Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren Brito, and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann are among those implicated.

The minister for extraordinary causes regarding human rights violations at the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto, sentenced 77 agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) this Monday for their responsibility in the kidnapping of Héctor Garay Hermosilla in 1974.

Garay Hermosilla, a member of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER), was 19 years old when he was detained near his home on July 8, 1974. Days later, his name appeared in the national press on a false list of 119 people killed due to alleged internal disputes within the MIR, in what was termed "Operation Colombo." According to the judge's findings, "the publications that declared the victim Garay Hermosilla dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

According to the reconstruction of events carried out by the visiting minister, the DINA agents who captured Garay "forced him into the back of a gray Chevrolet C-10 pickup truck and took him to the home of a friend of the victim, who was also forced into the aforementioned truck, to be taken to an unknown destination."

"Subsequently, it was established through testimonies that Héctor Marcial Garay Hermosilla passed through the clandestine detention center known as 'Londres 38,' which was guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access," the ruling continues, establishing that to date, there is no further information regarding Garay's whereabouts.

The convicted In the resolution, the presiding judge sentenced the following to 13 years in prison as authors of the crime perpetrated in 1974: César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann.

Meanwhile, the following former agents must serve 10 years in prison, also as authors: Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Sergio Hernán Castillo González, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías, Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, José Enrique Fuentes Torres, José Mario Friz Esparza, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Claudio Orlando Orellana de la Pinta, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas, Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco, Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Leónidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Risiere del Prado Altez España, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle.

As accomplices to the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Garay Hermosilla, the presiding judge sentenced the following to 4 years in prison: Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Camilo Torres Negrier, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Fernando Adrián Roa Montaña, Gerardo Meza Acuña, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, Jorge Laureano Sagardia Monje, José Dorohi Hormazábal Rodríguez, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, José Stalin Muñoz Leal, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Luis René Torres Méndez, Manuel Antonio Montre Méndez, Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Nelson Eduardo Iturriaga Cortés, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Víctor Manuel de la Cruz San Martín Jiménez, Gustavo Humberto Apablaza Meneses, Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Óscar Belarmino la Flor Flores, Rufino Espinoza Espinoza, Héctor Manuel Lira Aravena, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Sergio Iván Díaz Lara, Juan Miguel Troncoso Soto, and Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel.

Meanwhile, Rodolfo Valentino Cocha Rodríguez and Armando Segundo Cofre Correa were acquitted due to a lack of participation in the events.

Source: t13.cl, August 31, 2015

The massive retired Army non-commissioned officer wept and said he regretted the crime. The two Marine infantrymen who until now appeared as the material authors participated by preparing the body to be thrown into the sea.

A former agent of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade, who operated at the barracks at Simón Bolívar 8630 in La Reina, confessed to having murdered the clandestine secretary-general of the Communist Party, Víctor Díaz López, in January 1977.

He is a retired Army non-commissioned officer, nicknamed "El Elefante" (The Elephant) due to his physical build, who, although currently detained, has not yet been prosecuted by Judge Víctor Montiglio, who is investigating the case known as Calle Conferencia.

This new evidence adds to the vast amount of previously unknown information obtained within the framework of this investigation by the Special Affairs and Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police and Judge Montiglio.

Until now, Marine infantrymen Sergio Escalona Acuña and Bernardo Daza Navarro appeared in the case as those who had materially committed the crime against the communist leader. However, it is now known that it was "El Elefante" who placed a plastic bag over Díaz's head to suffocate him, while Army Lieutenant Gladys Calderón Carreño injected him with cyanide to accelerate his death.

The two Marine infantrymen, now retired non-commissioned officers, were present and prepared the body to be thrown into the sea from a Puma helicopter of the Army Aviation Command. In the investigation, some former agents also confessed that at the Simón Bolívar barracks, they "experimented" on the faces of some prisoners, disfiguring them.

