Carlos Germán Maldonado Torres, father of two, agricultural worker, and Luis René Lobos Gutiérrez, married, father of two, agricultural worker, were detained by civilians and military personnel on October 21, 1973, in the locality of Santa Ana de Chena, the date since which they remain as forcibly disappeared.

That afternoon, after a soccer match ended on a field located in the vicinity of Santa Ana de Chena—in which the victims participated—all members of the team went to a nearby restaurant; Luis Lobos and Carlos Maldonado were in the group.

Both went to the location in the company of their mutual friend Juan Leyton Contreras, a Corporal in the FACH (Chilean Air Force), who was carrying a weapon. On the way, the three friends, who were intoxicated, encountered a pickup truck driving in the opposite direction.

At that moment, Juan Leyton signaled for the vehicle's driver to stop. The driver, identified as Sergio Raúl Carvajal Arrieta, who was traveling with a local girl named Fanny Arenas, later stated before the Judge of the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago that: "When I was returning to my house from the plot of Ernesto de la Fuente... on the road between the 'La Estrella' restaurant owned by Roberto Correa and a soccer field that no longer exists, a group of three subjects was coming, and I could also see that another group of people was coming further behind.

One of the first group signaled me to stop and told me verbatim 'why were your lights so high,' adding something to the effect that they were blinding him. I replied that that was my problem. It seems this subject was annoyed by my answer and made me get out of the car.

I had to do this because he pulled out a pistol and held me at gunpoint. Then he proceeded to search me and told me to continue. These people continued on their way... The subject said he was a member of the FACH.

I must even add that one of his companions told him not to do anything, as he apparently recognized me. He also told them to keep walking, despite which the military man always did what I have already pointed out."

In his statement, he notes that he knew Juan Leyton Contreras by sight and that he did not know the other two people, "and it was the only time I saw them when they were detained by a military patrol, after the events I have related."

The witness continues his account by noting that from there he went back to the house of Ernesto de la Fuente. Carlos Diethelm was also there. After recounting the events to them, they decided to report what had happened to the military personnel who were stationed at that time at the Carabineros outpost in Padre Hurtado.

Accompanied by two uniformed men and a civilian who was their superior, the three landowners went in Carlos Diethelm's Ford Falcon to the "La Estrella" restaurant. On the way, Ernesto de la Fuente stopped at his house to get his vehicle, a Fiat 125, at the request of the military.

Once at the restaurant, the uniformed men forced all the employees to go out into the street, "among whom I recognized the one who had held me at gunpoint," Sergio Carvajal Arrieta related to the Investigating Judge of the case, "plus the two subjects who were accompanying him when I was intercepted. (From there)... we went in the vehicles to the Padre Hurtado checkpoint, which was occupied by only military personnel.

The three subjects were taken in there by a military man who was apparently an officer. He ordered us to leave because the curfew was approaching."

Ernesto de la Fuente Gandarillas related that: "When we arrived at the Padre Hurtado post, they took the three detainees out, and later the military asked me to provide my vehicle to transport Leyton to the Regiment's General Headquarters located at FISA.

After quite a while... upon returning to Padre Hurtado... out of curiosity I asked about the other two detainees, and a military man who was on guard duty answered that they had been transferred to the Carabineros, without telling me which outpost or station."

Regarding these events, the Carabineros Captain Juan Fernando Ibacache González, Chief of the Malloco Station at the time the events occurred, was summoned to testify before the 7th Criminal Court of the capital.

On that occasion, he stated: "On October 21, 1973, at approximately 10:30 PM, Ernesto Lebreda Lueje arrived... (at the Malloco Station)... driving a military patrol composed of two conscripts and two civilians in a car; the latter were in the status of detainees and appeared drunk, and were identified as Luis René Lobos Gutiérrez and Carlos Germán Maldonado Torres, who, according to the arresting conscripts, had participated in an incident with a member of the Chilean Air Force.

Because I did not have jurisdiction over the place where the event had allegedly been perpetrated and considering that there was no merit to keep the named individuals detained, I proceeded to return them to their captors... All of those mentioned left the place in the same vehicle."

Ernesto Lebreda Lueje, owner of a local champagne factory, had been providing his vehicles to military personnel for patrol duties since September 11, 1973, as he himself acknowledged, and as confirmed by an Official Letter from Army Colonel René E. Pérez Negrete, Commander of the 18th Mountain Infantry Regiment "Guardia Vieja."

On the other hand, the then-Army Sergeant 2nd Class, stationed in Padre Hurtado at the time of the events, indicated to Mrs. Mercedes Castillo, Carlos Maldonado's partner, that he did not participate in the transfer of the detainees to the Malloco Station, but rather that it had been his duty to take charge of the FACH Corporal, Juan Leyton Contreras.

In her statement, Mrs. Mercedes Castillo, in addition to noting that she visited various detention centers without positive results, adds that: "In Padre Hurtado... I spoke with a Sergeant who was on guard duty and he showed me a book, in which it appeared that both Lobos and Maldonado had been arrested at 6:00 PM and released at 9:00 PM on the same day, October 21, 1973...

