On December 9, 1974, Marta Silvia Adela NEIRA MUÑOZ, who was linked to the MIR, was arrested by DINA agents on a public street in Santiago. Hours later, the agents raided the detainee's home at the Torres San Borja and arrested her partner, César Arturo Emiliano NEGRETE PEÑA, also linked to the MIR, along with two other people who were later released.

The Negrete-Neira couple disappeared while in the custody of the DINA. There are witnesses who confirm the presence of both at the detention center known as Venda Sexy.

The Commission is convinced that the disappearance of both was the work of State agents, who thereby violated their human rights.

Address: Remodelación San Borja, Torre 9, Apt. 105, Santiago Marital Status: Single Occupation: Commercial Engineer Political Affiliation: Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) Date of Detention: December 9, 1974

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

César Arturo Emiliano Negrete Peña, single, commercial engineer, and member of the MIR, was detained on December 9, 1974, at approximately 9:00 PM at his home by 10 to 15 agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

They took him to the secret detention and torture centers known as "La Venda Sexy"—located at the intersection of Irán and Los Plátanos, in the Macul commune—and Villa Grimaldi—located at José Arrieta 8200, Peñalolén—from where he was forcibly disappeared.

During that same operation, Amalia Muñoz—the mother of his girlfriend—and a friend of hers, Alicia Bravo, were also detained. At 11:00 AM that same day, Marta Neira Muñoz—who lived with the victim—had been detained on the street; she was also held at the facility at the corner of Irán and Los Plátanos, where all trace of her was lost.

On that December 9, the events began with the detention of Marta Neira on Bascuñán Street by four DINA agents. Immediately, her mother, Amalia Muñoz, contacted the victim. A friend had advised César Arturo, given the circumstances and his membership in the MIR, not to return to his apartment at Remodelación San Borja.

However, as witnesses recounted, because Marta Neira collaborated with him on party tasks for personal reasons, César Arturo Negrete decided to return to his home, believing that if he were detained, she would be released.

Around 9:00 PM, Amalia Muñoz and her friend Alicia Bravo, lacking information regarding Marta Neira, went to the apartment to ask the victim if he had heard anything. Upon arrival, the door was violently opened by civilians.

Both women were pushed inside the property, which was occupied by 10 to 15 individuals who were raiding the place and shouting questions at César Arturo, who responded in a distressed tone. Mrs. Amalia observed that everything was in complete disarray, that the individuals were heavily armed, and that one of them was tall (1.80 meters), fair-skinned, with straight black hair, a mustache, dark eyes, small ears, an aquiline nose, thin lips, and was about 30 years old, wearing a suit.

A second agent appeared to be about 40 years old, 1.70 meters tall, with dark brown, curly hair, a stocky build, a flat nose, and thin lips; he was also wearing a suit and tie. They interrogated her about her presence in the apartment and told her that they did not know Marta Neira and that she was likely out for a walk.

Around 9:30 PM, the agents proceeded to take Amalia Muñoz and her friend into custody. They made them go down in the elevator, pretending to be their friends and acting with absolute deception. "No one could have imagined our terrible situation," Mrs.

Amalia Muñoz later declared. The two women were forced into a red Chevrolet van with a canopy, and after driving a few blocks, their captors blindfolded them. César Arturo Negrete Peña remained in the apartment with his captors.

Amalia Muñoz and Alicia Bravo were taken to "La Venda Sexy," where they remained blindfolded and isolated until the early hours of the following day, when they were taken out in a yellow Austin Mini and driven to their home.

Mrs. Muñoz remembers that it was a large, two-story private house with a lawn at the entrance, where one could hear the constant noise of vehicles entering and leaving with people. She also heard screams of pain and a radio playing at full volume.

According to the witness, the agents made Alicia Bravo remove her blindfold and showed them a young woman who had been tortured, lying bleeding on the floor and moaning. In this state, she was kicked by her torturers.

"La Venda Sexy" or "La Discoteque"—so named because of the sexual abuse to which the detainees, both men and women, were subjected, and because music was kept at full volume so that the screams of the tortured would not be heard in neighboring houses—was a two-story house with a solid structure, a marble staircase, and parquet floors.

On the second floor, there were three rooms, and under the staircase, a small bathroom with a round window that had a broken pane through which a tree could be seen. (For complete background on this facility, the agents who operated there, and the torture methods used on victims, see the case of Marta Silvia Adela Neira Muñoz).