In addition to practicing other forms of torture "comparable only to those of the Nazis in concentration camps," according to a source linked to the inquiry.

New indictments

Minister Víctor Montiglio continues to indict more former agents of the Lautaro Brigade, all of whom were previously completely unknown. The three newly declared defendants in the last few hours, who join the previous 44 indicted, are former agents María Angélica Guerrero Soto, a retired Army non-commissioned officer; Sergio Castro Andrade, a retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer; and Luis Lagos Yáñez, then a civilian employee attached to the Air Force.

According to sources closely linked to the process, "El Elefante" reportedly even broke down in tears, expressing "remorse" for the crime committed, arguing that "if he did not follow orders," he would be the one to suffer the same fate as the prisoners.

The background of this judicial investigation indicates that both the Lautaro Brigade—which is now known to have been the most numerous and brutal of the DINA—and the Simón Bolívar street barracks operated as entities for the extermination of militants and leaders of the Communist Party who worked covertly after the 1973 military coup.

Mainly their two clandestine directorates from 1976, who were kidnapped and forcibly disappeared. The Lautaro Brigade was led by then-Army Major Juan Morales Salgado, but it was a group over which both Manuel Contreras and Augusto Pinochet maintained direct control.

Source: La Nación, March 14, 2007

Judge Montiglio indicts 98 former agents for victims of Operation Colombo - The biggest blow to the repression

Among the accused, all retired, are eight colonels and 23 non-commissioned officers of the Army, 40 officers and non-commissioned officers of the Carabineros, two former FACH (Air Force) agents, one former Navy agent, and seven former agents of the Investigative Police.

The biggest blow to the repression of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship was dealt yesterday by Minister Víctor Montiglio, by indicting 98 former agents from different branches of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and Investigative Police for 42 victims of Operation Colombo.

This is the most numerous resolution issued among the nearly 400 human rights violation cases being investigated in the country. It even surpassed the 67 former agents indicted by the same Judge Montiglio in 2007 for the crimes of the Lautaro Brigade and its Delfín Group at the Simón Bolívar barracks.

Among those indicted for Colombo are eight retired Army colonels, six of whom had not been indicted before in any case. Also declared defendants were 23 retired Army non-commissioned officers, of whom at least 50 percent appear for the first time in these types of cases.

Among these non-commissioned officers is Juvenal Piña, alias "El Elefante," a former agent of the Lautaro Brigade, who was the one who suffocated the clandestine communist leader Víctor Díaz (1976) with a plastic bag over his head before he was injected with cyanide.

In addition, the magistrate indicted 40 former Carabineros officers and non-commissioned officers, including Ricardo Lawrence, Heriberto Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco, and José Mora, all former members of the same Brigade.

Among the indicted are also former agents who belonged to the Investigative Police. The only civilian (Army) is Juan Suárez. Of the total list, at least thirteen are already serving sentences for other cases (see list).

As of the closing of this edition, the accused were still being detained to be interned in various places, such as the Peñalolén Military Police Battalion. Among the 42 victims for whom the minister issued his resolution are María Angélica Andreolli, Miguel Acuña Castillo, Juan Carlos Perelmann Ide, Juan Chacón Olivares, Jorge Müller Silva, Luis Guendelmann Wisniak, Mario Calderón Tapia, and Carmen Bueno Cifuentes.

Operation Colombo and the media

The list of the 119 was published in the magazine Lea (Buenos Aires) and the newspaper O Dia (Brazil) in 1975, information that was also false. Both publications were created by DINA agents. Operation Colombo was part of Operation Condor and consisted of a setup by the dictatorship to make the population believe that 119 detainees who were forcibly disappeared had clandestinely left for Argentina and died there in clashes with police and Army forces during the phase prior to the 1976 military coup in Argentina.

Some of those names appeared as militants "murdered" in Buenos Aires and its surroundings, with signs on their bodies stating they had been executed by their own comrades as a settling of scores for internal disputes.