In the part where my partner should have signed, there appeared a signature that does not correspond to his, since he was almost illiterate." In her account, she continues by noting that "the then-Lieutenant Ibacache told me verbatim that he had not located our relatives, and that 'they had gone to leave them at the Las Brisas bridge.' When I told him that we would go look for them at that place, he said that we should not do it, because we were not going to find them there either." Indeed, they went to the place and were unable to locate their relatives, who remain disappeared after being seen for the last time at the Malloco Station by the then-Carabineros Lieutenant Juan Ibacache.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On June 7, 1974, a Writ of Amparo (Habeas Corpus), case file No. 559-74, was filed in favor of Luis Lobos Gutiérrez before the Court of Appeals of Santiago, which was rejected on September 23, 1974, based on the reports from the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defense stating that they had no records of the victim's detention.

On September 30, 1974, the Supreme Court confirmed the resolution denying the appeal.

On August 13, 1974, the families filed another Writ of Amparo, which was registered as No. 915-74, in favor of the victims, before the Court of Appeals of Santiago.

The Court of Appeals requested reports on the protected persons from the Ministry of the Interior and the Carabineros, who reported about three months later that they had no record of the detention of the protected persons.

Based on the cited information, the appeal was declared inadmissible by the Court of Appeals on December 9, 1974, ordering the records to be sent to the competent Criminal Judge so that he could instruct the corresponding summary proceedings.

On December 11, 1974, the process for the alleged disappearance of the victims, file No. 76,543, was initiated in the 7th Criminal Court of the Capital.

In said case, various witnesses to the investigated events testified before the Judge.

On October 10, 1974, the families filed a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the victims before the Talagante Court. The case was registered as No. 22,851-2. On January 16, 1975, a criminal complaint was filed before the same Court for the homicide of Luis Lobos Gutiérrez, which would be accumulated by the Judge into case file No. 76,543.

On January 17, 1975, the Judge declared himself incompetent to continue hearing the case, because the place where the events occurred was under the jurisdiction of the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago.

On January 27, 1975, the Judge of the 7th Criminal Court, while accepting jurisdiction, accumulated the case into 76,543 because "it concerns the same facts and the same people." In this process, the witnesses and people who participated in or knew about the investigated events also testified.

In June 1975, Army Colonel Jorge Espinoza, representing the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees, informed the Judge that he had no records of the victims.

A similar response was sent on June 25, 1975, by the then-Minister of the Interior, Division General Raúl Benavides E.

On April 22, 1976, the summary proceedings were closed and the case was temporarily dismissed on the grounds that "with the evidence gathered in the case files, the existence of any punishable act is not sufficiently proven."

After the resolution was appealed, on June 29, 1976, the Court of Appeals considered that the investigation was not exhausted, returning the case to the summary stage and indicating a series of investigative steps.

Once the steps were carried out, the Court resolved on August 26, 1977, to temporarily dismiss the case again, given that "the commission of any crime or punishable act is not proven."

On October 13, 1977, the Court of Appeals of Santiago confirmed the Court's ruling.

The anthropometric data of Carlos Germán Maldonado Torres and Luis René Lobos Gutiérrez were annexed to case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago, for the crime of illegal burial in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery, of unidentified persons who died between September and December 1973.

The Investigating Judge of the case ordered the excavation of 108 graves in September 1991. From there, 125 bodies were exhumed, which were sent to the Legal Medical Institute. Currently (late 1992), the forensic identification reports are awaited.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

Carlos was born in April 1932 in Villa Alhué; they called him "Nano." He grew up with his parents and his 8 siblings on a plot of land in Barranca de Piche, where they made charcoal in clay ovens, produced honey, and raised sheep; that was the world in which he learned to work and to be a man of the land.

He was thin, with a deep gaze, and straight brown hair that he combed to the side. They say that when he was young he was a "churrazo" (handsome), he had the gift of gab, and was a ladies' man. He built two families and in total we were eight half-siblings.

They say that in winter he would go up with his friends to look for snow in Alto Cantillana, near Aculeo: they would eat it with honey or toasted flour. He also liked to eat Chilean-style barbecues.

He loved the ramadas (traditional open-air parties), Chilean-style horse races, and dressing as a huaso (Chilean cowboy). I remember him arriving from the hills on horseback with spurs and goat-leather boots, a hat, and a manta. He liked rancheras, but when he went to the small farm he would whistle, as is customary in the solitude of the countryside.

He worked on a plot of land in Santa Ana de Chena and was dedicated to fruit trees. When I went to see him, he would give me pears, then he would accompany me to wait for the bus and say, "let's go wait for the góndola."

He had no political affiliation, but in October of '73, after a soccer match, they went to the "Las Tres Esquinas" restaurant; in a confusing incident with a corporal from the Air Force, they took him away as a detainee.

He was Carlos Germán Maldonado Torres, detained and disappeared on October 21, 1973. I am his daughter, María Esperanza Maldonado, and I remember him. Remember him yourself, remind others.

Technical sheet

To create this microbiography, María Esperanza Maldonado was interviewed. She recorded this radio capsule in August 2014 at the studios of Radio Universidad de Chile, where it was subsequently mixed and broadcast.

Source: loslatidosdelamemoria.cl

According to the birth certificate of Mr. Carlos Jermán Maldonado Torres, the second name is spelled with a J, not a G as is common, certified with the following record.

FOLIO: 500497007185

Verification Code

9444b2cd09dc

Source: registrocivil.cl