Political Affiliation: Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), President of the Rayonhil Industry Workers' Union. Member of the Revolutionary Workers' Front (FTR). Date of Detention: September 12, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada, married, father of 2, President of the Rayonhil Industry Workers' Union and a member of the MIR, was detained on September 12, 1973, around 9:30 p.m., at his home in Llo-Lleo.

The detention was carried out in the presence of his wife and young children by a military patrol traveling in a truck. Also in the vehicle, as detainees, were Juan Antonio Betancourt, Jacob Tapia Román, and a person surnamed Farías.

During his detention, Ceferino Santis was held in various facilities. He was first taken to the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment, whose commander was the then-Army Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda.

He was later taken to the Carabineros Police Station in the Barrancas sector of San Antonio, and from this police facility, he was transferred to the Public Jail, where he remained until October 4, 1973, being taken out on several occasions for interrogations at Tejas Verdes.

On one occasion, he was also taken to the San Antonio Investigations Headquarters. Finally, the victim was forcibly disappeared on October 5, 1973, from the Tejas Verdes Regiment, along with five other detainees: Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Gustavo Farías Vargas, and Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa.

The body of the latter was found at the mouth of the Rapel River and was the only one identified and returned to his family. The bodies of Víctor Mesina and Jorge Luis Ojeda were also found in the Rapel River; they were buried in the San Antonio Parish Cemetery by judicial order without the knowledge of their respective families.

As of December 1991, the remains of the two aforementioned men had not yet been exhumed. Regarding the victim, it was rumored that he had been thrown into the sea.

Ceferino Santis was seen in his various places of detention by numerous witnesses, who provided their testimonies and appeared to testify before the Court.

Juana Farías Nilo—the victim's spouse—began searching for her husband immediately, finding him a couple of days after his detention in the San Antonio Jail, where he was held in the general population. She visited him and brought him food. His niece, María Lidia Santis, also saw him in the jail, albeit from a distance, and he signaled to her that he was doing well.

On October 4, 1973, around 1:00 a.m., two civilians arrived at the victim's home and proceeded to detain his spouse, Juana Farías. They told her to bring a blanket, put her in a light-colored jeep, and drove her to the Tejas Verdes Regiment.

There, they left her in a second-floor office and ordered the victim to be brought in. The person giving the orders was a heavy-set civilian, about 45 years old, dark-skinned, with some gray hair. When the victim entered, they sat him a few meters from the witness.

Both spouses were interrogated regarding a mimeograph machine they had at home, which she had previously given to two young men. The victim told her to tell them everything because "he was already in deep trouble." The interrogation was short. Juana Farías was released with a warning not to tell anyone what had happened.

The next day, she went to the San Antonio Jail, where she was informed that the victim had been transferred to Tejas Verdes. She then went to that military facility, where they told her he had just been returned to the jail.

She went back to the jail, where they informed her that he had been released. As he did not return home, Juana Farías appeared once more at the Regiment, where they insisted he was free.

Faced with this situation, she managed, days later, to get an audience with the Regiment Commander, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, who did nothing more than tell her that Ceferino Santis had been released on October 6, 1973, showing her a notebook signed by the victim.

Days later, at the San Antonio Jail, the witness was given her spouse's blanket, coat, watch, and notebook. As an explanation, they told her they were returning his things because he had been released.

Simultaneously with these events, numerous detainees witnessed the victim being moved through various facilities. Juan Antonio Betancourt Román was detained at his home in Llolleo on September 12, 1973, at 9:00 p.m., by military personnel.

Placed in a military truck that also carried Jacob Tapia Román and a person surnamed Farías, they went to the victim's home, where he was also detained. From the beginning—the witness noted—Santis was the one who received the most violent treatment.

The group was taken to the Tejas Verdes Regiment, where they were left outside the Officers' Club, kneeling with their hands behind their necks. They remained there for 2 to 3 hours. After this time, and without any information being taken from them, they were transferred to the Carabineros Police Station in the Barrancas sector of San Antonio.

At the police facility, the Carabineros took their identity cards and other personal belongings, placing them in a cell where, during the night, more detainees arrived, including some workers from Rayonhil. They were not provided with water or food and had to urinate in the same cell. In total, there were about 14 detainees.

Around midnight on September 14, 1973, they were taken out of the police station—the witness recalls—their documents and belongings were returned, and they were forced to sign a book in the presence of a Carabineros Captain who told them, "at least let there be a record that you left here alive." For about half an hour, they remained standing in the plaza in front of the facility, guarded by about 60 armed Carabineros.

From there, they were taken on foot to the San Antonio Jail.

In the penal facility, which they entered in the early hours of September 14, they were put into a collective cell that was almost empty, where, subsequently, detainees from various places began to arrive.

In the first days of October—for the second time—Juan Antonio Betancourt was taken out of the jail and driven to Tejas Verdes. On this occasion, he was taken along with Ceferino Santis, Juan Donoso, and Hernán Fredes.

