Address: Prof. Luis Galdames 2110, Población Huemul N°2, Santiago Marital Status: Married, 3 children Occupation: Retired from the State Postal and Telegraph Service Political Affiliation: Member of the Communist Party Date of Detention: December 17, 1975

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo, married, father of three, a retired postal worker and member of the Communist Party, left his home located in the Población Huemul N°2 in Santiago on December 17, 1975, at approximately 6:00 PM, with the intention of buying an evening newspaper at a nearby kiosk, as was his daily custom.

The difference was that on that day, Carlos Sánchez did not return home, nor did he on the days that followed, remaining forcibly disappeared ever since. On December 18, María Raquel Ahumada Ortiz—the victim's spouse—traveled to the home of one of her daughters.

On the morning of December 20, Carlos Sánchez Cornejo's family returned to their home and discovered that the front door was open and the electrical fuses had been removed. Upon inspecting the house, they confirmed that it had been raided.

Every room, closet, and drawer had been exhaustively searched. The victim's relatives carried out all necessary procedures to locate him; they made inquiries at first aid stations, hospitals, the Legal Medical Institute, visited detention centers, made inquiries at the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), filed legal actions, and reported the case to international organizations and bodies.

All of these efforts were entirely fruitless. In the report prepared by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (created by the President of the Republic, Mr. Patricio Aylwin Azócar, with the purpose of investigating and informing the country of the most serious human rights violations committed between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1990), it was stated that "on December 17, 1975, in the San Diego sector, agents of the Joint Command detained Communist militant Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo, who was subsequently taken to the Colina Air Base, a place where he was seen by several witnesses and from which his trail was lost." Indeed, the victim's confinement at the Colina Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, belonging to the Chilean Air Force, has been confirmed by the statements of two surviving witnesses who were also held at that detention and torture center run by the so-called Joint Command during the same period as Carlos Sánchez: namely, Mauricio Lagunas Sotomayor and Patricio Weibel Navarrete. One of the witnesses stated, in a declaration given before the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, that he had seen the victim sitting on a chair in front of cell N°6 at the Colina Air Base, while his captors demanded that he provide a written statement regarding his political activities, which Carlos Sánchez refused to do. Likewise, the detention of Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo occurred at a time when security agencies unleashed a strong offensive against the Communist Party, with many members and leaders of this political group being detained. Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo has remained forcibly disappeared since he was detained by members of the Joint Command in December 1975.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 22, 1975, the victim's daughter, Mónica Sánchez Ahumada, filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under N°1.727-75. Although it was requested that official letters be sent to the Ministry of Defense, the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), the Chief of the State of Siege Zone, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (DIFA), the Ministry of the Interior, and the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the Court only granted the request for the latter two. On December 30, 1975, the Minister of the Interior at the time, Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar, informed the Court that Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo "was not being held by order of this Ministry." The same authority sent an identical response on January 7, 1976, after the petitioner pointed out to the Court the urgency of obtaining prompt compliance with the ordered measures, requesting that the requested official letters be reiterated. Without any record in the case file of the dispatch or response to the official letter ordered to be sent to the National Intelligence Directorate, the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals rejected the writ of amparo on January 14, 1976, because the reports in the file did not show that Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo was detained or imprisoned, nor that there was an outstanding arrest warrant against him. In that same resolution, it was ordered that the