However, this also turned out to be a setup. The list of the 119 was published in the magazine Lea (Buenos Aires) and the newspaper O Dia (Brazil) in 1975, information that was also false. Both publications were created by DINA agents abroad and had only one edition.

In Chile, the pro-dictatorship press, such as the newspapers El Mercurio, La Tercera, Las Últimas Noticias, and La Segunda, reproduced the intelligence services' setup. The headline of the evening paper that reported "Exterminated like rats: 59 Chilean MIR members fall in military operation in Argentina" remains in memory.

They were part of the list of the 119 disappeared from Colombo. Former fugitive Raúl Iturriaga, who was one of those in charge of the DINA's foreign department, was the first to shed light on this operation in Buenos Aires.

According to former civilian agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, convicted in Buenos Aires for the crime against General Carlos Prats and his wife, it was Iturriaga who met with him at the beginning of 1975 to ask him to prepare what was necessary because "we have to make some dead people from Operation Colombo appear." It was about preparing the appearance of the supposed bodies of Jaime Robotham and Luis Guendelmann as part of the setup.

List of indicted

Army (all retired)

Víctor Molina Astete (colonel); Sergio Castillo González (col); Eduardo Guerra Guajardo (col); Víctor San Martín Jiménez (col); José Fuentes Torres (col); Manuel Carevic Cubillos (col); Jaime Paris Ramos (col); César Manríquez Bravo (col); Raúl Toro Montes (non-commissioned officer); Eduardo Reyes Lagos (NCO); Orlando Torrejón Gatica (NCO); Osvaldo Tapia Alvarez (NCO; committed suicide); Juvenal Piña Garrido (NCO; "El Elefante"); Juan Suárez Delgado (civilian); Nelson Paz Bustamante (NCO); José Aravena Ruiz (NCO); Luis Torres Méndez (NCO); Raúl Soto Pérez (NCO); Jorge Andrade Gómez (NCO); Juan Escobar Valenzuela (NCO); Rolando Concha Rodríguez (NCO); Gustavo Apablaza Meneses (NCO); Hiro Alvarez Vega (NCO); Víctor Alvarez Droguett (NCO); Jorge Venegas Silva (NCO); Carlos Rinaldi Suazo (NCO); Carlos Letelier Verdugo (NCO); Reinaldo Concha Orellana (NCO); Máximo Aliaga Soto (NCO); Hugo Clavería Leiva (NCO); Samuel Fuenzalida Devia (NCO);

Investigative Police

Juan Urbina Cáceres; Hugo Hernández; Manuel Rivas Díaz; Herman Alfaro; Eugenio Fieldhouse; Osvaldo Castillo;

Carabineros (officers and non-commissioned officers, all retired):

Gerardo Godoy García; Ciro Torres Sáez; Alejandro Molina Cisternas; Camilo Torres Negrier; Héctor Lira Aravena; José Fritz Esparza; Claudio Pacheco Fernández; Jorge Sagardia Monje; Sergio Castro Andrade; Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez; Armando Cofré Gómez; Fernando Roa Montaña; Gerardo Meza Acuña; Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar; Luis Mora Cerda; José Muñoz Leal; Juan Duarte Gallegos; Carlos Miranda Meza; Rufino Jaime Astorga; Luis Urrutia Acuña; Luis Zúñiga Ovalle; Pedro Alfaro Hernández; Orlando Inostroza Lagos; Rosa Ramos Hernández; Gustavo Caruvan Soto; Héctor Valdebenito Araya; Manuel Avendaño González; José Mora Diocares; Guido Jara Brevis; Nelson Ortiz Vignolo; Ruderlindo Urrutia Jorquera; Héctor Flores Vergara; Jerónimo Neira Méndez; Manuel Montré Méndez; Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo; Claudio Orellana de la Pinta; Nelson Iturriaga Cortés; Luis Gutiérrez Uribe; José Ojeda Obando;