The transfer was made in a 3/4-ton refrigerated truck. They were left in a large cell, where they remained standing for about two hours. The witness was taken to another room, where he was interrogated and tortured. Around 5:00 p.m., they were all returned to the jail.

Subsequently, Juan Antonio Betancourt learned from his nephew, Nelson Méndez—now deceased—who in 1973 had been a Sergeant at the Tejas Verdes Regiment, that Ceferino Santis and Luis Norambuena Fernandois (currently a forcibly disappeared person), while wounded and tied up, had been thrown into the sea from a helicopter off the coast of San Antonio.

Manuel Felipe Hover Medina, who was detained on September 22, 1973, at the Tejas Verdes Regiment, saw the victim in the San Antonio Jail. The witness, who, like the victim, lived in Llo-Lleo, was summoned by a military decree (Bando).

Upon presenting himself, he was detained at Tejas Verdes and placed in the sector known as "the pigeon coop" (la palomera), located at one end of the military facility. From there, he was transferred to the Tejas Verdes Detention Camp, then to the San Antonio Jail, where he remained until October 23, 1973.

In the jail, Manuel Felipe Hover was placed in a collective cell where about 70 detainees were held, overcrowded, sleeping two to a bunk and some on the floor. It was in this prison that the witness saw Ceferino Santis at the end of September 1973. One night, around 9:00 p.m., the victim was called out by name by the guards. He never heard from him again.

Héctor Freddy Silva Vergara—a Rayonhil worker detained on September 13, 1973, after being summoned by a military decree—saw Ceferino Santis in the San Antonio Jail, approximately on September 17. The victim, who was known as "El Chefo," told him that he had been detained for producing pamphlets and that he had been forced to admit to possessing a mimeograph machine because they had threatened to kill his entire family.

He sensed that they were going to kill him and asked the witness to give all his belongings to his eldest son, who was 3 years old. The declarant and the victim then spoke with the Warden, to whom Santis handed over his watch and wallet.

Subsequently, in the first days of October, at night, the victim was taken out of the jail to be taken to Tejas Verdes. Before leaving, Santis said goodbye to all the detainees in the collective cell. He was never seen again.

The witness Héctor Freddy Silva was transferred from the San Antonio Jail to Tejas Verdes on several occasions. In all of them, he was subjected to torture in the basement of the Officers' Club. On one occasion, he recognized one of his interrogators as a Carabineros Lieutenant surnamed Vargas.

Also, while being tortured, he perceived the presence of a doctor who proceeded to examine him. One of his torturers was the Chief of Investigations of San Antonio, Nelson Valdés.

Moisés Uldaricio Torres Rojas—a union leader who was detained on September 13, 1973, after being summoned by a military decree—stated that the military authorities had reported that both Ceferino Santis and Luis Norambuena Fernandois (forcibly disappeared) had been released.

However, the witness learned that both had been thrown into the sea off the mouth of the Maipo River. He added that one of these bodies reached the beach, but the military proceeded to throw it back into the water using a helicopter.

Santis was also seen in the San Antonio Jail by José Joel Muñoz Vergara and Mario López Cisternas. The latter witness was in the same collective cell with him and remembers that he was taken out several times to Tejas Verdes, always returning in poor physical condition, until he was taken out one night and never returned.

In the prison, word spread that he had been executed by firing squad. For his part, Angel Antonio Rubio Salas declared that Ceferino Santis, prior to September 11, 1973, had participated in the drafting of a document denouncing the then-Army Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda for the food distribution problems that existed in the area.

The victim himself took said document to Radio Sargento Aldea in San Antonio. Subsequently, the witness saw Santis in the city's jail, from where he was taken out, never to be heard from again. Jorge Manuel Silva Huerta was also in the San Antonio Jail with the victim.

Former detainee Onofre Segundo Aguila Parra declared that he had been in the San Antonio Jail in the same gallery as the victim. They spoke on several occasions. Between October 5 and 10, 1973, at night, Santis was taken out of the gallery by soldiers whose faces were blackened and covered by ski masks.

He never learned of his whereabouts. Mario Jacinto Márquez—former Warden of the San Antonio Jail, who testified before the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation and before the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio in 1990 and 1991, respectively—is another witness to the victim's stay in that penal facility.

The witness stated that on September 11, 1973, around 5:00 p.m., he was summoned to the Tejas Verdes Regiment. There, the Regiment Commander and Provincial Governor, Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, verbally instructed him to continue in his position as Warden of the Jail, telling him that, from that moment on, "prisoners of war" would begin to arrive and that, therefore, the common prisoners had to be immediately evacuated to the Melipilla Jail.

As the days went by, the prison, which had a capacity for 180 prisoners, became crammed with detainees, reaching about 300.

At first—the declarant noted—things were not very orderly regarding the entry of detainees, who brought an order signed by Military Judge David Miranda. However, later they began to be entered into the records according to the general rules of the Gendarmerie.

Every day, Army personnel would take out a certain number of detainees to transfer them to the Regiment. The transfer was carried out by a military patrol under the command of Sub-officer Carranca; often, Prosecutor Miranda also participated.

