel Sepúlveda, Gonzalo Fuenzalida, Julio Muñoz

M.- That AQUILES NAVARRETE IZARNOTEGUI, FERNANDO RAFAEL ROJAS TAPIA, JULIO CERDA CARRASCO, MARCO ANTONIO BUSTOS CARRASCO, AND HUGO PRADO CONTRERAS, already identified in the case files, are sentenced for their participation as accessories to the crimes of Qualified Kidnapping of Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola, each to the penalty of THREE YEARS AND ONE DAY OF MINOR IMPRISONMENT IN ITS MAXIMUM DEGREE, and the accessory penalties of suspension from public office or position during the time of the sentence, and the payment of the costs of this case.

Source: Judiciary, October 14, 2013

Death of fourth prisoner confirmed due to Covid-19 outbreak at Punta Peuco: He was serving a sentence for the qualified kidnapping of five members of the FPMR

Marco Antonio Bustos Carrasco, a retired Army colonel who was serving a sentence at Punta Peuco for serious human rights violations, died from symptoms derived from the coronavirus and is the fourth inmate of the prison to die from the outbreak.

Pedro Bustos reported that his brother, the former uniformed officer Marco Antonio Bustos Carrasco—detained at Punta Peuco for human rights violations—passed away this Saturday after contracting the Covid-19 coronavirus while he was incarcerated at the Punta Peuco prison.

The retired colonel was serving a five-year sentence for being an accomplice to the crime of qualified kidnapping of five members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) during the military dictatorship, reports La voz de los que sobran.

The combatants had been kidnapped in September 1987 with the objective of exchanging them for Colonel Carlos Carreño, who had been abducted by the FPMR. With the information from Pedro Bustos, the former military officer becomes the fourth prisoner to die in one week, affected by the Covid-19 outbreak at Punta Peuco.

Last weekend, the following died: Air Force (FACh) Commander (ret.) Luis Campos Poblete (82), convicted for the murder of MIR leader José Francisco Bordas Paz; Miguel Estay Reyno (68), alias "El Fanta," sentenced for the "Caso Degollados" (Slit-Throat Case); and Colonel (ret.) Jaime García Zamorano (85), convicted for the illegal exhumation and inhumation of bodies during the dictatorship.

Source: elciudadano.cl, September 13, 2021