records be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court so that the possible perpetration of a crime could be investigated in connection with the victim's disappearance. After the records were sent to the First and Fourth Criminal Courts of Santiago, both of which declared themselves incompetent to hear the case on the grounds that the address where the investigated events took place did not fall within their jurisdictional territories, they were finally sent to the Fifth Criminal Court of this city, which accepted jurisdiction. Finally, the amparo records were consolidated with the complaint for alleged disappearance of Carlos Sánchez Cornejo, which had been pending before the 5th Criminal Court since February 5, 1976, retaining the latter's case number, N°101.780-9, and following joint processing. In the aforementioned complaint filed by Mónica Sánchez Ahumada, it had already been requested that official letters be sent to the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of National Defense, the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the incommunicado detention facility run by this agency known as "Cuatro Alamos," the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), and the Legal Medical Institute. On February 9, 1976, the Court accepted the complaint, ordered the initiation of the corresponding summary investigation, dispatched an order to the Investigative Police to investigate, and granted all the measures requested by the complainant. On February 13, 1976, the Acting Minister of the Interior, Enrique Montero Marx, informed the Court that Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo was not being held by order of this Ministry. On February 23 of the same year, this same authority informed the Court that, in accordance with the request made by His Honor to the National Intelligence Directorate, and after consulting their registry, it was communicated that the victim did not appear in the respective index cards nor had he been detained by personnel of that agency. On March 10, 1976, the official response letter sent by the then-National Executive Secretary for Detainees, Colonel Jorge Espinoza Ulloa, was added to the file, in which he reported that there were no records regarding the person in question. The investigation order dispatched to the Investigative Police did not yield any information that would allow for the determination of the victim's fate or whereabouts. After interviewing the complainant and conducting inquiries at hospitals, public assistance centers, and the Legal Medical Institute without positive results, the file was returned to the Court, which ordered it to be added to the proceedings on March 15, 1976. For its part, on March 12, the Director of the Legal Medical Service, Dr. Alfredo Vargas Baeza, also reported in negative terms. On April 26, 1976, the victim's spouse, María Raquel Ahumada Ortiz, joined the complaint for alleged disappearance and requested that official letters be sent to the Ramón Barros Luco Hospital and the Central Public Assistance Post in order to request information about the victim. The Court granted these measures on April 28 of the same year. However, they had the same results as all those already carried out in the case. Based on the merits of the evidence brought into the proceedings, and without any record in the file of responses to the official letters dispatched to the Ministry of National Defense and the incommunicado prisoner camp run by the National Intelligence Directorate, known as "Cuatro Alamos," the Judge of the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago, Ms. Adela Manquilef Vargas, declared the summary investigation closed on June 30, 1976. On the same date, and noting that the evidence provided in the file did not prove the existence of a crime in connection with the reported events, the case was temporarily dismissed until new and better information could be presented for its investigation. The preceding resolution was reviewed and approved by the Santiago Court of Appeals on August 30, 1976. Once the records were returned to the original court, they were archived by a resolution dated September 6 of the same year. Following the detention and disappearance of 13 high-ranking leaders of leftist political parties—11 of them from the Communist Party and 2 from the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR)—in November and December 1976, and after the respective writs of amparo filed were rejected, the victims' relatives requested that the Supreme Court appoint a Visiting Minister to investigate such an irregular situation. The highest Court of the Republic ordered the Santiago Court of Appeals to make such an appointment, which fell to Minister Mr. Guastavino, who, after requesting a report from the Ministry of the Interior—which reported that the victims had left the country through a mountain