They moved in jeeps, trucks, and refrigerated vans that belonged to the two fishing companies in the area. As a general rule, the detainees were hooded. Later, the custom was lost because they also began to take them out to erase the political slogans that were painted on the street.

When the prisoners returned from the interrogations at Tejas Verdes, they were "a calamity," and the Gendarmerie officials became "the shoulder to cry on for the political prisoners."

The penal establishment was visited continuously by Prosecutor Miranda and Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda. An officer surnamed Quintana and Lieutenant Luis Carevic also used to arrive. On one occasion, the witness spoke with Manuel Contreras regarding the state in which the detainees returned from Tejas Verdes, but he showed no interest in listening to him.

A similar situation occurred when the execution of two Carabineros from Algarrobo was decided within the prison facility. Mario Jacinto Márquez opposed the execution in that place. However, the former DINA chief determined that the executions would be carried out anyway in the sector known as Las Brisas of the San Antonio Jail.

Regarding Ceferino Santis, the witness remembers that he indeed remained in the jail and that he was removed on several occasions by soldiers from Tejas Verdes, until he did not return. He did not know his fate, although when these events occurred, the version was circulated that those victims had left the country.

Regarding the victim's stay at the Tejas Verdes Regiment, the witnesses are also numerous. Julio Aníbal Chacón Hernández, who was detained on September 11, 1973, and taken first to Tejas Verdes and then to the San Antonio Jail, saw the victim in these two facilities.

He spotted Santis at the Regiment, and later he was with him in collective cell No. 7 of the prison establishment; he looked very scared and physically mistreated. He told him that they were investigating him for the matter of a mimeograph machine.

On one occasion, they took him out of the jail and he did not return. While he was in the penal facility, Chacón Hernández was taken out to erase political slogans, along with 13 other detainees. For her part, Ana Graciela Becerra Arce—detained on September 19, 1973, two months pregnant and only 17 years old, she was subjected to sexual abuse and torture, as well as beatings and electric shocks—saw the victim at the Tejas Verdes Regiment.

He was locked in a "container" along with other detainees.

Hernán Becerra Madrid also saw Ceferino Santis at Tejas Verdes, where—according to what the witness learned—his wife was even taken. Later, it was reported that he had been killed along with Florindo Vidal, Gustavo Farías, and Víctor Mesina, and that his body had been thrown into the sea and later found by a ship from Pesquera Chile.

The pilot had allegedly been forced by the military to return the remains to the sea.

Luis Alberto Sepúlveda Carvajal, in 1973, worked as an official at the Legal Medical Institute of San Antonio, assistant to the Medical Examiner, Dr. Julio Berdichesky. He testified before the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio in 1991 that on September 23, 1973, he was summoned from the morgue, located at the local hospital.

Upon arriving at his workplace, he saw six bodies on the floor, one on top of the other, among which were the remains of four maritime leaders of the San Antonio Stevedores Union (Héctor Rojo Alfaro, Samuel Núñez González, Armando Jiménez Machuca, and Guillermo Alvarez Cañas), a socialist leader, Raúl Enrique Bacciarini Zorrilla, and Fidel Alonso Bravo Alvarez. (All of them had been seen in poor physical condition, held, among other facilities, at the Tejas Verdes Regiment).

The bodies—as the witness verified—were almost destroyed by stab wounds and the bullet impacts they presented, due to their trajectory, had unequivocally been made post-mortem and with the bodies on the ground.

Given the situation, Dr. Berdichesky communicated by telephone with the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment, where he was told that they were only interested in legalizing the deaths, that he should not perform an autopsy, that the date of death was September 22, 1973, two kilometers south of the Atalaya Guard Post, and that the bodies should go directly to the Cemetery with an interval of one hour and with an accompaniment of no more than three people per body.

Officially, it was reported that the detainees had tried to escape when they were being transferred to Bucalemu.

The next day, the doctor told the witness that he had been taken to the Tejas Verdes Regiment, where they forced him to change the medical report, erasing the part that referred to the stab wounds.

On September 27, 1973, Luis Alberto Sepúlveda was detained by soldiers and taken to Tejas Verdes in a Pesquera Arauco van. He was taken into an office where the San Antonio Criminal Judge, Patricio Bravo Larraín, the Regiment Commander, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and a civilian were present, who told the latter that he held him responsible for the declarant's fate.

He was subjected to torture, and Prosecutor Miranda told his spouse that he was detained for having falsified autopsy reports. The Chief of Investigations of San Antonio, Nelson Valdés Cornejo, participated in his interrogations.

While he remained at Tejas Verdes, he saw, among others, Gustavo Farías, Florindo Alex Vidal, and Ceferino Santis, placed in "niches" that were made with metal structures used for bridges. In the first days of October, the witness was put into a van at night, into which Santis, Farías, Vidal, and Luis Norambuena were also loaded.

There were also other people whom the witness does not remember. Norambuena told him that they were going to be killed. The vehicle was a van belonging to Pesquera Arauco, of the type used for transporting fish, and it was driven by soldiers.

