The Human Rights Program and the State Defense Council hope that the appellate court will reverse the decision of Judge Mario Carroza, who rejected the request for indictment they filed against Generals (Ret.) Sinclair and Ortega.

The Santiago Court of Appeals will review, in the coming days, the evidence provided by the Ministry of the Interior's Human Rights Program and the State Defense Council (CDE) regarding former Army Vice Commander-in-Chief Santiago Sinclair and former Director of Intelligence (DINE) Ricardo Ortega, whom both agencies accuse of participating in the kidnapping and homicide of five members of the FPMR in 1987.

The program and the council hope that the capital's appellate court will reverse the decision of the visiting judge Mario Carroza, who rejected the indictment request they had filed in May against the former uniformed officers at the beginning of July.

However, General (Ret.) Sinclair had already been indicted for identical crimes in this investigation, and in 2008, the Court considered that insufficient information had been gathered and set aside the indictment.

Ortega's situation is different because, although he had to testify as an accused in the case, he has never been indicted for these events. Nevertheless, the prosecutorial agencies collected 17 testimonies that would confirm his participation in the actions that ended the lives of Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola, according to their filings.

In these same submissions, the program and the council conclude that the crime against the five members of the Front was a crime against humanity committed by agents of the former regime of Augusto Pinochet, in the context of the kidnapping of Colonel Carlos Carreño, commercial manager of the Army's Factories and Arsenals (Famae), which occurred between September and November 1987.

But although Judge Carroza dismissed the request regarding Sinclair and Ortega, at the beginning of July he decided to indict the former agent of the CNI's Blue Brigade and member of the Navy, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez (also mentioned in the crime of Paulina Aguirre Tobar), and the former CNI agent, José Miguel Morales Morales (investigated for Operation Albania although not convicted), as co-perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Julián Peña Maltés.

Source: La Nación, July 26, 2010

Judge Mario Carroza issues indictment in cases of five forcibly disappeared persons in 1987

Visiting Judge Mario Carroza Espinosa issued an indictment in the investigation into the qualified kidnappings of five people linked to the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), who were detained in September 1987 in different parts of the country.

The magistrate determined to file charges against 35 people linked to the National Information Center (CNI) for the kidnappings of Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola.

The magistrate determined to hold the following individuals responsible as co-perpetrators of the 5 kidnappings: Iván Quiroz Ruiz, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, Raúl Durán Martínez, Manuel Ramírez Montoya, Hugo Salas Wenzel, Luis Santibáñez Aguilera, Kranz Bauer Donoso, Víctor Ruiz Godoy, Juan Jorquera Abarzúa, Hernán Vásquez Villegas, César Acuña Luengo, Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Fuentes Pastenes, René Valdovinos Morales, Juan Carlos Orellana Morales, Roberto Rodríguez Manquel, Manuel Morales Acevedo, Gonzalo Maas del Valle, Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, Julio Cerda Carrasco, José Salas Fuentes, Heraldo Velozo Gallegos, Marco Antonio Bustos Carrasco, Hugo Prado Contreras, Marco Antonio Pincheira Ubilla, Jorge Ahumada Molina, Patricio Gonzalez Cortez. He indicted only as perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of Julián Peña Maltés: José Miguel Morales Morales, Ema Ceballos Nuñez. As accessories to the five kidnappings, he indicted: Rodrigo Pérez Martínez, Aquiles Navarrete Izarnotegui, Fernando Rojas Tapia, Víctor Campos Valladares, Hugo Barria Rogers.

The magistrate determined that

a) That on the occasion of the kidnapping of Army Colonel Carlos Carreño Barrera, which occurred in this city on September 1, 1987, officials of the National Information Center participated in an operation in which, between the 9th and 10th of the same month, they received instructions to detain, without a judicial warrant, five members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front chosen from institutional files, to eventually exchange them for said officer; b) That these people were detained and kept hidden, under custody at the Borgoño Barracks of the aforementioned entity; c) During the period they remained at the Borgoño Barracks, operational teams commanded by officers and personnel of the Army Intelligence Battalion were commissioned to participate in the investigation intended to clarify the kidnapping of Colonel Carreño and established official coordination with the National Information Center, allowing some of its agents to frequent and remain for several days in areas adjacent to the dungeons, with full knowledge that said persons were being held illicitly; d) Before the release of Colonel Carlos Carreño Barrera in Brazil, these security agencies decided on the elimination of the detainees and, for this purpose, organized an operation that allowed the five bodies to be removed from the facility where they were being held and then transported in an Army Aviation Command helicopter from Fort Peldehue to the coast of Quintay, to finally throw their bodies into the sea tied to railroad ties; e) From the above, it can only be concluded, due to the magnitude of the aforementioned operation, in which there were different stages, such as their detention, their subsequent confinement in the Borgoño Barracks, the interrogation to which they were subjected in the interval before their death, and subsequently the transfer of their bodies to the coast of Quintay in order to throw them into the sea, that not only agents who made up the National Information Center at that date participated in such actions, but also members of the Army Intelligence Battalion and the Army Aviation Command of Chile, operations that the military chain of command of the aforementioned organizations could not have been unaware of nor failed to control, since it is an institution with a hierarchical power structure, in which there is a vertical and direct line of command. f) That for the same reason, it is entirely reasonable to think, based on information gathered in the case, that these bodies belong to the kidnapped persons, who, having been thrown into the sea, were not located and identified. As of today, the parties to the process, that is, the plaintiffs, the State Defense Council (CDE), and the Ministry of the Interior's Human Rights Program, have a 20-day period to join the indictment or file a private prosecution and eventually file civil actions. Once that procedure is completed, the accused will be notified of the charges and the actions taken by the plaintiffs, and once that matter is concluded, it will move to the plenary stage, prior to the first-instance sentence.

Source: Poderjudicial.cl, October 7, 2010

29 years after "Alfa Carbón 1", the "Southern Operation Albania"

Who is who among the murderers of "Alfa Carbón 1"?

The relatives of the victims of "Operation Alfa Carbón 1" requested that Judge Carlos Aldana Fuentes, of the Concepción Court of Appeals, indict four high-ranking officers with command responsibility for the crimes in the South and 12 other CNI hitmen for the crime of "illicit association and qualified homicide." Furthermore, they ask that the "illicit association" be applied to all the henchmen, including the 7 perpetrators who are already indicted for homicide. "Illicit association" and homicide for chiefs or commanders 1) Hugo Iván Salas Wenzel, Army Major General (Ret.) and Deputy Director (2nd Chief) of the CNI from 1984 to October 1986. Later, he was CNI Director until November 1988. At the time of Alfa Carbón, he was Deputy Director of the CNI and was part of the command that knew of the operation and made the decisions regarding the final operation. As second-in-command of the CNI, he was aware of the operations of his subordinates. Imprisoned in Punta Peuco, he is serving a life sentence, convicted for the crimes of Operation Albania. 2) Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez, alias "Don Oscar", "Patricio Villagrán Rodríguez", Army Lieutenant Colonel, retired in 1991, was one of those in charge of planning Alfa Carbón, organizing the means, and assigning missions to the teams in planning and coordination meetings. According to the case file, in previous meetings, he showed photographs where the subversives who were to be eliminated were marked with a cross. Another indicted person declared that a week earlier, this officer ordered them that Nelson Herrera and Mario Lagos had to die. He was sentenced to 5 years and one day for the murder of Paulina Alejandra Aguirre Tobar, 20, MIR, killed by gunfire in an ambush disguised as a "confrontation" on March 29, 1985. 3) Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, Army Colonel (Ret.), as head of the CNI's Blue Brigade, provided means and commanded teams for the execution of Operation Alfa Carbón. He was in Concepción supervising the troops at the barracks and on the street. 4) Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, Army Major, head of the CNI's Concepción Regional Brigade, directed the intelligence work and participated, among other operations, in Vega Monumental. A team that operated in Los Ángeles was under his direct command. He directed the Regional Anti-Subversive Unit (UAS). "Illicit association for material executors" The executors of the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias were 5) Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, DINA-CNI and Army Civilian Employee (ECE) from 1976 to 1998. 6) Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, CNI 1984-1990, member of the Military Intelligence Directorate (DINE) 1979-1984 and 1990-2004, Army non-commissioned officer (Ret.) until 2010. The murder of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez was perpetrated by: 7) Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner, CNI 1983-1988, Army Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) until 2004. 8) Egón Antonio Barra Barra, DINA-CNI 1976-1988, 2nd Corporal of the Carabineros until 1989. Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros was also murdered by: 9) Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, Army civilian agent in DINA-CNI 1973-2002. The executors of the murder of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala were: 10) Francisco Javier Orellana Seguel, DINA-CNI 1975-1990, Army Sergeant (Ret.) until 2005. 11) Jorge Fernando Ramírez Romero, Army civilian agent in DINA-CNI 1976-1990, former ECE until 2004. Executors of the murder of Juan José Boncompte Andreu: 12) Luis René Torres Méndez, Army civilian agent in DINA-CNI 1973-1990, Blue Brigade team leader, ECE until 2001. 13) Pedro María Rojas Vásquez, CNI 1980-1989, Army non-commissioned officer (Ret.) until 1994. 14) Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, DINA-CNI from 1973-1989, Navy non-commissioned officer (Ret.) until 1994. 15) Aquiles Poblete Palominos, Army Civilian Agent DINA-CNI 1974-1990, ECE until 1993. 16) Carlos Alberto Eguía López, DINA-CNI 1974-1986, operative and photographer, Army Sergeant Major (Ret.). Perpetrators indicted for "illicit association and qualified homicide": 1) Marcos Spiros Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI's C/2 Regional Division 1983-1984, CNI Deputy Director 1988-1990. Army Brigadier. As Head of the Regional Division, or C2, of the CNI, he commanded the Alfa Carbón operation from the Pedro de Valdivia Barracks in Concepción. The authorship of the operational command is based on the origin of the prior intelligence work, attributable to the personnel of the Concepción Regional office and, consequently, to the CNI's Regional Division, directed by Derpich. He is also implicated in the kidnapping and disappearance of David Silverman (PC) from the Santiago Penitentiary in 1974 and in the Cutufa scams, an illegal financial organization that operated within the Army lending money in the 1980s. 2) Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, DINE, Joint Command 1975-1976, CNI from 1977-1989, head of the CNI Blue Brigade 1980-1981, head of the Anti-Subversive Unit 1981-1983, head of the DAS, C3 or Bernardo O’Higgins Division 1984-1989. He reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.). He was directly involved; he provided all the means to execute Alfa Carbón 1, arranged logistical resources, weaponry, and personnel that participated in the operation. During the extermination and detention actions, they were under his operational command, according to declarations by Aquiles González Cortés and Zúñiga Acevedo in Concepción, Bauer Donoso in Los Ángeles, and Castro Muñoz in Valdivia. Corbalán was present in Concepción during the operations, despite serious previous disputes with Derpich and Mandiola over the control of the intelligence operation. Evidence of this is the division of the spoils he made with Derpich. He reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), is convicted of various crimes, and is imprisoned in Punta Peuco.