Air Force

Delia Gajardo Cortés; Hernán Avalos Muñoz

Navy

Teresa Navarro Osorio;

Indicted who are already serving sentences:

Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda; Pedro Espinoza Bravo; Raúl Iturriaga Neumann; Marcelo Moren Brito; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; Ricardo Lawrence Mires; Basclay Zapata Reyes; Conrado Pacheco; Francisco Ferrer Lima; Gerardo Urrich; Orlando Manzo Durán; Rizier Altez España; Fernando Lauriani Maturana

Source: La Nación, May 27, 2008

Miguel Angel Acuña Castillo: The disappearance of the 19-year-old in Londres 38

He was detained in July 1974 in the Macul commune. Numerous witnesses saw him at the Londres 38 torture and extermination center. He is one of the victims of "Operation Colombo." Justice sentenced 78 former DINA agents for this crime against humanity.

The minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto, issued a first-instance sentence for the kidnapping and disappearance of Miguel Angel Acuña Castillo. The magistrate established that the young man, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was detained in the vicinity of his home located at Pasaje Talca No. 2033 in the Macul commune by State agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), among them Osvaldo Romo Mena, alias "El Guatón Romo." His sister, Rosa Acuña Castillo, declared that her father tried to climb into the back of the covered pickup truck at the moment they were taking him away, but he was struck in the mouth by one of the subjects, falling to the ground. A week after the kidnapping, Romo went to their home again and told them that her brother was in good condition along with Héctor Garay Hermosilla, who was also disappeared. Both were members of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER) at Liceo 7 in Ñuñoa.

Judge Crisosto determined that the DINA agents "took him to the clandestine detention center known as 'Yucatán' or 'Londres 38'." Acuña Castillo belonged to the secondary student structure of the MIR's Political-Military Group 3 (GPM3), an organization that grouped militants from the eastern part of the capital and was led by Agustín Reyes González, whose trail was lost forever in Londres 38.

There, he "remained without contact with the outside, blindfolded and tied up, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents," and the last time he was seen alive "occurred on an undetermined day in the month of July or August 1974, and he remains disappeared to this day," the first-instance ruling states.

Laughing in Londres 38 with Héctor Garay Hermosilla. In the "Yucatán" barracks, he was seen by Erika Hennings, detained on July 30, 1974. "I can say that he was very young, I think they called him 'El Pampa'," she asserted in the process.

She heard that they took roll call twice a day for the detainees. On July 31, 1974, she heard the name of Miguel Angel Acuña Castillo, who answered "present." Later, she did not hear him called again. "They took them out of Londres 38 just like other detainees, among whom she remembers María Inés Alvarado," a 21-year-old forcibly disappeared person.

Hugo Chacaltana Silva, detained on May 4, 1974, a former student of the Liceo Manuel de Salas and member of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER), also saw him in Londres 38. He recounted that in the early hours of July 8 to 9, 1974, Miguel Angel Acuña arrived along with Héctor Garay, whom they called "Titín"; he was able to see them through a gap that formed between his nose and cheekbones from the blindfold.

Chacaltana noted that he met Castillo in 1971, when both were secondary students. Both coincided in meetings that were held at the time between members of the FER, the judicial ruling states. He remembers "Miguel Ángel as a young man of great leadership capacity and great physical resistance." He stopped seeing him on September 11, 1973.

He met him again in Londres 38. He arrived along with Héctor Garay to the same room where he remained lying on the floor. "At that moment, I did not address Miguel Ángel"; on the contrary, he pretended to be unaware of his presence. "The next day, when the mattresses on which we detainees lay were removed and replaced by chairs, I sat down and, to one side, I observed that they were still sitting.

It struck me that both were talking and laughing, which made me think that they were unaware of the magnitude of what awaited them." Miguel Ángel approached him in Londres 38, telling him, "I know you."

His mother found out at the hair salon that her son was in Londres 38.