When the van was already starting to move, they took the declarant out, and a soldier told him, "for your own good and for ours, you have never seen this van."

Amador Arturo Aguila Maturana was detained on September 27, 1973, by personnel from Investigations and the Military Intelligence Service, among whom were Prefect Valdés of Investigations and Army Captain Mario Jara.

He was taken to Tejas Verdes. One night, around midnight, in the first days of October, when the witness was returning from an interrogation at the Detention Camp, they put him into the building that served as a dining hall.

There, he was able to see a group of detainees who were separated from the rest. The military prohibited speaking with them because, as they said, they were going to be released. In the group were Ceferino Santis, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa, Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, and Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara.

Arturo Florencio Farías Vargas—brother of the current forcibly disappeared person Gustavo Farías Vargas—was detained on September 15, 1973, when he presented himself at the Tejas Verdes Regiment after being summoned by a military decree.

He was immediately interrogated by Prosecutor Miranda and personnel from the Military Intelligence Service. That same day, at night, he was transferred to the San Antonio Jail, where he was held in the general population.

On September 16, near 9:00 p.m., he was taken out of his cell and driven in a station wagon, along with Ceferino Santis, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Jorge Cornejo Carvajal, and Patricio Rojas González (the latter two executed on November 18, 1973), to the facilities of the San Antonio Investigations Headquarters, where they were interrogated separately.

Santis was accused of belonging to the Revolutionary Workers' Front of Rayonhil. Around 4:00 a.m. on September 17, they were returned to the jail; Santis, Norambuena, Rojas, and Cornejo were placed in solitary confinement in punishment cells.

Subsequently, in the first days of October 1973, Arturo Farías was taken again from the San Antonio Jail to Tejas Verdes, around midnight. At dawn, when he was taken out of the facilities where he had been violently tortured, he saw that there were two groups of detainees in the courtyard of the military facility.

The witness was taken toward one of them, in which he saw five people. At that moment, a Sergeant indicated to the guards who were leading him, "the detainee does not go with the Commander," so he was taken to the second group.

In the group of five detainees, he saw Gustavo Farías Vargas, his brother, who looked very exhausted, as did the other people; Luis Norambuena; Ceferino Santis, who was wearing a navy blue jacket, dark pants, a light-colored sweater, and a white shirt; Florindo Alex Vidal, who was an official of the Road Department of the San Antonio Municipality; and Jorge Ojeda Jara, lying on the ground because his spine had been broken during torture.

The declarant did not see this group again (NOTE: in this group there was a sixth person: Víctor Mesina Araya).

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On October 1, 1974, before the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio, a complaint of alleged disappearance of the victim was filed, which was registered under No. 30.385. In the filing, Juana Farías Nilo, along with recounting the circumstances of her spouse's detention, stated, "I have traveled to several cities, including Santiago; I have asked everywhere; I have gone to the San Antonio morgue periodically, and in these months I have not had any response regarding his whereabouts."

When consulted, the Warden of the San Antonio Jail, Mario Jacinto Márquez, officially informed the Court that Ceferino Santis Quijada had entered said prison on September 13, 1973, by order of the Tejas Verdes Prosecutor, and left on October 8 "due to transfer to another detention facility" (October 2, 1974).

For its part, Investigations, in response to a judicial order, stated on October 25, 1974, that inquiries had been made at the Tejas Verdes Military Prosecutor's Office, where it was reported that Ceferino Santis Quijada was detained from September 12 to October 8, 1973, by order of said Prosecutor's Office, "which released him on October 8." It was added that lists of bodies subjected to autopsy at the San Antonio Hospital morgue had been reviewed, without favorable results.

Investigations also claimed to have reviewed statistics of those held in the city's jail, without better results. This last piece of information was openly contradictory to that provided by the Warden of the aforementioned penal establishment.

Without further investigation, on November 20, 1974, the summary was closed, and the case was temporarily dismissed because "the alleged disappearance of Ceferino Santis Quijada was not duly justified."

On February 6, 1991, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation forwarded information to the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio regarding 21 cases of disappearances and homicides that occurred at the Detention Camp under the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment, of which, in 1973, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda was Commander.

Among the cases presented was that of Ceferino Santis Quijada. Thus, case file No. 51.071-11 was opened for alleged disappearance and other charges on February 22, 1991.

The process began with the summons to appear for all the people who testified about it before the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation. Subsequently, numerous investigative steps were taken.

In the particular case of the victim, on April 24, 1991, a criminal complaint for kidnapping was filed against those who might be responsible. Along with recounting the facts, the statements of people who were detained were attached.

along with the victim. Among other investigative steps, the appearance of witnesses before the Court was requested, as well as an official request to the San Antonio Legal Medical Institute to submit the autopsy protocols for all male individuals admitted as "NN" (unidentified) between October 1 and December 31, 1973.

During 1991, witnesses to the victim's imprisonment appeared before the Court to testify. In September of that year, case file No. 30385 was reviewed and subsequently consolidated with the current proceedings.