Indicted for homicide

3) Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, former Army Captain, at the time of the crimes he was 2nd Chief of the CNI Yellow Brigade, commanded the operation in Valdivia, participated directly in the crimes of Estancilla and Calle Rubén Darío and in the executions of Tapia and Barrientos.

He was the ringleader convicted for the Cutufa scams of the 80s. 4) Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, CNI 1983-1986, head of the Valdivia Regional Brigade 1984-1985, active part of the prior conspiracy and execution of the operation in that city.

Participated in the executions at Puente Estancilla. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1993. 5) Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, head of the Puerto Montt Regional Brigade 1984, active part of the prior conspiracy and execution of the operation, participated in the execution on Calle Rubén Darío.

He retired as an Army Major in 1993. Executors indicted for the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias: 6) Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, DINA-CNI 1975-1991, DINE 1991-2002, retired in 2006 as an Army non-commissioned officer; at the time of the crimes, he was a team leader of the CNI Blue Brigade, "specialized" in the MIR. 7) Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, CNI 1984-1990, DINE 1979-1984 / 1990-2004, retired in 2010 as an Army non-commissioned officer.

Executors indicted for the murder of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez: 8) Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, Carabineros DINA-CNI, Army Civilian Agent 1983-1989, Special Brigade 1983-1986, Green Brigade 1987-1989, former 1st Corporal of Carabineros until 1985, former ECE, convicted for Operation Albania and other cases, released after serving his sentence.

Executors indicted for the murder of Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros: 9) José Abel Aravena Ruiz, DINA-CNI-DINE 1973-1999, Carabineros, member of the Halcón I Group of the DINA Caupolicán Brigade, of the Red Brigade and CNI Blue Brigade, 2nd Sergeant of Carabineros 1973-1985, Army Civilian Employee 1985-1999, team leader in the Blue Brigade, retired in 1985, former ECE (1999).

At the time, being a team leader of the Blue Brigade, he commanded the team that executed Herrera. Also indicted for Operation Colombo (Case of the 119). 10) Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, Army civilian agent 1981-1992, Concepción Regional UAS Team 1983-1984, Blue Brigade 1985-1990, former ECE, was an active part of the operation and was part of José Abel Aravena Ruiz's team. 11) Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, 2nd Corporal of Carabineros in 1981, DAS operational guard 1984, on active duty until 2008, as an active part of the operation he executed Herrera.

Executors indicted for the murder of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros: 12) Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, DINA-CNI 1976-1989, UAS team leader of the Concepción Regional Brigade, Army non-commissioned officer retired in 2002, commanded the team that executed Mario Mujica in Los Ángeles. 13) José Artemio Zapata Zapata, Army Civilian Agent in DINA-CNI 1973-2005, Concepción Regional UAS Team, former ECE (2005), was part of the team that executed Mujica.

Executors indicted for the murder of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala (Valdivia):

• Patricio Castro Muñoz, "BJ", already mentioned among the commanders. - Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, mentioned among the commanders. 14) Gerardo Meza Acuña, Carabineros, DINA-CNI from 1973-1990, Caupolicán Brigade, Red Brigade, Blue Brigade, team leader in the Blue Brigade, retired as a Carabineros non-commissioned officer, commanded the team for the Estancilla executions and the operation on Calle Rubén Darío. Executors indicted for the murder of Juan José Boncompte Andreu: - Patricio Castro Muñoz, "BJ", mentioned above - Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, mentioned among the commanders. 15) Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, "Flaca Cecilia", Navy Civilian Agent in DINA-CNI 1975-1990, Blue Brigade, 2nd Sergeant of the Navy retired in 1994, former Navy Civilian Agent, team leader in the Blue Brigade, entered the house on Calle Rubén Darío together with Boehmwald and participated in the execution of Boncompte.

Excluded due to death

Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida, planned the operation, organized means, and assigned missions to teams in planning and coordination meetings. Francisco Daniel Zúñiga Acevedo, commanded troops of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Division (DAS) in Concepción.

Krantz Johans Bauer Donoso, 2nd Chief of the Special Brigade in the DAS. Commanded the operation in Los Ángeles. Carlos Alberto Eguía López, DINA-CNI 1974-1986, photographer, Army Sergeant Major (Ret.).

Source: AgenPress, June 27, 2013

The women of the DINA: loyal and unpunished

The arrest of Adriana Rivas in Australia, following years of extradition requests by Chilean courts, has brought the subject of the women who made up the DINA and the CNI back to the forefront. If she were to decide to collaborate based on her experience as Manuel Contreras’s secretary between 1973 and 1976, there would be many significant questions to answer.

What became of the pregnant prisoners? Were children born in captivity? Or, who were the business investors in the DINA’s secret fund? We know her image and words from the documentary "El pacto de Adriana" (Adriana's Pact), directed by Lissette Orozco, a niece who knew her as her aunt “Chany.”

In the film, she responds to Lissette

“Why do I tell you these are the best days of my life? Because that part […] of the lives of the rich was off-limits to me. Do you think I would have been able, if I had been an executive secretary, to go have lunch at the Palacio Cousiño?” With calmness and conviction, Adriana shares her opinion on the use of torture: “it was the only way to break people,” while also affirming that she has “fond memories” of Contreras as a person and a boss.

Only one woman imprisoned. Among the hundreds of individuals prosecuted and convicted for human rights violations, there is only one female agent imprisoned at the Centro de Orientación Femenina in Vicuña Mackenna.

She is Ema Ceballos Núñez , known as “La Flaca Cecilia,” who is serving a sentence for the kidnapping of five members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) in 1987. At the same time, she was part of the CNI’s Brigada Azul in Valdivia, where she was the perpetrator of the death of Juan José Boncompte in August 1984.

Women doing evil. Did their status as women inhibit the investigating ministers or the auxiliary police? Researcher on women and memory issues Tamara Vidaurrázaga responds: “Essentialism says that we are naturally good; perhaps that is why it is difficult to see them as women who chose to do evil.” Ingrid Olderock Bernhard is a prominent figure in this bestiary.

She held leadership responsibilities and stood out as an instructor of dogs used to rape imprisoned women and men. The December 2004 edition of El Siglo referred to the “female hierarchy” of torture. Doctor and survivor María Isabel Matamala has testified that she was detained and tortured by Osvaldo Romo and that among the male interrogators was a woman nicknamed “the commander,” whose name was Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández.