The victim and his girlfriend, Marta Neira, were seen at this facility. The day after his detention, on December 10, 1974, Elba Rosa Moraga Vega was detained by five DINA agents who were holding César Arturo Negrete in custody; both were taken to "La Venda Sexy." According to the witness—who testified before the court—there was a large number of prisoners there who were tortured with electricity, submerged in water drums, and, in some cases, had planks placed over their legs while a vehicle was driven over them.

This had happened to Félix de la Jara Goyeneche (currently forcibly disappeared). At this DINA detention center, the witness was confronted with the victim regarding some dollars he had brought from Buenos Aires.

Later, Elba Rosa saw Marta Neira, who had been severely tortured. The witness remained with the victims at "La Venda Sexy" until December 24, 1974, when she was transferred to Villa Grimaldi.

Cristina Verónica Godoy Hinojosa, detained on December 6, 1974, was held, among other places, at the facility at the corner of Irán and Los Plátanos. There, she was violently interrogated and tortured.

The witness remained at "La Venda Sexy" for about 10 days and shared a room with Marta Neira, Ida Vera Almarza, and Nilda Patricia Peña Solari, all three of whom are currently forcibly disappeared. She remembers that Marta would ask the guards to let her see César Arturo, which she sometimes managed to do, and the two would meet and talk for a few minutes in the hallway.

Later, the victim was seen at Villa Grimaldi, another secret DINA detention and torture center. There was a large room where detainees remained on the floor all day and night, and their only activity consisted of waiting to be taken out for interrogation or to witness the torture of other detainees.

They remained blindfolded, and at night, their hands and feet were tied together behind their backs, and they were forced to lie on the tiled floor. In the mornings, they were taken to the only bathroom, which was located next to the torture room, forcing them to listen to the screams of those being tortured at that moment.

They were fed three times a day: for breakfast, an aluminum pot with coffee and a piece of bread; for lunch, a bowl of soup; and at night, the same. Sometimes their hands were untied to eat. Other times, only some were untied, and they then had to feed the person next to them.

On some occasions, they were made to eat on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs, licking the plates like dogs, which for many was humiliating and desperate. "The truth is that in Villa Grimaldi, one lived with torture," declared witness Héctor Hernán González Osorio, "suffering and death, all the time, without stopping.

Day and night, you could hear the screams of men and women being 'parrillados' (strapped to an iron bed frame while naked to be subjected to electric shocks across their bodies), beaten, or hung."

It was at this facility that Cristián Mallol Comandari, detained on December 7, 1974, saw "Flaco René"—the victim's nickname—sitting in a small room. Later, he saw him in a large room where the victim remained until around New Year's. César Arturo was also seen at this detention center by Héctor Hernán González Osorio.

Both witnesses—Mallol and González—remained incommunicado for long months at Villa Grimaldi, being brutally tortured. During their confinement, both were forced by their captors—DINA agents—to participate in a press conference in February 1975, held at the Diego Portales Building by four MIR leaders: Cristián Mallol, Héctor Hernán González, Humberto Menanteaux Aceituno, and José Hernán Carrasco Vásquez.

The latter two were released from Villa Grimaldi in September 1975, only to be detained again by DINA agents in November of that same year. Their bodies were sent to the Legal Medical Institute after being found buried near Buin. Both showed signs of having been tortured while alive.

That press conference, accompanied by a public statement, was broadcast on a national radio and television network, and in it, the detainees spoke of the defeat suffered by the MIR. On January 14, 1975, Amalia Muñoz returned the Remodelación San Borja apartment to its owners at 11:00 AM.

A civilian arrived there claiming to be a Captain. He carried documents that César Arturo and Marta Neira had previously kept in their home. The individual began talking about the people who lived there and boasted of having her detained, saying that the victim was a fugitive. He added that he had found an arsenal of weapons in that apartment.

The circumstances surrounding the detention and disappearance of César Negrete and Marta Neira were established in the testimony provided by Héctor Hernán González Osorio. The witness was detained on December 6, 1974, by DINA agents who took him to Villa Grimaldi, where he remained incommunicado for 6 months.

At the time of his detention, the witness was carrying a key to an office on San Antonio Street near Ismael Valdés Vergara. A meeting place for MIR militants operated there, where technical draftsmen supposedly worked.