In general, during the processing of case 51.071-11, a request was made in November 1991 for the submission of the summary proceedings conducted by the Medical Association against Dr. Vittorio Orvietto, recognized by numerous witnesses as a torturer at Tejas Verdes.

One witness, who was raped and subjected to sexual abuse and mistreatment, testified to having seen him at the foot of the stretcher to which she was tied, naked. Other testimonies identified this doctor as a despotic and brutal individual who would enter the Camp in a military uniform and a white apron, and who, during interrogations, would examine the victims and indicate whether or not the torture session could continue.

It was also requested that Nelson Valdés Cornejo, 2nd Chief of Investigations of San Antonio in 1973, who was recognized as a harsh torturer, appear. Regarding the statements of Hernán Becerra Madrid, made before the Court in June 1991, concerning the discovery of the victim's body at sea by a Pesquera Chile ship, whose engine operator was Ramón Urbina, the Court issued an order to investigate the whereabouts of this witness.

On December 12, 1991, Ramón Heraclio Urbina Bustos, an engine operator for special vessels (fishing boats over 50 tons), appeared before the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio. He stated that he did indeed know Hernán Becerra, but denied having found the victim's body, whom he did not know.

On December 17, 1991, Nelson Patricio Valdés Cornejo appeared before the Court; he acknowledged his position as Chief of Investigations in Santiago but denied his participation in torture and detentions.

He claimed to have gone to the Tejas Verdes Regiment only to verify if there were any habitual criminals among the political prisoners. He noted that it was easy to be recognized because he had been the President of a Sports Club in Cartagena.

A series of actions were also carried out for the various cases under investigation, and as of December 1991, this process was still ongoing with pending proceedings.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

Last week was marked, among other things, by the judicial decision that ordered the indictment of Cristián Labbé. Personally, I have not formed any conviction that would allow me to assign him specific responsibilities for the crimes committed in the San Antonio area between September 1973 and March 1974.

For these purposes, as has been my rule of conduct, I will remain faithful to the analytical criterion according to which all people, even those against whom there are suspicions or well-founded presumptions, must be considered innocent until proven otherwise.

I am not interested, therefore, in throwing accusatory stones. Let us leave the difficult task of elucidating responsibilities to our Judiciary. What I would like to share with my readers is the unease that the way some political sectors have reacted to the judicial resolution in question has caused me.

I am referring, specifically, to those who have reacted to this ruling from a purely political standpoint. Allow me to explain my disappointment. It does not surprise me that there are those who doubt the impartiality of some of our judges.

I can also understand that there is a desire to provide moral support to a friend who is considered trustworthy. I can even understand that someone, in the maelstrom of political passion, assumes that the political opponent is behind everything that could cause harm to their own sector.

Source: latercera.com 28/10/2014

Date: 28-10-2014

The organization is a plaintiff in the case, which contains the first testimonies from military personnel regarding extermination operations using aerial vehicles. The Valparaíso Court of Appeals indicted Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Carlos Oscar Evaristo Gregorio Mardones Díaz, Ritcher Aliro Nuche Sepúlveda, and Emilio Robert De la Mahotiere González as authors of aggravated kidnapping, for the crimes of illicit association and aggravated kidnapping.

The victims in the case were Ceferino Del Carmen Santis Quijada, Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas, all of whom were forcibly disappeared. The proceedings establish that the victims were detained between September 12, 1973, and the first fortnight of October of that same year by officials of the Tejas Verdes Engineer Regiment of San Antonio, and then taken to various detention centers such as the Tejas Verdes Prisoner Camp No. 2 and the Public Jail.

These individuals were then transported to Santo Domingo, loaded onto helicopters, and thrown into the sea. The organization Londres 38 appeared as a plaintiff in the case and is awaiting the rulings of the justice system, as noted by the plaintiff lawyer, Magdalena Garcés.

For the first time since the investigation of human rights violations committed during the dictatorship began, there are testimonies that account for the dumping of living people into the sea. El Dínamo reported on the case of Juan Guillermo Orellana Bustamante, a retired Army non-commissioned officer, who, as a mechanic for the military helicopter, was part of a crew that took off at dawn from the Tobalaba airfield.

Orellana testified for the first time on May 29, 2012, and his testimony had gone unnoticed until today. He points out that the flight occurred on September 12; however, according to the information that has become known, it is possible that the date he mentions corresponds to the first days of October.

Juan Guillermo Orellana also expanded his statement on August 7, 2014. There, he added another detail that coincides with the systematic policy of forced disappearance of hundreds of prisoners at sea: "The people were tied by their feet and hands, blindfolded, and had a piece of iron tied to their feet, so I never heard their voices." Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada was a worker and a militant of the MIR at the Rayonhil factory.

He was 31 years old and the oldest of the three kidnapped individuals. He was married and had two children. Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, 30, was a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party, a councilman for San Antonio, and regional secretary of the CUT.

He worked at Esso Industrial. He was also married and had one child. Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas, a tax collector for public works in San Antonio, was a militant in the MIR and was single. He and his three brothers were detained and taken to the Tejas Verdes barracks.

