The indictments in this human rights violation case were issued yesterday by the presiding judge of the Antofagasta Court of Appeals, Rosa María Pinto. The magistrate also indicted Colonel (R) Luis Aracena and five other individuals.

All are accused as authors of the exhumation and disposal at sea, in late 1975 or early 1976, of the 26 bodies of prisoners murdered by the "Caravana de la Muerte" (Caravan of Death) in October 1973. Generals (R) Miguel Trincado Araneda and Julio Salazar Lantery, along with Colonel (R) Luis Aracena Romo and five others, were prosecuted as authors of the exhumation and disappearance between late 1975 and early 1976 of the 26 bodies of prisoners murdered in October 1973 by the Caravan of Death in Calama.

The indictment was resolved yesterday by the presiding judge of the Antofagasta Court of Appeals, Rosa María Pinto; however, she granted them immediate provisional release. The magistrate is investigating the case regarding the exhumations and the disposal of these bodies at sea aboard a FACh (Chilean Air Force) aircraft.

The former commander of the Santiago garrison and military judge of the Metropolitan Region until 2006, now-retired General Miguel Trincado, commanded the operation to exhume and dispose of the bodies at sea while he held the position of head of the Intelligence Section of the Calama regiment.

The operation was supervised on the ground in a sector of the Atacama Desert by the then-head of the Intelligence Department of the I Army Division of Antofagasta, current General (R) Julio Salazar Lantery.

In 1975, Colonel (R) Aracena Romo was the second-in-command of the Calama regiment and was also present at the exhumation. The commander of the Calama regiment at that time was Colonel Eduardo Ibáñez Tillería, who passed away with the rank of general.

Other individuals prosecuted include non-commissioned officers (R) Héctor Iturra Orrego, Wilson Pacheco Obreque, and Emilio Pardo Pardo. These men were subordinates of Trincado in the Calama Intelligence Section and also participated in the exhumation of the remains.

Likewise, Hugo Carrasco Pérez and Pedro Gutiérrez Ruiz were also indicted. The then-intelligence non-commissioned officers of the Calama regiment, now retired, Manuel Aguirre Cortés and Juan Carlos González Reyes, had already been indicted by Judge Pinto. Both also took part in the exhumation.

Confessed mechanic

Aguirre was the first to judicially implicate Trincado in 2005, accusing him of commanding the operation and even driving the truck in which the bagged corpses were transported to the Calama airfield, where a FACh C-47 aircraft was waiting, aboard which they were thrown into the sea. "I was the co-pilot in the truck next to Trincado," Aguirre said during the proceedings.

When Aguirre accused Trincado, La Nación published the information on May 3, 2005, but the Army, under the leadership of General Juan Emilio Cheyre, denied both Trincado's participation and the event itself. "The Army categorically rejects these allegations as they are unjust, unnecessarily damage the institution's image, and compromise the honor of the aforementioned officer (Trincado)," the statement said.

The other individual already indicted by Magistrate Pinto is the FACh non-commissioned officer (R) Sergio López Maldonado. He confessed during the proceedings that he was the mechanic who traveled on the C-47 and stated that "when about two hours of flight had passed, the pilot signaled to me.

I then opened the hatch and threw the bundles into the ocean." This is the first time that Salazar Lantery and Aracena Romo have been charged with human rights violations. Trincado had been prosecuted earlier this year on the Antofagasta Court of Appeals' own initiative.

However, that court committed a procedural error by indicting him for the crimes against the 26 prisoners committed by the Caravan of Death on October 19, 1973, in Calama—events currently being investigated in Santiago by Judge Víctor Montiglio, for which neither that court nor Magistrate Pinto has jurisdiction.

First episode of "Operation Retiro de Televisores"

The Calama exhumation case is the first episode of what Army intelligence called "Operation Retiro de Televisores" (Operation Television Removal), which was carried out massively across the country starting in December 1978.