In October 1991, journalist Gladys Díaz, a survivor of Villa Grimaldi, wrote a chronicle for the magazine Análisis titled Where are the 'dinos' of yesterday today? In it, she referred to the female leftist militants whom the DINA turned into collaborators “under atrocious duress”: Marcia Merino , the “flaca Alejandra,” and Luz Arce .

Gladys established that these two had begun to collaborate with procedural investigations, unlike “Carola”— María Alicia Uribe Gómez —who, up until that moment, remained a DINE official. Nurses causing death.

In the cross-referencing of lists of female agents, there are easily a hundred names. But some stand out and appear repeatedly. María Teresa Osorio Navarro , alias “Soledad” or “negra,” who served as Miguel Krassnoff’s secretary.

In the Brigada Purén, the detective Ximena San Juan, Elsa del Transito Lagos Salazar, and Nancy Edulia Vásquez Torrejón , alias “La Pelusa,” appear with various functions. In the Agrupación Halcón II of the Brigada Caupolicán was María Gabriela Órdenes , alias “Marisol.” In that extensive list are Nélida Gutiérrez Rivera , who was Contreras’s secretary and lover, and Viviana Pincetti Gaca , daughter of Osvaldo the hypnotist.

There were female agents who officiated or were nurses. For example, María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada , who was part of the DINA’s health brigade, and Gladis Calderón , who injected lethal drugs into male and female prisoners.

Both were prosecuted, and despite the gravity of their crimes, neither is currently serving a sentence. Prostitutes and companions. For journalist Manuel Salazar, the subject of the DINA-CNI women is still pending a thorough investigation. “For example, there was a FACH intelligence brigade headed by ‘La Pochi’— Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval —formed to infiltrate and obtain information in exchange for sexual favors.

Furthermore, many of them later paired up with uniformed personnel.” Another case is that of agent Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán , alias “La Pepa,” whose task at the José Domingo Cañas torture house was to select and instruct female agents who were to use seduction to obtain information.

Protection networks. In the concealment of these dozens of female agents, it is not only family networks that have functioned; others with multiplied means and capabilities are also operating. This is confirmed by investigative journalist Manuel Salazar. “I believe that several of the most important torturers have had very good protection networks, and naval intelligence has excelled in that.

The Navy has made its personnel involved in abuses and human rights violations invisible.” When there is no justice, there is a funa. Julio Oliva of the Comisión Funa points out: “Next October we will celebrate 20 years of activism against impunity.

Of the nearly 300 funas, four have been against female torturers: Italia Vaccarella Gilio, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, and Ema Ceballos. In addition to Luz Arce. And in Australia, coordinated with the community there, Adriana Rivas.” With an average age lower than their male colleagues, and surely with greater ease in altering their appearance, today they are simply “slipping through” among so many male agents.

It is even very possible that they collect their pensions as former officials of the uniformed institutions and are even doting grandmothers, as is the case with agent Luisa Mónica Lagos, or “Liliana Walker,” who enjoys her golden years in the United States.

Now, it only remains to be seen how the extradition request for Adriana Rivas will be resolved; at least her niece is now clear about who her aunt “Chany” really was.

Source: cooperativa.cl, February 25, 2019

Former CNI agents convicted for fake shootout

The events occurred in the Quinta Normal commune on September 7, 1983. The visiting judge sentenced Roberto Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles González Cortés to 20 years in prison. For their responsibility in the homicides of Alejandro Salgado Troquián and Hugo Ratier Noguera, the extraordinary visiting judge for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez Plaza, convicted 23 former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI).

The events occurred in the Quinta Normal commune on September 7, 1983, and were reported at the time as a shootout, which turned out to be fake. Judge Vázquez sentenced Roberto Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles González Cortés to 20 years in prison .

Meanwhile, former agents José Aravena Ruiz, José Salas Fuentes, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, Egon Barra Barra, Jorge Vargas Bories, Norman Jeldes Aguilar, Fernando Rojas Tapia, Manuel Morales Acevedo, Sergio Canals Baldwin, and José Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crimes.

Convicted as accomplices to 10 years and one day in prison were Raúl Méndez Santos, Rodolfo Olguín González, Ema Ceballos Núñez, Miguel Gajardo Quijada, Rosa Ramos Hernández, Francisco Orellana Seguel, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Escobar Díaz, Rafael Ortega Gutiérrez, and Luis Gálvez Navarro.

During the investigation of the case, Judge Vázquez was able to establish that Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián died from bullet impacts received in the back, after agents of the CNI, the Chilean Investigative Police, and other repressive agencies began firing without any provocation and with great firepower against the property located at 5707 Janequeo Street.

Source: eldinamo.cl, July 22, 2019

Supreme Court convicts seven CNI agents for qualified homicide in Recoleta

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber sentenced Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, Jorge Jofré Rojas, Víctor Ruiz Godoy, José Salas Fuentes, and Carlos Palma López to 10 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crime.

The Supreme Court accepted a cassation appeal and, in a replacement sentence, convicted seven agents of the defunct Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the qualified homicide of Juan Antonio Díaz Cliff.

The crime was perpetrated on April 18, 1986, in the Recoleta commune. In a unanimous ruling (case file 13.364-2019), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Leopoldo Llanos, Roberto Contreras, and acting lawyers María Cristina Gajardo and Carolina Coppo—established an error of law in the appealed sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, for accepting the mitigating circumstance of the defendants' irreproachable prior conduct.

The highest court confirmed the appealed sentence, with the declaration that agents Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, Jorge Enrique Jofré Rojas, Víctor Eulogio Ruiz Godoy, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, and Carlos Palma López are sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, Eduardo Avelino Fuenzalida Pérez and Ema Ceballos Núñez must serve 5 years and one day in prison for their responsibility as accomplices. “It has been understood that the ground for nullity under examination occurs when the defect consists of a lack of factual or legal considerations, a situation that occurs, in the same way, when those considerations are contradictory or destroy each other, a situation that is noted from the study of the background,” the ruling maintains.

The resolution adds: “Indeed, the first-instance sentence, in its 31st motive, after recognizing the mitigating circumstance of irreproachable prior conduct for all the accused, states ‘without qualification due to lack of merit for it,’ while the appellate ruling, which reproduces that of the a quo without eliminating or modifying that statement, in its 13th basis expresses the following: ‘That having said the above, it is not possible to ignore that the accused Jofré Rojas, Ruiz Godoy, Salas Fuentes, and Palma López were Army non-commissioned officers, while Ema Ceballos Núñez was an administrative employee of the Navy with the rank of 2nd-class seaman, who were assigned to perform functions—when none of them were over 30 years old—at the Central Nacional de Informaciones, an organization in which their hierarchy was that of subordinates whose capacity for resistance or disobedience was reduced. Treating it as a repressive organ that systematically engaged in the perpetration of crimes, where the aforementioned sentenced individuals had few possibilities to reject their commission or to abstain from doing wrong, there are reasons to suppose that the execution of this illicit act was fostered by extraordinary circumstances that altered the capacity for self-determination and, therefore, it is feasible to weigh the mitigating circumstance of irreproachable conduct that favors them as highly qualified.’” For the Supreme Court: “(…) by reproducing in the analysis the 31st motive of the first-instance ruling, it becomes part of it, which means that the same resolution affirms on one hand that there is no merit to accept the qualification of the mitigating circumstance of irreproachable prior conduct and, on the other, that there is, providing reasons to support it; an antinomy that ultimately deprives this part of the ruling of foundation, preventing any citizen, and especially the relatives of the victim in the case, from understanding the reason why the sentencers accept the requested qualification and apply the consequent punitive reduction.” “It is manifest, then, that the questioned sentence contains antagonistic motivations that cannot coexist, which leads to the annulment of those reasonings, leaving the ruling, regarding the qualification of the mitigating circumstance of Article 11 N° 6 of the Penal Code and the reduction of one degree of the sentence for the accused, devoid of the foundation required in Article 500 N° 4 and 5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with which the formal cassation defect provided for in N° 9 of Article 541 of the aforementioned legal body is configured, a defect that, furthermore, has had a substantial influence on the operative part of the ruling, since had it not been committed, the sentence could not have been reduced by one degree when only one mitigating circumstance concurred in favor of all the accused, which is why the appeal will be accepted,” it concludes. Therefore, it is resolved in the replacement sentence that: “the appealed sentence of March 21, 2018, is confirmed, with the following declarations: I.- That Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, Jorge Jofré Rojas, Víctor Ruiz Godoy, José Salas Fuentes, and Carlos Palma López are sentenced to the penalty of ten years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree and the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and positions and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and the payment of court costs, as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Juan Antonio Díaz Cliff, committed on April 18, 1986, provided for and sanctioned in Article 391 N° 1, first and fifth circumstances of the Penal Code. II.- That Eduardo Fuenzalida Pérez and Ema Ceballos Núñez are sentenced to the penalty of five years and one day of major imprisonment in its minimum degree and the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and positions and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and the payment of court costs, as accomplices of the aforementioned crime. III.- That given the quantum of the corporal penalties imposed, all the sentenced individuals must serve them effectively, with credit given for the time they remained deprived of liberty and which has been recognized in the first-instance ruling.” In the first-instance resolution, visiting judge Mario Carroza established that: “On April 18, 1986, two teams of the Brigada Azul of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), at that time under the command of agent Krantz Bauer, one of them led by Jorge Jofré Rojas and the other by José Salas Fuentes, after tracking and surveillance of the Recoleta sector, decided to intercept a passerby who was walking along Gabriel Palma Street in that commune—Juan Antonio Díaz Cliff, a militant of the MIR—who at that moment was walking toward his home. In the operation, two of the agents from one of these teams, with the cover of two agents from the other team, got out of the vehicles that were transporting them and, upon seeing Díaz Cliff, drew firearms and fired at his body, hitting him five times; one of the projectiles perforated his right lung, causing severe anemia that finally caused his death.”