As a method of extermination, death flights are widely known in Argentina, where the dictatorship used them to massacre prisoners. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 3,000 people were thrown from planes into the waters of the Río de la Plata and the estuary at the mouth of the Atlantic.

With the revelation made, the expectation of Judge Arancibia's investigation is to determine if this was the only death flight or if there could have been others.

Source: rvl.uv.cl 21/05/2018

Date: 21-05-2018

The profile of the judge who indicted former mayor Labbé

Just 16 days after taking office, President Michelle Bachelet signed Supreme Decree 242, in which she appointed the judge of the Sixth Oral Criminal Trial Court of Santiago, Marianela del Carmen Cifuentes Alarcón, as a minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals.

The minister made news this week after indicting the former mayor of Providencia, Colonel (ret.) Cristián Labbé Galilea, for his alleged participation as an "author of the crime of illicit association" in the framework of the so-called "Tejas Verdes" case.

Lawyer Cifuentes graduated from the Catholic University and joined the Judiciary in 1992 as secretary of the Talagante Court of Letters. Subsequently, she served as a substitute rapporteur at the San Miguel Court of Appeals until being appointed as a permanent rapporteur in 1995.

In 2002, she became a permanent judge of the Sixth Oral Criminal Trial Court of Santiago and, among other cases, sentenced 18 members of the drug trafficking gang from the La Legua neighborhood, known as the "Cara de Pelota," to 170 years in prison.

Judge Cifuentes was chosen by the President from a shortlist prepared by the Supreme Court, where she appeared in third place. The first two names on the list were the permanent judge of the 27th Civil Court of Santiago, Javier Torres Vera, who joined the Judiciary in 1970; and the minister of the Antofagasta Court of Appeals, Dora Mondaca Rosales, who joined the judicial career in 1994 and even served as president of that Court between 2012 and 2013.

Confrontations with Labbé in 2005 In November 2012, the now-minister had her first connection to the "Tejas Verdes" case after being appointed as a substitute special minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals for human rights cases, replacing the emblematic minister Héctor Solís.

Solís had interrogated the then-mayor Labbé in December 2003 for an hour and a half, in the capacity of a witness, in the process regarding torture and illegal detentions, but the mayor asserted that he never participated in or witnessed human rights violations at the facility, and that his role was limited to teaching physical education to military personnel.

A year later, Minister Carmen Garay, who substituted for Solís during January 2005, confronted Labbé with a former prisoner who claimed to have seen him at the facility. However, the mayor reiterated his position and denounced the "hopelessness" of the military because they see that "justice does not exist for them.

I have been an Army officer and I was in the DINA. I have nothing to hide. That does not mean that I have to go through the courts for having been a soldier." After five years of investigations, in December 2008, Judge Solís issued nine convictions for the aggravated kidnapping of José Pérez Hermosilla at the "Tejas Verdes" military facility.

The head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Manuel Contreras, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and five other military personnel to five years in prison. The conviction was the fourth issued by Minister Solís against the same group of people, and the ninth conviction in human rights cases.

By not proving Labbé's participation in the events, he left him out of the indictments. New proceedings Three months after being sworn in as a member of the appellate court, Minister Cifuentes instructed new proceedings in the "Tejas Verdes" case.

To this end, she ordered excavations to search for human remains in the town of Rocas de Santo Domingo, the former Las Brisas estate, in the Valparaíso Region. The work was carried out by the Human Rights Brigade and the Central Criminalistics Laboratory of the Investigative Police, and experts from the Special Forensic Identification Unit of the Legal Medical Service.

Two months after the proceedings, last Monday the 20th, Minister Cifuentes issued the indictment for the crimes of kidnapping with the application of torture, aggravated homicide, and aggravated kidnapping against nine retired military personnel from the Army, Carabineros, and the PDI for their responsibility in the cases involving the victims Óscar Gómez Farías, CEFERINO DEL CARMEN SANTIS QUIJADA, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Jorge Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Ojeda Jara, Víctor Mesina Araya, Florindo Vidal Hinojosa, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Aquiles Jara Álvarez, Jenaro Mendoza Villavicencio, Carlos Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Galaz Vera, and Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander. She indicted former mayor Labbé as an "author of illicit association." This Thursday, the Third Chamber of the San Miguel Court of Appeals granted Labbé release on bail after the payment of $500,000.

Source: ellibero.cl 26 October 2014

Date: 26-10-2014

A mass will be offered for San Antonio residents thrown alive into the sea during the Military Dictatorship

Relatives of Ceferino Santis, Luis Norambuena, and Gustavo Farías invited all San Antonio residents this Saturday at 12:00 at the Santa Luisa de Marillac parish to pray for them. This Saturday at 12:00 at the Santa Luisa de Marillac parish in Barrancas, San Antonio, a mass will be offered to pray for the memory of Ceferino Santis, Luis Norambuena, and Gustavo Farías, the three San Antonio residents who were thrown alive into the sea during the Military Dictatorship.