pass toward the Argentine Republic—dismissed the case. That resolution was revoked by the Santiago Court of Appeals, as it was on the second occasion that a new closure of the summary investigation was decreed. Subsequently, and taking charge of the process—known as the "case of the thirteen"—Minister Carlos Letelier Bobadilla, who came to replace the previous Minister, closed the summary investigation in August 1978, stating that "no progress could be made in the investigation." That resolution was challenged by lawyers who pointed out to the Minister that progress could indeed be made in the investigation, as there were pending measures that had been requested and because other measures would arise from the state of the proceedings. Thus, Minister Letelier set aside his own resolution and decreed further measures. Later, upon resuming his duties, Minister Guastavino decreed a definitive dismissal by application of Decree Law 2191 in December 1980. The Court of Appeals, this time, revoked the resolution closing the summary investigation, and the Visiting Minister himself set aside the dismissal he had decreed because a legal formality had been omitted. In this way, the proceedings continued. By 1983, Minister Carlos Cerda Fernández took charge of the investigation into the case of the thirteen. Minister Cerda ordered hundreds of measures, consisting of summoning individuals, identifying locations and persons, expert reports, reviewing criminal files, and dispatching official letters requesting reports from State services, branches of the Armed Forces, private institutions, and others of vital importance. In sum, he received nearly 200 testimonies from eyewitnesses to the detentions of the victims and their confinement in clandestine facilities. Among these testimonies were those of members of the Armed Forces who participated in intelligence services, as well as officials from the Carabineros and the Investigative Police. Also included were the testimonies of civilians who collaborated with the security services, as is the case of Otto Trujillo and Miguel Estay Reyno ("el Fanta"). He also had the statement of a first corporal of the Chilean Air Force, Andrés Valenzuela Morales, who deserted from this institution in 1984. Through his statement, he provided accounts and data that, in the mid-70s, a so-called Joint Command or Anti-Subversive Joint Command began to operate, integrated by members of the different branches of the Armed Forces and law enforcement, plus some civilians who belonged to leftist parties and who, after being detained by intelligence services and subjected to pressure and/or extortion, became collaborators. This Command had material means at its disposal, such as vehicles, weaponry, transmission equipment, and clandestine detention centers. At this stage of the investigation, Minister Carlos Cerda was able to establish valuable and clarifying data regarding other cases of human rights violations, some of them involving the disappearance of persons, even ordering the transfer of some parts of the "case of the thirteen" to other Courts that were hearing criminal cases related to them. Among the latter is the case of Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo, for whom a process for alleged disappearance had been substantiated before the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago, case file N°101.780-9, which had ultimately been temporarily dismissed. Minister Cerda, by resolution dated August 14, 1986, faced with the impossibility of hearing the present crime because his request to do so was denied by the Supreme Court, ordered that duly authorized copies of some parts of the process, which provided valuable background information to the victim's case, be sent to the aforementioned 5th Criminal Court, namely: The document on page 7,233 of the file, which corresponds to a sworn statement sent from abroad and given by the former member of the Chilean Air Force and member of the aforementioned "Joint Command," Andrés Antonio Valenzuela Morales. In it, the witness provides detailed descriptions of the clandestine detention and torture centers maintained by the anti-subversive group he belonged to. A hangar located inside the Cerrillos Airport, in whose main warehouses detainees were hung using the building's trusses, and inside which there were two benches where an iron bar was attached to apply electricity to the prisoners. A property located at Santa Teresa N°037, Paradero 20 of Gran Avenida, known as "Nido 20"; a property located on Calle Perú in the La Florida district, at the height of Paradero 18 of Vicuña Mackenna, known as "Nido 18," with an approximate area of 1,000 square meters, inside which there were small closet-type constructions where detainees were hung, as well as in other back rooms, such as the garage and the living room. A facility located inside the