Source: pjud.cl, October 25, 2021

Santiago Court convicts 23 former CNI agents for murders in a fake shootout in 1983

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the first-instance sentence issued by Judge Miguel Vásquez Plaza on July 19, 2019, which convicted 23 former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the qualified homicide of Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) militants Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián.

The crimes were perpetrated on September 7, 1983, in a fake shootout on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune. In the ruling (case file 4741-2019), the Third Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Verónica Sabaj Escudero, Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, and Rodrigo Carvajal Schnettler—resolved to reject the appeals and cassation motions filed by some of the convicted individuals and to confirm the first-instance sentence with the declaration of reducing from 20 to 17 years in prison the sentences applied to former Army officers and former CNI leaders Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés , as co-perpetrators of the crime. The first of the convicted, Schmied Zanzi , served as head of the CNI’s Metropolitan Division; Corbalán Castilla was head of the Anti-Subversive Division; and Aquiles González acted as head of the Brigada Azul, specialized in the repression of the MIR. Meanwhile, former Army officers Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar and former agents José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Egon Antonio Barra Barra, Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, and José Isaías Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crimes. For their part, former agents Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Francisco Javier Orellana Seguel, Miguel Fernando Gajardo Quijada, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Boris Méndez Santos, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, and Rafael Ricardo Ortega Gutiérrez were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the crimes. In the case, the acquittal of agents Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, Jorge Raimundo Ahumada Molina, and Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza was decreed, as their participation in this event was not proven. Another person prosecuted in this case, former PDI agent Jorge Arnaldo Barraza Riveros , died during the course of the process; meanwhile, the prosecuted former Carabineros officer Miguel Ángel Patricio Soto Duarte remains a fugitive. This fake shootout was carried out by the CNI on the same day and immediately after it perpetrated the executions of three other MIR militants on Fuenteovejuna Street, in a criminal act also orchestrated as a fake shootout. Judicially, both events are processed as separate episodes, in circumstances where it was a single repressive operation. In the investigation of the repressive act, it was demonstrated that the dictatorship’s repressive organ developed a tracking and surveillance operation during the months prior on a group of MIR members who were acting in clandestinity in the resistance struggle against the tyrannical regime . With the data obtained from that prior observation, the CNI orchestrated the extermination operation that resulted in the detention of a dozen people, the attack and murder of the three residents of the house on Fuenteovejuna Street in the Las Condes commune, and then the attack and murder of two other militants in the house on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune. On September 7, 1983, dozens of agents from the CNI, SIFA, the Investigative Police, and other repressive agencies went to the address located at 5707 Janequeo Street, Quinta Normal commune, which had been under surveillance for several weeks, proceeding to surround and cordon off the place, and then, through the use of a base of fire and other weaponry, fired without any provocation and with great firepower against the property, as a result of which Hugo Ratier Noguera , 39 years old, was killed by various bullet wounds in the backyard of the home. Furthermore, upon arriving at the same home where he resided, Alejandro Salgado Troquián , 30 years old, was gunned down by multiple bullet wounds and executed on the public thoroughfare, that is, on Janequeo Street in front of number 5946. A minor, an adopted son of Salgado who resided in the home along with Salgado and Ratier, was a victim and witness to the events but managed to flee to neighboring houses in the middle of the shooting, thus saving his life and later denouncing the criminal attack.

Source: resumen.cl, November 18, 2021

In a resolution released today, the Concepción Court of Appeals ratified the sentences against 17 agents of the National Information Center (CNI) who were convicted in a first-instance ruling issued in May 2018 by Judge Carlos Aldana.

After more than four years of unjustified delays and obstructive maneuvers introduced by the criminals' defense attorneys, this stage of the proceedings, which had remained stagnant in the tangle of the courts, has been brought to a close.

The case, known as the "Vega Monumental Massacre" (docket No. 11-2009), substantiates the criminal investigation into the qualified homicides of seven militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) committed by agents of the defunct CNI on August 23 and 24, 1984, in a coordinated repressive action called "Operation Alfa Carbón," which took place in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia.

The repressive action culminated in the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, in the current commune of Hualpén; Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, in Concepción; Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros, in Los Ángeles; and Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente, Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, and Juan José Boncompte Andreu, in Valdivia.

In the ruling, the Sixth Chamber of the Concepción appellate court, composed of judges Rodrigo Cerda San Martín, Rafael Andrade Díaz, and Claudia Montero Céspedes, rejected the cassation appeals filed by the criminals' attorneys and confirmed the sentence convicting six former Army officers who operated as commanders within the CNI.

Former Army Brigadier Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, alias "Gitano," head of the CNI Regional Division at the time of the events, and former Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, alias "Faraón," head of the CNI Anti-Subversive Division, were sentenced to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrators of all the qualified homicides and to 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of illicit association.

Former Captain Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, alias "BJ," must serve a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison for the three homicides in Valdivia, and 5 years and one day as a co-perpetrator of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, who was the regional head of the CNI in Concepción at the time of the events, was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicides in Talcahuano, Concepción, and Los Ángeles. However, he was acquitted of the crime of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, regional head of the CNI in Valdivia and a material perpetrator of the crimes committed at Puente Estancilla, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Former Major Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, regional head of the CNI in Puerto Montt, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Meanwhile, agents Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, alias "Petete," and Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, alias "Vitoco," were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Luciano Aedo Arias committed in Hualpén.

Meanwhile, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, alias "Muñeca," Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, alias "Guatón Órdenes," Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Nelson Herrera Riveros, committed at Kilometer One of the road to Santa Juana, in the Idahue sector.

The only defendant and accused person whom Judge Aldana had indicted for the qualified homicide of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, committed at the Vega Monumental, the criminal Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, alias "Baretta," was acquitted by the judge.

Regarding Los Ángeles, the ruling states that Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, alias "Chico Pato," and José Artemio Zapata Zapata, alias "Huaso," must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros.

Regarding the events in Valdivia, Gerardo Meza Acuña, alias "Patitas," and Luis René Torres Méndez, alias "Negro Mario," were sentenced to 15 years and one day as co-perpetrators of two qualified homicides committed at Puente Estancilla, on the road to Niebla, against Rogelio Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Barrientos Matamala.

For this same event, Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow was sentenced to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

Finally, Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto and Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, alias "Flaca Cecilia," were sentenced to 10 years and one day as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, committed in the Teniente Merino neighborhood.

Three of the implicated criminals died in the period between the first-instance ruling and the Court's resolution: in September 2019, the convicted criminal José Zapata committed suicide; in July 2020, the also-convicted Gerardo Meza Acuña passed away; and in December 2021, "Baretta," Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, passed away.

Unusually, although he had not been convicted by Judge Aldana, his acquittal was appealed by the plaintiffs' attorneys.

It should be noted that during the course of the proceedings, Judge Aldana refused to prosecute Moraga Tresckow and Boehmwald Soto for illicit association, and in his first-instance ruling, he did not convict Mandiola Arredondo—the head of the CNI in Concepción and the manager of the concerted action of surveillance, tracking, and preparation for the operation that culminated in the August crimes, in which Mandiola also actively participated—for this offense.

Likewise, Judge Aldana refused to prosecute a dozen other implicated agents, a decision that was endorsed by the Concepción Court at the time.

Act of homage to the murdered militants. Concepción. Photograph by Natalia Figueroa.