Olga Letelier, close to Ceferino Santis's family, called on all San Antonio families to participate in this spiritual gathering to pray for these souls. This week, the judicial process against Colonel Carlos Mardones Díaz, Brigadier Miguel Krassnoff, Captain Richter Nuche, and Major Emilio De La Mahotiere (all retired) was made public; they were accused of the crimes of illicit association and aggravated kidnapping of San Antonio residents Ceferino Santis, Luis Norambuena, and Gustavo Farías.

Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada was a worker and president of the Rayonhil Workers' Union, a member of the Revolutionary Workers' Front (FTR), and the MIR. He was 31 years old when he was detained on September 12, 1973.

He was married and had two children. Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois was 30 years old when he was detained on September 14, 1973. He was married and had one child. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party, a councilman for San Antonio, and regional secretary of the CUT.

He worked at Esso Industrial. He was also married and had one child. Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas was a Public Works tax collector in San Antonio and a member of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). He was 23 years old.

Source: soychile.cl 24/5/2018

Date: 24-05-2018

TESTIMONY PUBLISHED REVEALING HOW THE DICTATORSHIP THREW PEOPLE ALIVE INTO THE SEA

SANTIAGO (Sputnik)

— The human rights violations committed by the Chilean dictatorship (1973-1990) included procedures in which people were thrown alive into the sea from helicopters, revealed the digital newspaper El Dínamo.

The digital media outlet published a testimony that Orellana gave to the justice system in May 2012, in which he said that three people who were forcibly disappeared during the Chilean dictatorship had been thrown alive from a helicopter into the Pacific Ocean.

Orellana served as a mechanic for military helicopters during the dictatorship and was part of the flight in which Ceferino Santis, Luis Norambuena, and Gustavo Farías were pushed alive into the sea in October 1973. "The captain pushed one of the subjects downward, and he rested his feet on the landing gear fairing; a struggle ensued, a scuffle, and, seeing this, he pulled him again by the armpits, detached him from the landing gear, and threw him into the sea," Orellana detailed.

The retired soldier recounted that the situation began when the victims were transported in a van from a detention center to the Tobalaba airfield in Santiago, where the helicopter was stationed. "Upon boarding the aircraft, I found three living people on the floor, who were tied by their feet and hands and blindfolded," said Orellana.

In August 2014, Orellana gave another statement to the justice system and added that "the people were tied up, blindfolded, and had a piece of iron tied to their feet, and I never heard their voices." The former mechanic recounted that the officers in charge warned before taking off that if they did not accept the mission, they would be taken prisoner and executed by firing squad as "traitors to the fatherland."

DUMPINGS

Orellana stated that all the crew members accepted the mission and took off toward the Chilean coast, near the town of Santo Domingo (center), and recounted how one of the former agents in charge threw the victims into the sea. "The captain took the oldest person by the feet, turned him toward the door, and pushed him with his hands downward, toward the sea," he noted.

Due to the characteristics, it is believed that the victim was Ceferino Santis, a worker and militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left who was married and had two children. "He took the second subject by the armpits, brought him to the door, and took him by the feet, pushing him in the same way as the first," he said, referring probably to Luis Norambuena, regional secretary of the Central Workers' Union.

The third subject, the one who fought not to fall, was probably Gustavo Farías, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left and the youngest of the three victims. Finally, he noted that the identities of the former agents in charge "would probably be": Major Emilio de la Mahotiere, Captain Richter Nuche Sepúlveda, and former agent Miguel Krassnoff.

Due to this testimony, these three former agents were indicted on May 9 for these crimes, as reported. This form of extermination called the Death Flight was carried out during the regime of Augusto Pinochet and also in other Latin American dictatorships, with the objective of making the victims' bodies disappear.

In Chile, the Pinochet regime used the code term "operation television removal" to refer to this practice.

Source: radiosanjoaquin.cl 19/05/2018

Date: 19-05-2018

Thrown alive: Declarations revealed about "death flights" - It is the story of three Chileans thrown into the sea by dictatorship agents

A raw testimony was accessed exclusively by the digital media outlet El Dínamo, which narrates the statements given by Juan Guillermo Orellana Bustamante, a retired Army non-commissioned officer, who tells how the final hours of three detainees who were thrown alive into the sea from an H225 "Puma" helicopter, in the so-called "death flights," unfolded.

The testimonies were collected from the statements of the former aircraft mechanic, given to Judge Jaime Arancibia, who is investigating human rights crimes during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

The accounts are shocking due to the rawness of the events, which tell of the conditions in which the prisoners were transported, the only evidence to date of the dumping of living people into the sea by dictatorship personnel.

The victims were identified as Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada (worker and MIR militant), Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois (member of the Socialist Party Central Committee), and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas (MIR militant).

All of them were detained by soldiers from the Tejas Verdes Engineer Regiment of San Antonio, as detailed by El Dínamo. "This young subject resisted, but this captain still took him by the armpits, turned him toward the door, and threw him into the sea.