FACH Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in Colina, known as "Remo Cero" or "La Prevención," which had been built to serve as a military arrest jail but was occupied by the Joint Command to hold and torture prisoners. A facility located on Calle Dieciocho in the capital, in the premises that used to be the newspaper El Clarín, "called La Firma," where detainees were also interrogated and tortured. The "Bachelors' House," located on Calle Bellavista, where the single personnel of the Command stayed overnight. Only on one occasion did they bring two detainees to this place, who remained there for only one week. Subsequently, the witness gives detailed descriptions of the type of weaponry, vehicles, and physical characteristics of some agents of the Joint Command, known by the nicknames "Larry," "Tito," "Jano," "Pochi," "Alex," "Yerko," "Patán," "Yoyopulus," "Wally," and the following mentioned by their names or surnames: Guimper, Forero (doctor), Otto Trujillo, Palma Ramírez ("Fifo"), and the informants René Basoa and Miguel Estay ("Fanta"). Regarding the kidnappings, he stated that when they went to a place to detain a person, the agents indicated they belonged to the Investigative Police, especially in 1975; by 1976, they were mainly detaining people on the street, without witnesses. The document on page 2426, which contains the sworn statements given before a Notary Public by the former FACH member Andrés Antonio Valenzuela Morales, dated August 28 and October 10, 1984. There is no record, written or otherwise, of the sending or receipt of this information in the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago, nor any record of the temporary dismissal decreed in case 101.780-9 having been revoked to allow the investigation to proceed in light of the new data provided. For more information regarding the procedural progress and background information added to the "case of the thirteen," substantiated primarily by the Visiting Minister Mr. Carlos Cerda Fernández, we refer to the file that accounts for the detention and subsequent disappearance of the Communist militant Reinalda Pereira Plaza. On June 25, 1991, María Raquel Ahumada Ortiz filed a criminal complaint before the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago against the members of the self-styled Joint Command who participated in the kidnapping of her spouse, Carlos Enrique Sánchez Cornejo, and other crimes committed against him, including the highly probable crime of homicide, the subsequent illegal burial of his remains, and also the crime of illicit association for criminal purposes. This complaint was supported by the information regarding the victim's disappearance that the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation sent to that Court. The aforementioned complaint was processed under case number 137189-9. In the course of its processing, one of the agents of the so-called Anti-Subversive Joint Command, Miguel Estay Reyno, was detained. Due to his status as a former communist, he is expected to have important information regarding the case of Carlos Sánchez Cornejo. He was detained on December 20, 1992. That day, he was arriving in the country after being expelled from Paraguay, where he had been living in hiding. Days earlier, the former communist militant alias "El Fanta" had been detained. His detention is related to the process investigating the 1985 kidnapping and throat-slitting of three professionals, which is being substantiated by Visiting Minister Milton Juica. In that case, the agent had been charged as the perpetrator of the crime of unlawful deprivation of liberty of the architect Ramón Arriagada Escalante in February 1985; as a co-perpetrator of the crime of kidnapping a group of AGECH teachers in March 1985; and as an alleged perpetrator of the crimes of kidnapping and homicide of José Manuel Parada, Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino. On the other hand, in the 5th Criminal Court of Santiago, he was charged in a case for identity theft and alleged forgery of a public document. Estay Reyno had left the country in 1989; his family had done so two years earlier. Both for his transfer and his settlement in Paraguay, he relied on a support network in which retired members of the Chilean Air Force participated. As already noted, the former security agent testified in 1986 in the case of the thirteen disappeared persons, which was substantiated by Visiting Minister Carlos Cerda Fernández. In that case, the actions of the repressive group known as the Joint Command were investigated. By December 1992, already in custody, several relatives of victims of the Joint Command were studying the background information so that the Court would request his appearance; this is the case of Carlos Sánchez Cornejo. The case is currently in the hands of Judge Gabriela Corti.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