Alfa Carbón

Precisely during the investigation stage, Judge Aldana was able to establish that in 1984, the head of the CNI in Concepción, Army Major Jorge Mandiola, received information regarding the re-articulation of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in the area, managing to detect some of its leaders.

After informing Army Colonel Marcos Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI Regional Division, and confirming the facts, the director of the CNI, General Humberto Gordon Rubio (now deceased), was informed. He determined that Army Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of the Anti-Subversive Division and the Regional leadership, should coordinate the operations to neutralize the members of the MIR who were operating between the Biobío and Los Ríos regions, naming these actions "Operation Alfa Carbón."

As a result, Corbalán Castilla ordered several teams, composed of agents from the various brigades of the Borgoño Barracks in Santiago—consisting of two or three people each and provided with transportation and funding by the Anti-Subversive Division—to travel to Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia to carry out the tasks ordered by the various commands in coordination with members of the CNI Regional divisions in those cities.

He also ordered his subordinate, Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, to establish himself in Valdivia, in charge of the teams brought from Santiago, to direct and carry out the operations in that region.

In parallel, and for the same purpose, Marcos Derpich Miranda ordered the head of the CNI barracks in Chillán, Héctor Reinoso Muñoz, to join his counterpart in Concepción; Mandiola and the head of Puerto Montt, Oscar Boehmwald, along with two agents from his unit, were ordered to report to the head of Valdivia, Moraga Tresckow, to support the respective operations.

Once in Concepción, the teams and commanders who arrived in the city, along with those from the region, met in the days leading up to August 23, 1984, at the CNI barracks located on Avenida Pedro de Valdivia, where they coordinated the actions to be carried out, led by Álvaro Corbalán, Joaquín Molina (deceased), and Marcos Derpich.

At that meeting, the decision was made to carry out various raids and arrests (without judicial warrants or legal proceedings) and that the fate of the detainees would depend on their degree of danger to the military regime prevailing in the country, assuming that some of them could end up dead.

This operation included repressive actions in Talcahuano and Concepción, as well as in Los Ángeles, Temuco, Valdivia, and other locations in the southern zone.

The Facts

On the morning of August 23, 1984, several CNI teams set up surveillance on three members of the MIR at the Plazoleta El Ancla in Talcahuano. One of them, Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, boarded a public bus heading toward the Hualpencillo sector, where he got off and tried to flee on foot.

He was intercepted by CNI members around noon at the corner of Grecia and Nápoles streets, where agent Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro shot him with a firearm he was carrying. As he fell wounded to the ground, agent Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices approached and finished him off with a burst from his AK-47 rifle.

The other two MIR members detected and monitored earlier in Talcahuano, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, boarded another bus heading to Concepción. They were followed by other CNI operational teams, who coordinated with the Carabineros along the way to intercept the bus—which was carrying passengers—in front of the Vega Monumental.

Upon the vehicle's arrival, CNI members intercepted the bus and ordered everyone to get off. When some refused, including the targets, they threw tear gas canisters.

When they descended, they shot Herrera and Lagos, causing them injuries. Lagos Rodríguez attempted to flee, so an agent shot him with the AK rifle he was carrying, causing his death on the spot.

For his part, Herrera Riveros was apprehended by CNI agents Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Luis Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos, who put him into one of their vehicles and headed to the Regional Hospital of Concepción for medical attention.

However, during the journey, Derpich Miranda ordered his execution, so they took him to kilometer 0.9 of the road to Santa Juana, where they took him out of the vehicle and Aravena Ruiz ordered Andaur Leiva to carry out the crime; he shot him in the forehead with his revolver, causing a craniocerebral gunshot wound that resulted in instant death.

Around 5:30 p.m. that same day, once CNI agents from Concepción José Zapata Zapata and Bruno Soto Aravena, who were following Mario Mujica Barros, along with several teams led by the late Karl Johans Bauer, followed the instructions of their chief Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, they approached Mujica Barros's home in the Orompello neighborhood of Los Ángeles.

They entered the property by surprise and violently, shooting the victim in the head while he was on the ground, causing his death.

Meanwhile, at around 4:00 p.m. on August 23, 1984, CNI operational teams that had arrived from Santiago, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, arrested Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Jaime Barrientos Matamala near the Las Ánimas Bridge in the city of Valdivia.

Subsequently, they crossed the Calle Calle River on a ferry and took them to the Estancilla Bridge, located on the road from Valdivia to Niebla, in the Torobayo sector. Traffic for all vehicles and persons had been previously cut off by the Carabineros, and while the detainees were handcuffed and blindfolded, the agents proceeded to execute them by order of Castro Muñoz, who fired along with agents Luis René Torres Méndez, Gerardo Meza Muñoz, and others not identified in the proceedings.

Likewise, the regional head of the CNI in Valdivia, Luis Moraga Tresckow, who had allegedly refused to shoot, finished them off following the repeated orders of Castro Muñoz. The victims received multiple projectile wounds, some of which struck Tapia de la Puente and Barrientos Matamala in the skull and thorax.

Subsequently, weapons were placed in the hands of the deceased to simulate a confrontation.

The following day, August 24, 1984, around 3:00 p.m., several CNI operational teams led by Patricio Castro Muñoz surrounded the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, located in the Teniente Merino neighborhood of Valdivia, entering to arrest Boncompte Andreu.

He tried to flee from his captors but was wounded by shots from Oscar Boehmwald Soto, falling to the ground, where Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez shot him in the head with her firearm, causing his death.

Source: resumen.cl, June 10, 2022

Supreme Court confirms sentences of 15 CNI agents for crimes of Operation Alfa Carbón

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentences imposed on 15 former agents of the National Information Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of seven militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), perpetrated on August 23 and 24, 1984, in a coordinated repressive action carried out in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia.

The operation was named "Operation Alfa Carbón" by the repressive organs, but is popularly known as the "Vega Monumental Massacre."

The repressive operation culminated on August 23 with the murder of 34-year-old Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, committed in the current commune of Hualpén; in Concepción, in front of the Vega Monumental, 30-year-old Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and 34-year-old Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez were killed.

That same day in Los Ángeles, 32-year-old Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros was murdered, and in Valdivia, 31-year-old Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente and 23-year-old Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala were executed.

The following day, 31-year-old Juan José Boncompte Andreu was executed. Furthermore, as part of the repressive offensive, dozens of people—militants and those resisting the dictatorship—were detained in the aforementioned cities and in other towns and localities in the south.

In a unanimous ruling (Case Roll 75.716-2022), the Second Chamber of the high court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito Cruz, Jorge Dahm Oyarzún, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, and acting lawyers Leonor Etcheberry C. and Gonzalo Ruz L.—rejected the cassation appeals in form and substance filed by eight of the convicted criminals and ruled out any error of law in the challenged sentence, which had been issued by the Court of Appeals of Concepción in June 2022 (Roll 325-2019).

That ruling had ratified the first-instance sentence issued in May 2018 (Roll 11-2009), which convicted the accused for their responsibility in the crimes.

The criminals

With this resolution, the Second Chamber confirms the sentence convicting the 15 former CNI agents; two others convicted in the first instance passed away during the course of the proceedings. The convicted include six former Army officers who operated as commanders in the CNI: former Brigadier Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, who at the time of the events was head of the CNI Regional Division, and former Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, head of the CNI Anti-Subversive Division.

Both were sentenced to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrators of all the qualified homicides and to 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of illicit association.

Former Captain Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, alias "BJ," must serve a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison for the three qualified homicides committed in Valdivia, and 5 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, who at the time of the events was the CNI regional head in Concepción, was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicides committed in Talcahuano, Concepción, and Los Ángeles.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, who at the time of the events was the CNI regional head in Valdivia and a material author of the crimes perpetrated at Puente Estancilla in Valdivia, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Former Major Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, regional head of the CNI in Puerto Montt, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the qualified homicide perpetrated in the city of Valdivia against Juan José Boncompte Andreu.

Meanwhile, agents Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro and Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Luciano Aedo Arias, committed in Hualpén.

José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Nelson Herrera Riveros, committed at Kilometer One of the Camino a Santa Juana, in the Idahue sector.

The only individual prosecuted and accused by the presiding judge Carlos Aldana for the qualified homicide of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, committed at the Vega Monumental—the criminal Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo—was acquitted by the judge. Later, during the course of the process, this individual passed away in December 2021.

Regarding the crime committed in Los Ángeles, agent Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros.

The other individual convicted in the first instance for this crime, José Artemio Zapata Zapata, committed suicide in September 2019. For the criminal acts committed in Valdivia, agent Luis René Torres Méndez was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the two qualified homicides committed at Puente Estancilla, on the road to Niebla, against Rogelio Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Barrientos Matamala.