Here is a detail: the captain, when pushing downward, the subject rests his feet on the landing gear fairing, a struggle occurs, that is, a scuffle, and, seeing this, he pulls him again by the armpits, detaches him from the landing gear, and then throws him into the sea," Orellana recounts about how Gustavo Manuel Farías died, the only one of the three who resisted this brutal aggression. "I want to point out that the Army officer who threw the people who were tied, blindfolded, and alive inside the helicopter, it seems to me, would correspond to Miguel Krassnoff," Orellana noted, referring to the then-captain who was part of the first DINA contingent and would soon command the Halcón Brigade, dedicated to exterminating MIR militants throughout the country, as El Dínamo pointed out.

Source: https://gap6.webnode.es 18/05/2018

Date: 18-05-2018

Retired Army non-commissioned officer revealed that Miguel Krassnoff threw three people alive into the sea

It is the first time that a testimony confirms the so-called "death flights" during the dictatorship. Retired Army non-commissioned officer Juan Guillermo Orellana Bustamante is the author of the only testimony that confirms the so-called "death flights" during the military dictatorship, a practice where living prisoners were thrown into the sea.

As revealed by El Dínamo, it was Miguel Krassnoff himself who, from an H225 Puma helicopter, threw three detainees from the Tejas Verdes Regiment of San Antonio into the ocean: Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada (MIR), Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois (PS), and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas (MIR).

The event occurred in October 1973. Orellana worked as a mechanic for the military helicopter and was part of a crew that took off at dawn from the Tobalaba airfield to the Rocas de Santo Domingo. There they were received by an Army captain dressed in civilian clothes. "I found three living people on the floor, who were tied by their feet and hands and blindfolded." In addition, they had "a piece of iron tied to their feet, so I never heard their voices," he says.

From that place, the three prisoners, Orellana himself, the mysterious Army captain dressed in civilian clothes, Major Emilio Robert de la Mahotiere, and Captain Richter Nuche Sepúlveda, who served as co-pilot, headed toward the ocean.

The first of them gathered them and warned that "in this mission to be accomplished, we have two paths to follow. First, that we accomplish the mission, and second, that we reject it." "In this second instance, we will be taken prisoner, transported to Tobalaba, a Court-Martial will be held, and we will be executed by firing squad as traitors to the fatherland," he added.

Orellana acknowledged that he was in charge of opening the door, while the Army captain threw the three left-wing militants into the Pacific. He remembers that the third of them, Farías, resisted despite being completely tied up. "I want to point out that the Army officer who threw the people who were tied, blindfolded, and alive inside the helicopter, it seems to me, would correspond to Miguel Krassnoff," explains the non-commissioned officer in his testimony.

Krassnoff at that time was indeed a captain. Years later, he joined the first DINA contingent and commanded the Halcón Brigade, in charge of the extermination of all MIR militants in the country. The retired non-commissioned officer, who at that time held the rank of corporal second class, testified for the first time on May 29, 2012.

But his second statement in 2014 allowed Judge Jaime Arancibia to add Krassnoff, De la Mahotiere, and Nuche as authors of aggravated kidnapping.

Source: adnradio.cl 2018

San Miguel Court Confirmed Provisional Release for Labbé and Two Other Inmates in the Tejas Verdes Case

The San Miguel Court of Appeals ratified today, Wednesday, October 22, the decision of the visiting minister Marianela Cifuentes to grant release on bail to Cristián Labbé Galilea, Carlos Silva Salinas, and Bernardo Purto Yarcho, who were indicted for their responsibility in the so-called "Tejas Verdes" episode.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 19-2014), the Third Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers María Stella Elgarrista, Carmen Gloria Escanilla, and the ad hoc lawyer Nicolás Arrieta—ratified the benefit, but increased the amount of the bail to be posted from $200,000 (two hundred thousand pesos) to $500,000 (five hundred thousand pesos).

On October 20, the extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, issued an indictment for the crimes of illicit association, aggravated kidnapping, and application of torture to prisoners at the Tejas Verdes camp, which occurred in 1973.

In the case, the magistrate indicted retired members of the Army, Carabineros, and the PDI for their responsibility in the cases involving the victims Óscar Gómez Farías, Ceferino Santis Quijada, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Jorge Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Ojeda Jara, Víctor Mesina Araya, Florindo Vidal Hinojosa, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Aquiles Jara Álvarez, Jenaro Mendoza Villavicencio, Carlos Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Galaz Vera, and Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander.

The minister Cifuentes prosecuted Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Klaudio Kosiel Horning, Pablo Quintana Salazar, Vittorio Orvietto Tiplitzky, Ramón Carriel Espinoza, Rodolfo Vargas Contreras, Nelson Valdés Cornejo, Carlos Silva Salinas, and Bernardo Purto Yarcho for their responsibility in the crimes of kidnapping, application of torture, aggravated homicide, aggravated kidnapping, and illicit association; meanwhile, she indicted Cristián Labbé Galilea for the charge of illicit association.

Of the 10 indicted, only three filed a request for provisional release. (source: Judiciary)

Source: reddigital.cl 22/10/2015