León Gómez, detained on July 15, 1974, and taken to Londres 38, saw Miguel Angel along with Héctor Garay, whom he knew. Someone commented to him that "Pampino" was among the detainees, which he corroborated upon hearing him "with his typical jokes that he made to the guards, as if giving the impression that what was happening in the place had no importance.

Even Titín and Pampino would drive the guards crazy. They were very irreverent." David Cuevas Sharon, detained on May 4, 1974, also testified to having seen him. "Pampino, despite showing signs of mistreatment, seemed to have great presence of mind; he was very physically strong." He shared space with him for at least five days.

When Cuevas was released, Acuña Castillo remained a prisoner. His maternal grandmother had a hair salon in Ñuñoa, and one of her clients was Miguel Angel's mother. In a conversation, "she found out about the problem she had with a disappeared son.

Given this, my grandmother made her go to the hair salon where she met Pampino's mother and told her what she knew about him, specifically the place where he had been imprisoned with him."

Regarding the torments applied to the detainees in Londres 38, including Miguel Angel, Minister Crisosto incorporated statements from Osvaldo Romo, who stated that among other tortures, detainees were subjected to "the dry submarine, which was covering their breathing with a plastic bag placed on their heads; the detainees' eyes would look like 'fried eggs,' and blood would come out of their noses and eardrums.

After the interrogations and duress, the detainees would be exhausted." Another former agent, Samuel Fuenzalida Devia, specified in this regard that "the general treatment of the prisoners was to keep them blindfolded, they were not allowed to wash, there were no beds for them to sleep on, food was scarce, and they were subjected to intense interrogations in which electricity was applied, especially to the genitals and breasts.

Another form of torture consisted of keeping the detainees sitting in chairs, tied by their hands and feet, while current was applied with magnets, although common electric current was also applied, which burned those people, a procedure in which many people died." Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez maintains that as an official of the Investigative Police, in mid-June 1974, he was assigned to that repressive body and indicated that "the same DINA agents who intervened in the detention and interrogation of the detainees, once the information sought was obtained, were in charge of making them disappear," following an order from DINA superiors.

The name of Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo appeared among the 119 Chileans of Operation Colombo, on a list disseminated in the national press, after it appeared in publications that appeared only once in Brazil and Argentina, "in which it was reported that Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo had died in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal disputes."

The sentences "The publications that declared the victim Acuña Castillo dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad," determined Judge Crisosto, who sentenced 78 former DINA agents for his disappearance.

The magistrate issued a sentence of 13 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree to Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Espinoza, Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann.

Likewise, he sentenced the following to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree: Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Sergio Hernán Castillo González, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías, Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, José Enrique Fuentes Torres, José Mario Friz Esparza, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Claudio Orlando Orellana de la Pinta, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas, Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco, Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Leónides Emiliano Méndez Moreno, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Rafael De Jesús Riveros Frost, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Risiere del Prado Altez España, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte.

As accomplices to the kidnapping and disappearance of the 19-year-old, he sentenced the following to 4 years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree: Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Camilo Torres Negrier, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Fernando Adrián Roa Montaña, Gerardo Meza Acuña, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, Jorge Laureano Sagardia Monje, José Dorohi Hormazabal Rodríguez, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, José Stalin Muñoz Leal, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Luis René Torres Méndez, Manuel Antonio Montre Méndez, Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto, Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Nelson Eduardo Iturriaga Cortes, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Víctor Manuel de la Cruz San Martin Jiménez, Gustavo Humberto Apablaza Meneses, Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Oscar Belarmino La Flor Flores, Rufino Espinoza Espinoza, Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Héctor Manuel Lira Aravena, and Sergio Iván Díaz Lara. Regarding Víctor Manuel De la Cruz San Martín Jiménez, due to having fallen into dementia, the fulfillment of the sentence is suspended, and he must, in due course, be handed over under custody bail to a family member.