For this same act, agent Gerardo Meza Acuña had also been sentenced in the first instance to the same penalty, but this individual passed away in July 2020. Finally, in addition to Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, committed in the Población Teniente Merino.

It should be noted that during the course of the process (Case Roll 11-2009), Judge Carlos Aldana refused to prosecute another dozen agents involved in the criminal acts, a decision that was endorsed at the time by the Concepción Court of Appeals.

Likewise, Judge Aldana refused to prosecute the involved officers Luis Moraga Tresckow and Oscar Boehmwald Soto for illicit association; and despite having indicted Jorge Mandiola Arredondo—the CNI head in Concepción and the architect of the concerted action of surveillance, tracking, and preparation for the operation that culminated in the August crimes, in which Mandiola Arredondo actively participated—he did not convict him for this specific crime.

Furthermore, the convicted criminal Patricio Castro Muñoz attempted to question the legality of the judicial process and his conviction, appealing last October to the Constitutional Court (TC) by invoking constitutional flaws in the trial and the conviction that affected him.

However, on January 9 of this year, the TC ruled the appeal presented by the criminal and his representative inadmissible, rejecting the petition.

Operation Alfa Carbón

During the investigation stage, it was established that at the beginning of 1984, the CNI head in Concepción, Major Jorge Mandiola, received information regarding the re-articulation of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in the area, managing to detect some of its leaders and a large number of militants and resistors.

After informing his superior, Colonel Marcos Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI Regional Division, and having confirmed the detection of the MIR organization in the south, they informed the CNI director, General Humberto Gordon Rubio (now deceased), who determined that Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of the Anti-Subversive Division, should coordinate with the Regional headquarters to carry out operations aimed at neutralizing the members of the MIR who were operating between the Biobío and Los Ríos regions, naming these actions "Operation Alfa Carbón."

As a result, Álvaro Corbalán ordered several teams—integrated by agents from different brigades of the Cuartel Borgoño (Blue, Yellow, Green, Brown, and Special) from Santiago, composed of two or three people and provided with transportation and funding by the Anti-Subversive Division—to move to Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, so that, in coordination with members of the CNI Regional units of those cities, they could carry out the tasks ordered by the various headquarters.

Likewise, Corbalán ordered his subordinate Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, deputy head of the Yellow Brigade, to establish himself in Valdivia, in charge of the teams brought from Santiago, to direct and carry out the operations in that region.

Similarly, he ordered Krantz Johans Bauer, deputy head of the Special Brigade, to establish himself in Los Ángeles to take charge of operational tasks, supported by joint teams from Santiago and the Regional units.

In parallel, and with the same purpose, Marcos Derpich Miranda ordered the head of the CNI barracks in Chillán, Héctor Reinoso Muñoz, and agents from his unit to integrate with their counterparts in Concepción, and for the head of Puerto Montt, Oscar Boehmwald, along with agents from his unit, to report to the head of Valdivia to support the repressive operations.

With the information accumulated through tracking, surveillance, and wiretaps, the CNI commanders decided to strike the final blow. In the days prior to the event, led by Álvaro Corbalán, Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (deceased), Marcos Derpich, and others, the commanders, chiefs, and teams that had arrived in the city, plus local agents, met at the CNI barracks located on Calle Bahamondes at Avenida Pedro de Valdivia in Concepción, where they coordinated the actions to be developed.

At that meeting, the decision was made to carry out various raids and detentions (without any judicial orders or proceedings in this regard) and that the fate of the detainees would depend on their degree of danger to the military regime prevailing in the country.

There, the CNI commanders established that MIR members would be eliminated, whether detained at the moment of "bursting" or executing the operation. This operation included repressive actions in Talcahuano and Concepción as well as in Los Ángeles, Temuco, Valdivia, and other localities in the southern zone.

The events

The date chosen by the CNI commanders was August 23, 1984. On the morning of the 23rd, in Concepción, several CNI teams set up tracking operations on three members of the MIR, who converged at a restaurant located in the Plazoleta El Ancla in Talcahuano. They were Nelson Herrera, Mario Lagos, and Luciano Aedo.

Around noon, one of them, Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, boarded a public transport bus in the direction of the Hualpencillo sector where he resided. He got off the bus upon noticing the obvious surveillance and tried to flee on foot, being intercepted by CNI agents at the corner of Grecia and Nápoles streets.

At that moment, agent Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro shot him with a firearm he was carrying, and Luciano fell wounded to the ground; then, agent Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices approached the fallen man and finished him off with a burst of gunfire to the back from an AK-47 rifle.

A couple of hours later, and without perceiving what was happening outside, the other two MIR members detected and monitored at the restaurant in Talcahuano, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, boarded another bus heading to Concepción.

They were followed by other CNI operational teams, who coordinated with the Carabineros along the way to intercept the bus—which was carrying passengers—in front of the Vega Monumental.

When the vehicle arrived at that location, the CNI members intercepted the bus and ordered everyone to get off. When some people refused, including those being pursued, they threw tear gas bombs inside the bus, forcing an evacuation.

Once the passengers had disembarked, the two MIR members got off the bus with their hands raised, but the CNI agents immediately fired at Herrera and Lagos, causing them wounds. Mario Lagos tried to flee, so an agent shot him with the AK rifle he was carrying, causing his death on the spot.

For his part, Nelson Herrera Riveros was apprehended by CNI agents Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Luis Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos, who put him into one of their vehicles and—as part of the setup—announced aloud that they were heading to the Regional Hospital of Concepción for the detainee's wounds to be treated.

However, they deviated from the route and took him to kilometer 0.9 of the road to Santa Juana, where they took him out of the vehicle and Aravena Ruiz ordered Andaur Leiva to execute the crime; the latter shot him with his revolver in the forehead, causing a gunshot wound to the skull and brain that caused instant death, just as Derpich Miranda had ordered them to do over the radio.

To complete the farce, the executioners headed to the Regional Hospital with the murdered man and admitted him through the emergency room, already deceased. The agents left Nelson Herrera at the hospital handcuffed behind his back. They returned later to release and recover the handcuffs.

Los Ángeles

In Los Ángeles, around 5:30 p.m. on the same day, the 23rd, once the CNI agents from Concepción, José Zapata Zapata and Bruno Soto Aravena, who were following Mario Mujica Barros, along with several teams led by the deceased Krantz Johans Bauer, followed the instructions of their chief Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, they approached Mujica Barros's home in the Población Orompello in Los Ángeles.

They entered the property by surprise and violently, shooting the victim in the head while he was on the ground, causing his death.

Valdivia

Meanwhile, in Valdivia, around 4:00 p.m. on August 23, CNI operational teams that had arrived from Santiago, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, detained Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Jaime Barrientos Matamala near the Puente Las Ánimas in the city of Valdivia.

Subsequently, they crossed the Calle Calle River on a ferry and transported them to the Puente Estancilla, located on the road from Valdivia to Niebla, in the Torobayo sector.

At that location, where traffic for all vehicles and people had previously been cut off by Carabineros, and while the detainees were handcuffed and blindfolded, the agents proceeded to execute them by order of Castro Muñoz, who fired himself, along with agents Luis René Torres Méndez and Gerardo Meza Muñoz and others not identified in the process.

Likewise, the CNI regional head of Valdivia, Luis Moraga Tresckow, who in principle had refused to shoot, finished them off with shots from his weapon following the imperative order of Castro Muñoz. The victims received multiple projectile wounds, some of which struck Tapia de la Puente and Barrientos Matamala in the skull and thorax.

Subsequently, weapons were placed in the hands of the deceased to simulate a confrontation.

The following day, August 24, around 3:00 p.m., several CNI operational teams, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, surrounded the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, located on Calle Rubén Darío in the Población Teniente Merino in Valdivia, entering to eliminate Boncompte Andreu. He tried to flee from his captors through the backyard of the house, being wounded by Oscar Boehmwald Soto.

In the backyard, other agents were lying in ambush and also fired at him; once on the ground, agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez finished him off by shooting him in the head with her firearm, ensuring his death. Juan José Boncompte received 22 bullet impacts.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, March 5, 2024

Supreme Court confirms convictions of 22 CNI agents for crimes in a fake confrontation in Quinta Normal in September 1983

The Supreme Court confirmed the convictions of 22 agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified homicide of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) militants Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián. The crimes were perpetrated on September 7, 1983, in a staged shootout on Calle Janequeo in the commune of Quinta Normal, in Santiago.

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the high court (case file 10.047-2022)—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, Jean Pierre Matus, and acting lawyers Gonzalo Ruz L. and Leonor Etcheberry C.—dismissed claims of legal error in the sentence and rejected the appeals for cassation on form and substance filed by almost all of the convicted individuals against the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals, issued in November 2021, which had in turn confirmed, with some modifications, the first-instance ruling issued in July 2019 by minister Miguel Vásquez Plaza.