The witness kept all documentation related to his activities with the party structures under his charge and contact points with other militants in that building. Upon finding the key, the agents unleashed an avalanche of questions and beatings upon him.

As a result of these events, on December 7, 1974, Cristián Mallol was detained; on the 8th, Washington Cid Urrutia (currently forcibly disappeared) and his wife María Isabel Ortega; and on December 9, María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda (forcibly disappeared).

Through these means, the DINA did not take long to reach the "mailbox" (a house where messages and instructions were left) of the party structure headed by César Arturo Negrete Peña and his liaison, Marta Neira Muñoz.

The victim had been sought even before his detention. In fact, in November 1973, in the city of Tomé, his father, César Negrete Espinoza, and his sisters, Gabriela and Rosa Negrete Peña, had been detained.

Detectives from Tomé, led by Sub-commissioner Sergio González Vera and detective Gustavo Cáceres Soto, participated in these detentions. The detainees were transferred to Santiago by detective Fuad Lama and taken to the Investigations General Headquarters in that city.

There, they were interrogated and told that they had been apprehended because of César Arturo Negrete, whom they accused of being a "mirista" and whom they said they needed because the victim knew a former administrator of MADEMSA (César Arturo had worked at this company).

When the detectives testified before the court, they reported that the detention order had been given by the Chief of the Plaza of Concepción, Navy Captain Aníbal Aravena Miranda. Furthermore, at the beginning of December 1974, civilians who identified themselves as belonging to Investigations arrived on three occasions at the home of Olivia Negrete—the victim's aunt—in Santiago.

There, they asked for the victim without giving further explanations.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On February 11, 1975, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed for the victim before the Concepción Court of Appeals, registered under No. 3331, stating in the filing that César Negrete had been detained in Santiago.

Inquiries were made to various authorities in the area. On February 19, 1975, Navy Captain and Commander-in-Chief of the II Naval Zone, Aníbal Aravena Miranda, informed the court that he lacked information regarding the victim.

Colonel Luis Araya Cereceda, Acting Commander of the III Army Division, reported in the same terms on February 17, 1975. An official letter was also sent to the Minister of the Interior, which was never answered.

On April 2, 1975, the Court decided to dispense with said report. The following day, April 3, the court declared itself incompetent and sent the records to the Santiago Court of Appeals, where a late official letter from the Minister of the Interior and Division General, Raúl Benavides Escobar, was attached, stating that the victim "was not being held by order of that Secretariat of State."

Without the Santiago court performing any further action, the writ was rejected on April 10, 1975, solely based on the report provided by Minister Benavides.

On December 13, 1974, a first writ of amparo had been filed for the victim before the Santiago Court of Appeals, registered under No. 1578-74. In the filing, Ofelia Negrete Espinoza—the victim's aunt—pointed out that on December 11, 1974, she had received an anonymous call from a woman informing her that César Arturo had been detained since the 9th of that month.

Various authorities were consulted; the Combat Aviation Command reported that the victim was not detained or prosecuted by the Wartime Aviation Courts (January 3, 1975). For his part, the Minister of the Interior and Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar stated on January 8, 1975, that the victim was not being held by order of that Secretariat of State.

The Headquarters of the State of Siege Zone issued an official letter stating that César Negrete was not under summary proceedings in the II Military Court nor detained within the jurisdiction of said Headquarters.

On January 23, 1975, the Court rejected the amparo and sent the records to the corresponding Criminal Court to initiate a summary investigation.

On January 30, 1975, case No. 13.478-6 was initiated in the 9th Criminal Court of Santiago. Following a judicial order, Investigations reported having made inquiries at the Public Jail, the Penitentiary, various detention centers, and the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), without achieving results that would allow locating César Negrete's whereabouts (March 9, 1975).

On May 13, 1975, a complaint for the victim's alleged disappearance was filed before this court, in which Ofelia Negrete attached a sworn statement from Amalia Muñoz, noting: "five months after his arrest (the victim's), his whereabouts are still unknown, and the required authorities have repeatedly denied the fact of his detention." It was requested that the Minister of the Interior and the National Intelligence Directorate be officially asked to report if the victim was in their custody.

In June 1975, Mrs. Amalia Muñoz appeared to testify before the court, stating: "I saw when, on December 9, 1974, about 10 to 15 civilians detained César Arturo Negrete Peña." She then recounted the detention of her daughter, Marta Neira, and her own, as well as their transfer and stay in a secret DINA facility.