In a unanimous ruling, the highest court rejected the appeal for cassation filed against the sentence that convicted, among others, two agents who were part of the so-called Joint Command for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of qualified kidnapping of CARLOS ENRIQUE SANCHEZ CORNEJO, José Arturo Weibel Navarrete, and Mariano León Turiel Palomera.

These crimes were perpetrated on different dates between December 1975 and July 1976 in the Metropolitan Region. In a unanimous ruling (case file 18.762-2019), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Jorge Dahm, Minister María Teresa Letelier, Minister Diego Simpértigue, and lawyer (i) Pía Tavolari—confirmed the sentence that convicted Daniel Luis Enrique Guimpert Corvalán to a single sentence of 12 years of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the consummated crimes of qualified kidnapping of Sánchez Cornejo, perpetrated on December 17, 1975; Weibel Navarrete (March 29, 1976); and Turiel Palomera (July 15, 1976). Meanwhile, Carlos Hernán Rodrigo Villarreal must serve 5 years and one day of imprisonment as a co-perpetrator of the qualified kidnapping of Weibel Navarrete. In the sentence, the highest court dismissed the claim of legal error in the challenged ruling, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which refused to apply the "half-prescription" (statute of limitations reduction) to the former agents convicted as perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

Joint Command In the first-instance ruling, Visiting Minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza established the following facts: "a) That there existed a military-style, hierarchical, and disciplined intelligence group called the Joint Command that operated between 1975 and 1976, made up of agents belonging to the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (DIFA), the Carabineros (DICAR), the Navy (SIN), and the Army (DINE), plus civilians, whose main objective was the repression of the Communist Youth and the Communist Party, for which purpose individuals linked to said party were detained and deprived of their liberty to obtain information through physical and psychological torture, and subsequently released, transferred to an unknown destination, or killed; b) That, for operational repression, the so-called Joint Command used secret detention facilities, such as the Casa de Apoquindo, the Hangar at Cerrillos Airport, and others that had been seized from militants of persecuted political parties, such as those known as Nido 18 and Nido 20, all of which became clandestine detention centers; later, the La Prevención jail, built inside the Colina Air Artillery Regiment and better known as 'Remo Cero,' entered the scene, operating approximately from August 1975 until the first months of 1976; and finally, the property on Calle Dieciocho, assigned to the Carabineros, which corresponded to the place where the former newspaper El Clarín operated, being called La Firma until the end of 1976, facilities in which prisoners were kept blindfolded and interrogated under illegitimate duress. c) That, on 12/17/1975, Carlos Sánchez Cornejo, a member of the Communist Party, left his home located in this city, Población Huemul N°2, in the afternoon to buy the evening newspaper, being detained by agents of the Joint Command, taken to Remo Cero, a place where he was seen by other detainees and from where his trail is lost. d) That, on 03/29/1976, while José Weibel Navarrete was traveling on bus 9046 of the Américo Vespucio route, license plate SL-45, in the company of his spouse and 2 minor children, agents of the so-called Joint Command intercepted and boarded said bus, and taking advantage of a commotion caused by an alleged robbery, forced him off, putting him into a vehicle that took him to the La Firma detention facility; he was also kept at the Bachelors' House of the FACH conscripts, agents of the Joint Command, at Bellavista N° 125, from where he was taken by the heads of the operational groups, his final destination being unknown. e) That, on the afternoon of 10/30/1975, around 6:30 PM, the member of the Communist Party of Chile, Francisco Hernán Ortiz Valladares, was detained at his furniture workshop located inside his home at Calle Romero N° 3016 by two individuals in civilian clothes, who took him from the area in a car driven by a third individual. Around 11:30 PM that same day, about eight individuals in civilian clothes, carrying submachine guns, entered the home of Raúl Armando Castro Vega, jumping over the exterior fence of the property; they had Ortiz Valladares detained and handcuffed, a place where he had made a closet in September of that same year. One of the subjects stated that they were looking for a double bottom in the closet where weapons or documents might be hidden; finding nothing, they left the place in four cars, and since that date, he has been disappeared, his whereabouts unknown. f) That, in the early hours of 10/31/1975, between 3:00 and 4:00 AM, the member of the Communist Party, José Santos Rocha Álvarez, known and politically related to Ortiz Valladares, was detained at his home in Puerto Aysén, site 155, Población Las Casas, Barrancas district, by people in civilian clothes who were moving in 3 vehicles; firearms were found at that location. Both detainees were taken to an unknown destination, with Ortiz Valladares being seen later at Remo Cero, where he was interrogated and tortured and a political investigation file was created for him by agents of said command, dated 11/04/1975, and for Rocha Álvarez, the same type of file was created on 11/02/1975, the final destination of both being unknown. g) That, on 07/15/1976, at 8:00 AM, the member of the Communist Youth of Chile, Mariano León Turiel Palomera, left his home with his wife, she to go to work and he to carry out various errands. That day he picked up clothes from a dry cleaner on Calle Merced, between Ahumada and Bandera, and also money for a housing subsidy at the Banco Estado, located at Bandera and San Pablo, from where his trail is lost." After the disappearance of Turiel Palomera, an anonymous letter was sent to the courts, the author of which states that the Communist Youth militant Mariano León Turiel Palomera was detained near the Mapocho Station by the so-called Joint Command, and that the material captors were the team of Chilean Navy agents belonging to said command, which fully coincides with the place where the trail of Mariano León Turiel Palomera was lost that day, 07/15/1976. In the civil aspect, the sentence was upheld, not appealed, which ordered the State to pay a total compensation of $1,520,000,000 (one billion five hundred twenty million pesos) to the victims' families.