In the resolution, the Second Chamber confirms the sentences applied to former Army officers and former CNI leaders Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, who are sentenced to 17 years in prison as co-authors of the crime.

The first of the convicted, Schmied Zanzi, served as head of the CNI’s Metropolitan Division; Corbalán Castilla was head of the Anti-Subversive Division, and Aquiles González acted as head of the Blue Brigade, which specialized in the repression of the MIR.

Meanwhile, former Army officers and CNI operatives Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and former agents José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Egon Antonio Barra Barra, Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, and José Isaías Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as authors of the crimes.

For their part, former agents Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Francisco Javier Orellana Seguel, Miguel Fernando Gajardo Quijada, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Boris Méndez Santos, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, and Rafael Ricardo Ortega Gutiérrez were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the crimes.

Agent Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, also convicted in previous instances, passed away during the course of the proceedings.

Staged Shootout

On September 7, 1983, dozens of agents from the CNI, the SIFA, the Investigative Police, and other repressive agencies went to the residence located at Calle Janequeo No. 5707, in the commune of Quinta Normal, which had been under surveillance for several weeks.

They proceeded to surround and cordon off the area, then, using a base of fire and other weaponry, fired without any provocation and with great firepower against the property. As a result, Hugo Ratier Noguera was killed by various gunshot wounds in the backyard of the home.

Simultaneously, as he was arriving at the neighborhood and the same residence where he lived, militant Alejandro Salgado Troquián was gunned down by multiple gunshot wounds and executed on the public thoroughfare, specifically on Calle Janequeo in front of number 5946, two blocks from the attacked house.

Hugo Norberto Ratier Noguera, 39 years old, was of Argentine nationality, originally from Misiones, and had resided in Chile since 1970. He was a leader of the MIR and remained active in the underground.

He was married and a father of three; shortly before these events, his wife and children had left the country for security reasons. Alejandro Salgado Troquián, 30 years old, a veterinarian by profession and also a MIR militant, was married and a stepfather to his partner's children.

A minor, the adopted son of Salgado and a resident of the home along with Salgado and Ratier, was a victim and witness to the events, but in the midst of the gunfire, he managed to flee to neighboring houses, thus saving his life and later reporting the criminal attack.

This staged shootout was carried out by the CNI on the same day and immediately following the execution of three other MIR militants on Calle Fuenteovejuna, in the commune of Las Condes, in a criminal act also orchestrated as a staged shootout where Arturo Vilavella Araujo, Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela, and Sergio Peña Díaz were murdered.

The three had returned clandestinely to Chile to join the struggle against the dictatorship. Judicially, both events are processed as separate episodes, despite the fact that it was a single repressive operation.

In the investigation of the repressive act, it was demonstrated that the dictatorship's repressive apparatus developed a tracking and surveillance operation during the months prior against a group of MIR members who were acting in the underground in the resistance struggle against the tyrannical regime.

With the data obtained from this prior observation, the CNI orchestrated the extermination operation that resulted in the detention of a dozen people, the attack and murder of the three residents of the house on Calle Fuente Ovejuna, and then the attack and murder of two other militants at the house on Calle Janequeo in the commune of Quinta Normal.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, January 27, 2024

Murderers and torturers: the ten agents of the Pinochet dictatorship who committed shocking crimes

They shot people who were already immobilized, threw boiling oil on a pregnant woman, used chemical weapons—such as sarin gas and botulinum toxin—and perpetrated terrorist attacks in Washington, Rome, and Buenos Aires.

Some were convicted and remain in Punta Peuco; others died without even being questioned by the justice system, such as Ingrid Olderöck, the woman with the dog that raped prisoners. These are ten agents who executed terrifying crimes during the dictatorship that began exactly 52 years ago.

This Thursday, September 11, marks 52 years since the coup d'état that brought to power the civil-military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet. This new anniversary finds public opinion exposed to a campaign, mainly on social media, in which some sectors claim that authoritarian government was a positive social, political, and economic period.

As a contribution to historical memory and the deepening of democracy, CIPER publishes the actions of the ten agents who, in our opinion, committed the most terrible crimes of the dictatorship. The lists of repressive agents and the records of their crimes can be reviewed on the "Papeles de la Dictadura" (Dictatorship Papers) platform, an initiative of CIPER and the CIP of the Universidad Diego Portales, in which more than 4,000 original documents related to that period have been registered.

Although supporters of that regime, which lasted until March 1990, often justify these actions as having been executed to confront far-left political-military groups, the truth is that, as judicial investigations cited in this article have shown, both the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and its successor, the National Intelligence Center (CNI), quickly turned to the kidnapping, torture, and murder of all types of opponents, including pregnant women and minors.

Rapes with dogs, electricity to the genitals, beatings on the soles of the feet and ears, electric shocks on electrified bed frames, mock executions, immersion in dirty water, and acid burns are part of the arsenal executed by the agents of these organizations. And this is the story.

KRASSNOFF AND A PREGNANT WOMAN BURNED WITH OIL

Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, known as "El Ruso," was born on February 15, 1946, in Tyrol, Austria. The son of Semión, a Don Cossack, and Dhyna, a Kuban Cossack, his family emigrated to Chile after World War II.

He joined the Army in 1963 and participated in the assault on the Tomás Moro presidential residence during the 1973 coup d'état. In the first months of 1974, he was sent to the School of the Americas in Panama, where he trained in urban counterinsurgency. Upon his return to Chile, he joined the DINA's Caupolicán Brigade, dedicated to the execution, disappearance, and torture of civilians.

He participated in the confrontation that culminated in the murder of MIR leader Miguel Enríquez. He was a protagonist in various crimes. One of the most chilling was the torture and murder of Mónica Pacheco, a woman three months pregnant, who was burned with boiling water and oil, as corroborated by the justice system.

Despite his extensive criminal record, he remained in the Army until 1998, when he retired. Today, he is incarcerated in the Punta Peuco prison, where he is serving more than a thousand years in prison for his multiple crimes.

In these years of imprisonment, Krassnoff has received two public tributes. The first was organized, at the end of 2011, by the then-mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé. The last was held in 2018 at the Military School.

In an interview with T13, current presidential candidate José Antonio Kast said that he had met Krassnoff during a visit to Punta Peuco. "I had the opportunity to cross paths with him. He gave me his book and presents his version of the facts. I know Miguel Krassnoff and, seeing him, I don't believe all the things that are said about him," he said.

MOREN BRITO AND THE TERROR OF VILLA GRIMALDI

Colonel Marcelo Moren Brito, known as "El Ronco" or "El Coronta," participated in key operations of the dictatorship from September 11, 1973, when he commanded the assault on the State Technical University, today the University of Santiago (USACH).

Two weeks later, the then-captain joined the Caravan of Death, an operation led by General Sergio Arellano Stark that murdered 93 political prisoners held in prisons distributed between Puerto Montt and Pisagua.

Moren Brito continued his career as commander of the clandestine detention facility Villa Grimaldi, a true extermination center where the vast majority of detainees were murdered after extensive torture sessions.

Located in the commune of Peñalolén, in Santiago, Moren Brito personally interrogated various people subjected to torture there. At Villa Grimaldi, one of the most common forms of painful abuse was the "parrilla" (grill): detainees, men and women, were stripped, laid down, and tied to a metal bed frame, and then subjected to electric shocks.

Judicial proceedings have proven that Moren Brito also integrated the DINA's Caupolicán Brigade, from which members of the Socialist Party, the MIR, and the MAPU were especially persecuted. As he himself acknowledged before the courts, during the dictatorship he was sent on missions abroad, which included, for example, teaching new forms of interrogation, through hypnosis, to members of the Paraguayan army, although in that testimony he shuns his responsibility and maintains that Villa Grimaldi may have been only a transit point for detainees.

He was sentenced to more than 300 years in prison. He died in the Military Hospital in 2015, coincidentally, on September 11.

OLDERÖCK, THE WOMAN WITH THE DOG

Carabineros officer Ingrid Olderöck left a dark memory among the men and women who passed through the clandestine detention barracks "Venda Sexy," because she trained a German shepherd, whom she called Volodia, and which she used to rape people held in that torture center, located in the house at Calle Irán 3037, in Macul, Santiago.

Olderöck was not only a field agent of the Purén Brigade of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), but she became the director of the Women's School of that criminal organization, a structure that trained about 70 women in political repression practices.

In August 1987, during the final years of the dictatorship, Olderöck gave an interview to the television of the Federal Republic of Germany, in which she admitted that torture took place in Chile, including the torture of children to obtain confessions from their parents, as she recounted.

