“One of the trials that illustrates how the military justice system operated at the time is the one accounting for the homicide of Oscar Arros Yáñez, from Concepción. Under Case File No. 797/75, dated November 30, 1975, the prosecutor’s summary indicates: ‘It accounts for the accident that occurred during an operation carried out by personnel of the CIRE of Concepción (directed in an acting capacity by frigate captain Hugo González D’Arcangeli), causing the death of Oscar Arros Yáñez when the latter tried to snatch the weapon carried by Arturo Calderón Passalacqua.

In the struggle, a shot was fired, striking Arros. It is requested to dismiss the case totally and definitively in favor of the official Arturo Calderón on the grounds that the perpetrator is exempt from criminal responsibility.’”

And that is what the commander-in-chief of the Army’s III Division did. But the Rettig Report tells a different story: “Arros, 27, married, with one daughter, was a student at the Universidad Técnica del Estado and worked as a lathe operator at the Empresa Nacional del Carbón (ENACAR).

A militant of the MIR, he was detained at his workplace on September 26, 1975, by DINA agents and taken to the Estadio El Morro in Talcahuano. On September 28, his body was found in the morgue of the Lota Bajo Hospital with evidence of having been tortured and with gunshot wounds.”

Source: Ciperchile.cl September 10, 2013

This morning at the Concepción courts of justice, what was described by Carlos Aldana, the minister of the Concepción Court of Appeals in charge of the case, as the last important proceeding in the case of the execution of MIR militant Oscar Segundo Arros Yáñez—a UTE student and Enacar worker murdered at 28 years of age—took place.

In this proceeding, statements were taken from two of his captors, agents of the Servicio de Inteligencia Regional (SIRE), an agency of the dictatorship in which members of the Navy, the investigative police, and the Carabineros participated; they are Luis Alberto Ríos Salamanca and Arturo Jorge Calderón Passalacqua, who is the one who ultimately murdered the young man from Lota.

It is worth noting that Calderón (frigate captain) appears in public government records as having received training within the OTEC maritime private security guard programs.

A third person involved is Osvaldo Francisco Harnish Salazar, convicted in the case of Rudy Cárcamo, a MIR militant from Talcahuano, also murdered by agencies of the dictatorship.

On this occasion, statements were also taken from two witnesses to the execution, Antonio Burgos Chaparro and Luis Sánchez Dionisio, who had been tortured and were prisoners sitting next to Óscar at the moment he was executed.

During the morning, within the same process, a reconstruction of the scene was carried out at the PDI barracks, where the former political prisoners who were in the truck with Óscar participated in the recreation of the events and had to face the faces of their captors once again.

During this process, one of the witnesses recounted how the SIRE agents were drinking alcohol next to the red Ford truck when the murderer shot Óscar and then exclaimed, “Damn, where did I hit you with that shot, Arros.” Calderón himself declared that he had fired the fatal shot from a UZI, albeit accidentally.

With this, the perpetrator of the shot is established, an advance considering the more than 35 years of judicial struggle by the family members to determine those responsible.

Arros was detained on September 25, 1975, in Lota. Nery Neira, his widow, recounts that Óscar left his home around 3:00 PM heading to the workshop where he worked as a lathe operator. At that location, according to accounts from his coworkers, he was detained around 6:00 PM.

After 12:00 AM, Nery learned of her husband’s detention. That same night, she received a visit from SIRE agents who confirmed to her that Óscar was detained and would remain at the El Morro base in Talcahuano; they allowed her to see him inside the truck along with the rest of the detainees.

On September 27, Nery received another visit from the agents, who brought Óscar so that she, then 24 years old, could change his clothes. After two days of torture, the man from Lota had hematomas and wounds on his back and the rest of his body; they had also torn out his toenails.

Finally, the family members and witnesses narrate, he was executed on September 28 on the truck and dumped on the outskirts of the Lota hospital, where he was picked up by the Legal Medical Service.

Source: Resumen.cl November 08, 2012

Former Carabinero prosecuted for murder of a minor during the dictatorship

The minister visiting for human rights violation cases, Carlos Aldana, issued two indictments. One of them is for the homicide of a minor during the 1983 protests against the dictatorship.