Source: elperiodista.cl 7/20/2022 Date: 07-20-2022

ANEF inaugurates memorial for victims of the dictatorship with the presence of President Bachelet

In a solemn ceremony outside the ANEF headquarters this Monday, September 8, a memorial was inaugurated in honor of the public employees who were victims of the civil-military dictatorship. The ceremony was attended by the President of the Republic, Michelle Bachelet; the representatives of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees (AFDD), Lorena Pizarro, and of Political Executions (AFEP), Alicia Lira; along with the Minister of Labor, Javiera Blanco; the Minister of Mining, Aurora Williams; the president of the CUT, Bárbara Figueroa; the Undersecretary of Labor, Francisco Díaz; Joan Jara, widow of Víctor Jara; parliamentarians Tucapel Jiménez, Maya Fernández, Lautaro Carmona, Hugo Gutiérrez, and Claudio Arriagada; as well as social and union leaders. At the ceremony, the choir of former political prisoners dedicated some songs to the fallen of the ANEF. Then, Lorena Pizarro and Alicia Lira gave speeches, celebrating this act of memory and calling on the authorities to seek truth and justice in the cases that are still pending regarding forcibly disappeared and politically executed persons. "With this memorial, we close a debt of the ANEF to the State workers who were executed and disappeared during the dictatorship, without forgetting that ours was one of the sectors most affected during this dark period," stated the president of the ANEF, Raúl de la Puente, in his speech. De la Puente also recalled the resistance and struggle of some of those honored, such as Jorge Peña Hen, Reinalda Pereira, Carlos Prats, and the President's father, Alberto Bachelet. The memorial bears the names of 380 forcibly disappeared and politically executed persons inscribed on elegant bronze plaques—public employees from various sectors who, according to information from the Ministry of the Interior, were victims of the tyranny. "A solid community cannot be built without addressing the violence that fractured our society and ended the lives of wonderful people, like those who receive our tribute today," President Bachelet noted in her speech. "We need that justice to come soon, and for that to be possible, we need those who have relevant information, whether they are civilians or military personnel, to provide it," stated the President, who urged the Justice system to work toward finding the truth. After the ceremony, the plaques that make up the memorial at the entrance of the ANEF were shown to the attendees, where the priest Mariano Puga, a recognized collaborator of the workers, blessed the memorial. Finally, we highlight the excellent organization of the event by the Secretariat of Culture, Recreation, and Sports, Nayadé Zúñiga.

Source: anef.cl 9/09/2014 Date: 09-09-2014

Six former uniformed officers prosecuted for human rights case

The head of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Graciela Gómez, has prosecuted six former uniformed officers for their participation in the kidnapping of the former communist leader José Weibel and the detention of Carlos Sánchez Cornejo.

The prosecution affected former FACH members Enrique Ruiz Bunger, Juan Francisco Saavedra Loyola, Jorge Rodrigo Combos, and Daniel Luis Guimpert; former Carabinero Manuel Muñoz Gamboa; and the civilian César Luis Palma Ramírez. They were also prosecuted as perpetrators, along with Alejandro Sáez Mardones, currently imprisoned in the Punta Peuco jail, for the kidnapping of José Weibel.

Source: January 30, 2004, La Nacion Date: 01-30-2004