Source: Villa Grimaldi.cl, February 3, 2015

Santiago Court confirms ruling that sentenced 30 DINA agents for the aggravated kidnapping of a pregnant young woman

The appeals court confirmed the sentence that convicted 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza.

A 29-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who was detained on December 15, 1976, in the current Macul commune and taken to the clandestine detention barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina commune, from where her trail was lost.

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that convicted 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza.

A 29-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who was detained on December 15, 1976, in the current Macul commune and taken to the clandestine detention barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina commune, from where her trail was lost.

In the sentence (case roll 3.023-2019), the Sixth Chamber of the appeals court—composed of ministers María Rosa Kittsteiner, María Paula Merino, and Paula Rodríguez—ratified the sentence that convicted Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Juan Morales Salgado, and Ricardo Lawrence Mires to 10 years in prison as authors of the crime.

Meanwhile, as co-authors, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Teresa Navarro Navarro, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, and Jorge Arriagada Mora must serve 7 years in prison.

In the case of José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Segundo Pichunmán Curiqueo, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Bertha Yolanda del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, and Joyce Ana Ahumada Despouy, they must serve 4-year sentences as accomplices.

The appeals court adopted the background information that allowed visiting minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza to establish the responsibility and participation of the then-State agents convicted in the kidnapping and disappearance of the medical technologist.

"That, in this path, the reasoning in the sentence under review is shared, in order to establish the participation of the convicted, insofar as the evidentiary background outlined in the appealed sentence... constitutes a set of judicial presumptions which, given their multiplicity, gravity, precision, and concordance, and for meeting the legal requirements provided for in Article 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, allow for the accreditation of the participation attributed to them as co-authors, in the terms provided for in Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code," it is detailed.

The resolution adds that: "At this point, it should be specified that the participation as a co-author attributed to Juan Morales Salgado fits fully into the provisions of Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, since he acted under the direct orders of Manuel Contreras and was in charge of the Simón Bolívar barracks at the time of the events, corresponding to him in said capacity to coordinate the operational work of the brigades that acted under his command, especially in relation to the dismantling of the Communist Party, assigning personnel under his charge for this purpose, directing investigation work and receiving the corresponding reports, arranging for the entry and detention of the detainees at the unit, as well as the interrogations and torture to which they were subjected and, where appropriate, their death and disappearance, establishing that he was present during the interrogation and torture of the victim of these proceedings, which determines that he intervened in an immediate and direct manner in the events, so his conduct implies a functional contribution to the global result, maintaining, together with the other perpetrators, the co-dominion of the act."

"For its part, the attribution of responsibility as a co-author, in the terms provided for in Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, which is imputed to the defendant María Angélica Guerrero Soto, is established by virtue of her confession in accordance with the provisions of Article 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is corroborated by the merit of the background information indicated in the fifty-seventh foundation of the appealed sentence, to which is added the reasoning in the one hundred and ninety-third motivation," the ruling adds.

"That, in the same sense—it continues—it adheres to what is indicated in the sentence under study, insofar as the indications indicated in the thirty-fifth motives against Ojeda Obando... meet the necessary strength to configure judicial presumptions, which, given their multiplicity, gravity, precision, and concordance, allow for the accreditation of the participation attributed to them as accomplices, in accordance with the provisions of Article 16 of the Penal Code... to which are added the reasonings... of the ruling."

For the appeals court, in this case: "(...) as indicated, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that all the accused were part of an organized structure under subordination and dependency, in which those who exercised management duties and operational personnel coexisted, dedicated to both investigation and the detention, custody, interrogation, torture, and, where appropriate, death and disappearance of the detainees, in which one observes, on the one hand, the division of roles typical of co-authorship, since all of them made a functional contribution to the execution of the crime, each of them having the co-dominion of the act and, on the other, a facilitation of the means with which the crime is committed, thus cooperating in the act of another, by prior or simultaneous acts, which is what characterizes complicity."