The first indictment is against the former Navy official, Jorge Calderón Passalacqua, for the death of the MIR militant Oscar Arros Yáñez in 1975.

According to Minister Aldana’s investigation, the retired sailor shot Arros with a machine gun during his transfer as a detainee from the El Morro stadium to Lota.

The lawyer for the Human Rights Program, Patricia Parra, valued the resolutions issued by the minister.

A second indictment was issued against the former Carabinero Claudio Flores Urueña, regarding whom the justice system verified his participation in the crime against 15-year-old Rubén Zavala Barra in 1983, during a protest against the dictatorship in the commune of Chiguayante.

As stated in the indictment, the retired captain, former sub-commissar of Chiguayante, fired a tear gas projectile at Zavala, striking the minor in the back.

For lawyer Parra, this indictment has special relevance, as it concerns a minor murdered during the dictatorship.

Both the former sailor and the retired Carabinero remain in preventive detention, the former at the Talcahuano Naval Base and the latter at the Sixth Precinct of San Pedro de la Paz.

This Saturday, the Concepción Court of Appeals will review the requests for conditional release presented by Calderón and Flores.

Source: Biobiochile.cl June 14, 2013

4-year prison sentence given to frigate captain for murder of MIR militant

This concerns the retired frigate captain Arturo Calderón Passalaqua, for whom Judge Carlos Aldana granted a first-instance sentence of 4 years in prison for the murder of Óscar Arros Yáñez in September 1975.

The minister visiting for human rights cases of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana, issued a first-instance sentence for the homicide of Óscar Arros Yáñez, perpetrated on September 30, 1975, in Talcahuano.

In the case, the magistrate sentenced retired frigate captain Arturo Calderón Passalaqua to 4 years in prison as the perpetrator of the homicide of the militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR).

According to the resolution: “In the early hours of September 30, 1975, under circumstances in which Óscar Segundo Arros Yáñez, a MIR militant, was detained at the Estadio El Morro in Talcahuano, at the disposal of the CIRE, he was transported blindfolded and seated between fellow detainees Antonio Burgos Chaparro and Juan Francisco Sánchez Dionisio, in the back or pickup bed of a closed Chevrolet C-10 truck, from the port of Talcahuano toward the city of Lota, being guarded by Chilean Navy officials Luis Alberto Ríos Salamanca and Jorge Arturo Calderón Passalacqua, who was carrying a MAC M 10 9mm caliber submachine gun. Without any provocation on the part of Arros Yáñez, Jorge Arturo Calderón Passalacqua fired at him, the bullet striking the detainee in the right arm and then in the thorax, causing acute anemia and hemothorax, which led to his death.

That the facts described above constitute the crime of homicide provided for and punished in Article 391 No. 2 of the Penal Code, insofar as a person who was carrying a firearm fired a bullet at another, which caused his death, without any legal justification for it,” the ruling states.

In civil terms, Minister Aldana ordered the State to pay a total sum of $140 million to the victim’s family members, a sum divided into: $80 million for Nelly Neira Castro (the victim’s spouse) and $60 million for Eli Arros Neira (daughter).

Source: La Nacion December 26, 2014

Concepción Court confirms and revokes rulings for human rights violations

The Concepción Court of Appeals revoked the ruling that had convicted a former uniformed officer for the homicide of a 15-year-old minor in Chiguayante in 1983.

In the first instance, the minister for human rights violation cases, Carlos Aldana, had decreed 541 days in prison for retired Carabinero Claudio Flores Urueña as responsible for the death of Rubén Zavala Barra, who was struck by a tear gas canister during a protest.

Upon reviewing the ruling, the appellate court maintained that there was no evidence linking Flores to the minor’s murder and decided on his acquittal.

In another sentence, the 4-year prison term, with the benefit of supervised release, was confirmed for the former member of the Navy, Arturo Calderón Passalacqua, for the homicide of Óscar Arros Yáñez, a crime perpetrated on September 30, 1975, in Lota.

In the civil aspect, the compensation of 140 million pesos that the State must pay to the Arros family was ratified.

Source: biobiochile.cl, November 18, 2015