She died with impunity on March 17, 2001, at the age of 57, due to acute gastrointestinal hemorrhage. She was never questioned by the justice system.

CORBALÁN, A SILVER GULL AND 25 MURDERS

Army officer Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, known as "El Faraón" or "Don Juan," served as an agent of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) during the dictatorship. During his time in that organization, he was involved in multiple cases of serious human rights violations. In fact, he has been convicted in various judicial instances as the author or co-author of the murder of more than 25 people.

In 1987, he led the so-called "Operation Albania," also known as the "Corpus Christi Massacre," an action in which CNI agents executed 12 members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) when they were already detained and defenseless.

Corbalán was also responsible in 1982 for the murder of union leader Tucapel Jiménez, a member of the Radical Party, who received 5 bullets in the skull, in addition to having his throat slit. To cover up this crime, Corbalán and his agents simulated the suicide of carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca, cutting the veins of both arms down to the bone, which proved it was not a suicide.

Juan Alegría was a worker with no political affiliation. For these crimes, Corbalán received a life sentence.

In addition, Corbalán participated in the murders of journalist José Carrasco, publicist Abraham Muskablit, painter Felipe Rivera, and architect Gastón Vidaurrázaga, which occurred in 1986.

At the beginning of the 1980s, he was in charge of security for the Viña del Mar International Song Festival and received from the appointed mayor of that commune, Eugenia Garrido, a Silver Gull "for his services rendered in defense of the fatherland."

Before being arrested and convicted, Corbalán was a member of the far-right political party Avanzada Nacional, of which he became president between August and November 1989.

MANUEL CONTRERAS, THE BRAIN OF DARKNESS

Holding the rank of Army colonel, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda came to have more power than the vast majority of the generals of that military branch who were on active duty after the coup d'état. "El Mamo," as his supporters and detractors called him, spread terror among Pinochet's opponents—whether they were supporters of subversive tactics or not—as head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the body that was born along with the dictatorship and was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of hundreds of people.

The men and women under the command of Contreras, an officer trained by U.S. soldiers under the National Security Doctrine at the School of the Americas in Panama, used torture such as the application of electricity to various parts of the body, beatings, broken arms, asphyxiation, and acid and cigarette burns, in addition to mock executions.

"El Mamo," who died in 2015 after being sentenced to more than 500 years in prison, also led the creation of Operation Condor, a joint initiative of the secret police of the contemporary dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which coordinated the capture and death of opponents throughout the subcontinent.

With at least 1,500 agents under his direct command and various clandestine detention centers to his credit, terrorist attacks were planned and executed from Contreras's office in Buenos Aires (against the former commander-in-chief of the Army, Carlos Prats, and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert), in Rome (against DC leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife, Ana Fresno), and in Washington (against former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his secretary, Ronni Moffitt).

In fact, the terrorist attack with double murder in the capital of the United States led to his persecution by that country and, eventually, the dissolution of the DINA in 1978 and the opening of the Letelier Case in Chile, a process that ended up sending him to prison.

However, Contreras's power was not only operational. Documentation available in the "Papeles de la Dictadura" of CIPER shows that the DINA was also responsible for approving all hiring in the State, in addition to coordinating the internal war plans of each ministry, by order of Pinochet himself.

TOWNLEY AND HIS TERRORIST BOMBS

The American Michael Townley Welch was an agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) who participated in various murders inside and outside Chile. To avoid prison, he joined the United States Federal Witness Protection Program because he provided information to that country's justice system about his participation in the explosive terrorist attack perpetrated in Washington in 1976 against former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his secretary, Ronni Moffitt.

The son of a Ford Motor Company executive based in Chile since 1957, Townley studied at Saint George’s College and lived in the exclusive neighborhoods of Los Dominicos and Lo Curro. Before the justice systems of the United States, Chile, and Argentina, he confessed separately to his participation in terrorist attacks executed by order of the dictatorship in America and Europe.

He also revealed how the civil-military regime used chemical weapons to murder opponents.

Townley's secret statements to the FBI were published in 2023 by the National Security Archive of the United States, including a letter written in his own hand in 1978: "If there has been sufficient motive to open this envelope, I accuse the Government of Chile of my death," he wrote on that paper.

Those declassified documents revealed a frustrated assassination operation in Paris against socialist leader Carlos Altamirano and MIR leaders, as well as details of the manufacture of sarin gas in his house in Lo Curro, where he lived with writer Mariana Callejas.

Those declassified documents also provided information on how the Spanish UN official, Carmelo Soria, was beaten to death by agents of the DINA's Mulchén Brigade in the garden of Townley's house, as well as information on the latter's role in recruiting the Italian fascists who shot at Bernardo Leighton and his wife in Rome.

EMA CEBALLOS, "LA FLACA CECILIA"

Ema Ceballos Núñez, known as "La Flaca Cecilia," was a Navy agent who worked for the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and later for the National Intelligence Center (CNI). She was recruited by Carabineros officer Ingrid Olderöck and stood out for her operational participation in several crimes.

In 2017, at 70 years old, she became the first woman in Chile to enter prison to serve a sentence for a human rights violation case. On that occasion, she was sentenced to ten years and one day in prison for the qualified kidnapping of Julián Peña Maltés, which occurred in 1987, a member of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) who remains disappeared to this day.

In 2024, she was convicted as a co-author of the homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, to whom intelligence services attributed the status of regional head of the MIR in Valdivia in those years. According to the Supreme Court ruling, Ema Ceballos shot Boncompte in the skull during a pursuit, when he was already down and wounded by gunfire.

"I followed orders," she said, in writing, to El Mercurio in her only contact with the press.

BERNARDO DAZA, MURDERER OF THE PLASTIC BAG

Bernardo Daza Navarro was a non-commissioned officer in the Chilean Navy and an agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) during the dictatorship. He was part of the Lautaro Brigade, a DINA unit that was responsible for the detention, torture, and murder of numerous leaders and militants of the Communist Party.

Among the best-known victims of this brigade is Víctor Díaz, general secretary of the PC in the underground, who was arrested in May 1976 and murdered months later, when Daza suffocated him with a plastic bag, as reconstructed by the justice system.

Daza Navarro was also involved in the Calle Conferencia Case, in which the DINA dismantled the leadership of the PC. In that operation, carried out in May 1976, several communist leaders were detained and disappeared, including Jorge Muñoz, Mario Zamorano, Uldarico Donaire, and Jaime Donato.

In 2007, Judge Víctor Montiglio prosecuted Daza Navarro and six other former uniformed officers for their responsibility in the kidnapping and homicide of Víctor Díaz. He died in 2016 while serving his sentence in Punta Peuco. Due to his death, he was dismissed from the other cases in which his name appeared.

FIFO PALMA, THE MAN FROM PATRIA Y LIBERTAD

César Palma Ramírez, known as "El Fifo," was a civilian employee of the Chilean Air Force (FACh) and an agent of the Joint Command during the dictatorship. He committed his first crimes before the coup d'état, as a member of the far-right terrorist group Patria y Libertad.

In that capacity, he participated in the murder of President Salvador Allende's aide-de-camp, Navy Captain Arturo Araya, an event that occurred on July 27, 1973.

Palma Ramírez later joined the Joint Command, an intelligence unit created by the FACH, where he participated in numerous human rights violations. Among these are the kidnapping and disappearance of former communist councilman Carlos Contreras Maluje and the homicides of fellow Joint Command agents Carol Flores and Guillermo Bratti.

He was arrested by the Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police in 2008, while he was hiding in a trailer in the Araucanía Region. He died in 2016.

FUENTES MORRISON AND 39 FATAL VICTIMS

Roberto Fuentes Morrison, known as "El Wally," was a commander in the Chilean Air Force and an agent of that military branch's intelligence service (SIFA) during the dictatorship.

From mid-1974, he acted as one of the main torturers in the basements of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) War Academy, under the orders of Colonel Edgard Cevallos Jones. That was the place where "they tortured all day and all night," according to former agent Andrés Valenzuela.

As head of operations for the Joint Command, he was responsible for numerous detentions, kidnappings, torture, disappearances, and murders. His fatal victims total 39 people, including Miguel Rodríguez Gallardo, Arsenio Leal Pereira, Gustavo Castro Hurtado, Alonso Gahona Chávez, Luis Moraga Cruz, and Francisco Ortiz Valladares.

The torture methods used by the Joint Command, where Fuentes Morrison was one of the heads, included beatings, hanging, application of electricity to the genitals, stripping, and sexual abuse.

On June 9, 1989, already in retirement, he was murdered in an FPMR attack outside his home in Ñuñoa, Santiago. He was ambushed by two subjects who shot him 14 times.

by Mauricio Weibel Barahona

Source: ciper.cl, September 9, 2025