"With that understanding, contrary to what the defenses indicate in the pleadings in support of their appeals, it is convenient to specify that the convicted are not punished merely for belonging to the institution, but for the conduct displayed by each one in relation to the events that concern the victim of these proceedings, Ms.

Reinalda Pereira Plaza, which also leads to ruling out the intervention of those accused with respect to whom, despite having established that they were part of the same institution and performed functions at the property located at Simón Bolívar No. 8.800 in La Reina, their punishable participation in any of the forms provided for by law has not been proven." It concludes.

Detention and disappearance

In the appealed ruling, visiting minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza established the following facts:

a) That the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), on an unspecified date, but during the first half of 1976, occupied and enabled a property at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina commune, consisting of a country house, which was conditioned for its purpose of confinement.

It had a single access gate, a guard booth to its right where door duty was performed, a house at the back, a small soccer field, parking lots, and on the left side of the property a kind of gym where there was a canteen, kitchen, and some locker rooms and bathrooms, which were conditioned to be used as dungeons, a property in which the Lautaro brigade, led by Major Juan Morales Salgado, operated and which was occupied as a secret and clandestine place of confinement; people were taken to said facility as detainees to be interrogated under the use of various techniques of physical duress, especially regarding those who had or had had political militancy adhering to the Communist Party.

b) That likewise, in the second half of 1976, the DINA groups led by officers Germán Barriga and Ricardo Lawrence moved to said facility, together with their operational agents, who were fundamentally concerned with investigating, locating, raiding, pursuing, repressing, and dismantling the members of the Communist Party, especially its leadership, for which provisional facilities were enabled for their installation; consisting of offices, a gym, and locker rooms that were confinement dungeons, where interrogations and torture were carried out, using duress with various methods.

c) That Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, pregnant with her first child, 5 months into her pregnancy, a medical technologist and communist militant, who worked sheltering people and as a liaison between Eliana Ahumada and Fernando Navarro, although also related to the communist militant Fernando Ortiz, was detained at 29 years of age, approximately at 8:30 PM, while waiting for public transport, by security agents on December 15, 1976, at the corner of Exequiel Fernández and Rodrigo de Araya, Ñuñoa commune, currently Macul commune.

The agents who detained her were traveling in two Peugeot brand cars; one of them with license plate HLN-55, from which a subject got out and grabbed her violently; upon her screaming for help, a second subject got out, with whom she was forcibly subdued and taken inside the vehicle.

The detention was carried out in the presence of witnesses who were in the various surrounding commercial establishments, who report that once the victim was subdued and the detention carried out, the car headed north along Rodrigo de Araya.

d) That Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza was taken to the secret Simón Bolívar detention barracks, where she was seen along with other prisoners who, in turn, had been detained by the same brigades under the same operational policy between December 13 and 15, 1976; that is, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, Fernando Navarro Allendes, Lincoyán Yalu Berríos Cataldo, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, and Horacio Cepeda Marincovich.

In this place, Reinalda was severely beaten, tortured, illegitimately coerced, and then made to disappear, without any news of her whereabouts to this day.

e) That the Chilean government of the time, given the search efforts made by her relatives, reported that the affected person registered an exit 'on foot' through the Los Libertadores border crossing between Chile and Argentina on December 21, 1976, an official version that was judicially established as false, as stated in the case file seen, case Roll 2-77, in which it was verified that the route sheet that recorded said circumstances had been falsified.

f) That the victim of these proceedings was detained on public roads just like thirteen other people in similar circumstances; eleven belonging to the Communist Party and two to the MIR and, where the information provided by the Military Government was similar and erroneous, demonstrating a large-scale operation that obeyed a policy of investigation, persecution, and dismantling of the Communist Party and not an isolated event.

g) That all the aforementioned people, including the victim, were detained to be interrogated and tortured by reason of their political militancy and, in order to obtain information about their party activities and the identification of other members of the Communist Party in the underground; duress that did not cease until the required information was obtained or until the victims became unconscious.

Source: pjud.cl, March 4, 2022