This was the date when the bodies of fifteen peasants murdered by the Carabineros, who had hidden their corpses, were found in the ovens of a mine in Lonquén, south of Santiago. "Operation Retiro de Televisores" consisted of the exhumation of all the bodies of prisoners who had been buried in clandestine graves throughout the north, south, and central zones of Chile.

The bodies were thrown into the sea. The operation was decreed by the then-dictator Augusto Pinochet via cryptograms (messages encrypted in code) sent to the country's regiments with the order. One of the first to fix the date of the exhumation in Calama was Colonel (R) Aracena Romo, who declared judicially that the event happened "in the last days of 1975." For his part, Salazar Lantery acknowledged in the trial that "in late 1974 or 1975, there was an agreement to remove the bodies because we knew that the families were looking for them in the desert." Although Trincado continues to deny his participation, there are at least eight non-commissioned officers in the judicial investigation who accuse him of commanding the operation or of directing the Calama regiment's Intelligence Section at that time. The next step could be in the hands of Judge Montiglio, as the plaintiff's side maintains that this is not simply a case of the accused committing the crime of illegal exhumation by digging up the bodies and making them disappear, but that in their actions they may have incurred, at the very least, liability as accessories to kidnapping and homicide because they acted to erase the traces of the crimes committed by the Caravan of Death in 1973. Therefore, there is a possibility that, following these indictments, Magistrate Pinto may declare herself incompetent and send the case to Santiago to Judge Montiglio.

Source: La Nación, November 24, 2007

Indictment for illegal exhumations of remains of executed persons: General (r) Trincado prosecuted in Calama case

The resolution also affects seven other former uniformed officers for events that occurred in 1975.

The former commander of the Second Army Division, General (r) Miguel Trincado Araneda, and seven other former uniformed officers were prosecuted on Friday for their responsibility as co-authors of the illegal exhumations of the remains of 26 executed persons, which occurred in 1975.

The resolution was issued by the visiting judge of the Antofagasta Court, Rosa María Pinto, who, according to official reports, granted all the accused provisional release on a 50,000 peso bail. The magistrate was tasked with investigating the operation known as "Retiro de Televisores," which was carried out in late 1975, the objective of which was to exhume the remains of those executed in 1973 by the so-called "Caravana de la Muerte" (Caravan of Death) in order to make them disappear by throwing them into the sea.

When the events occurred, Trincado was performing intelligence duties in the Calama regiment and, according to evidence in the case file, was allegedly in charge of executing the operation. This was stated before Magistrate Pinto by former Sergeant Manuel Aguirre, who identified Trincado as the driver of the truck in which the bodies were transported from the road to San Pedro de Atacama to the Calama airfield, where the sacks containing the remains of the executed were loaded onto a FACh aircraft from which they were thrown into the sea.

The prosecution also affects former officers Julio Salazar Lantery and Luis Aracena Romo, and non-commissioned officers Emilio Pardo Pardo, Héctor Iturra Orrego, Hugo Carrasco Pérez, Wilson Pacheco Obreque, and Pedro Gutiérrez Ruiz.

At the end of last August, the Antofagasta Court indicted Trincado as an accessory to the executions that took place in the area in October 1973, but the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court later annulled the charges after accepting an amparo (habeas corpus) in favor of the former officer.

The case that shook the police

The situation of General (r) Trincado in the proceedings has not been without controversy. One such controversy fully involved the current director of the Civil Police, Arturo Herrera, and former prefect Rafael Castillo, who ended a long-standing friendship due to the investigation against the former officer.

The reason? In late 2005, Herrera allegedly requested that the Human Rights Brigade—headed by Castillo—modify the report that linked Trincado to the exhumations in order to clear him of charges. Upon learning of this, Castillo refused and sent the original report to the judiciary, which caused a rift between the two.

The controversial situation—denied by Herrera—is being investigated by Magistrate Pinto.

Source: El Mercurio, November 25, 2007