In contrast to these statements was the official letter of May 23, 1975, from Colonel Jorge Espinoza Ulloa, Executive Secretary of SENDET, which stated that said organization lacked information regarding the victim.

In November 1975, Minister Benavides reiterated that César Negrete was not detained. He asserted exactly the same thing again on December 29, 1975, adding that the DINA had no records of César Negrete in its files and that its personnel had not detained him.

On March 19, 1976, the summary was closed, and the case was temporarily dismissed because the "existence of the reported crime was not sufficiently proven." The resolution was sent for review to the Santiago Court of Appeals.

The Prosecutor, in his opinion, noted: "no one will convince Ofelia Negrete Espinoza, aunt of César Arturo Negrete, that he was not detained, and about whom, as must be concluded from the merits of the process, nothing has been learned." He added that, nevertheless, the court, faced with the reports from the authorities, could only deduce that he had not been detained.

On May 18, 1976, the Court approved the resolution under review.

Three years later, in June 1979, the victim's family filed a criminal complaint before the court for the crimes of trespassing and illegal kidnapping or arrest committed against César Arturo Negrete Peña.

The filing recounted the circumstances of the victim's detention and provided a description of two of the agents who participated in the raid and apprehension of the victim. It requested the reopening of the previous case and various official letters directed to other organizations.

The complaint was accepted and began to be processed by Visiting Minister Servando Jordán López in July 1979. Minister Jordán had been appointed by the Supreme Court of Justice to hear the numerous complaints of detentions followed by disappearances investigated in the courts of the Santiago jurisdiction (March 1979).

At this stage of the process, Sergio Arnaldo González Vera, a retired Investigations Commissioner, appeared on August 3, 1979. He stated he remembered participating in the detention of Gabriela and Rosa Negrete Peña (the victim's sisters), which was carried out by order of the Plaza Chief, Navy Captain Aníbal Aravena Miranda; he did not mention the detention of the victim's father.

When Navy Captain Aníbal Octavio Aravena Miranda testified before the Visiting Minister on April 3, 1980, he stated that between September 11, 1973, and March 1974, he served as Governor of the Department of Tomé, a period during which no complaints related to disappeared persons were filed against him.

He added that he did not remember the detention of the Negrete family. Various official letters issued by authorities of the time were also recorded. Brigadier General Enrique Valdés Puga, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, reported that there was no record of the victim having left the country via political asylum (August 7, 1979).

For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández Fernández, communicated on August 24 of the same year that there was no record of the detention of César Negrete Peña in the Intelligence Services of the Army, Carabineros, the Chilean Air Force, or the CNI.

On December 11, 1979, the Visiting Minister consolidated case No. 14433 of the 9th Criminal Court of Santiago, which investigated the disappearance of Marta Neira Muñoz, into this process. The sworn statement of Elba Rosa Moraga Vega was then attached, in which the witness denounced that when she was detained—on December 10, 1974—the DINA agents were holding César Negrete in custody.

The declarant also saw both the victim and Marta Neira held at "La Venda Sexy." Simultaneously, the plaintiff requested the appearance of Marcelo Moren Brito regarding the confinement of César Negrete at Villa Grimaldi.

The DINA agent appeared on March 6, 1980. He stated that that facility, like Londres 38, was only a transit place for detainees and for filing and controlling documentation for intelligence analysis. Shown photographs, he said he never saw César Negrete or Marta Neira.

On May 30, 1980, it was requested that Minister Jordán summon General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda to testify regarding the officials who worked at the facility located at the corner of Irán and Los Plátanos, Macul commune ("Venda Sexy"), providing the names of some of the agents so they could be identified by him.

Minister Jordán did not grant the request because the Visit's Installation Notebook (complete background on this in the case of Eduardo Alarcón Jara) showed that the former DINA chief only recognized the Cuatro Alamos Camp as a detention center.

Regarding this, the Visit's Notebook was reviewed, and the information related to the documentation of Cuatro Alamos, which had been incinerated, was recorded. Also recorded were the statements made by General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda regarding Osvaldo Romo Mena (he was allegedly just an informant for a DINA agent), the facilities of Villa Grimaldi and Londres 38 (they were not detention centers), and the properties at José Domingo Cañas No. 1367 and the corner of Irán and Los Plátanos, which were defined as barracks dependent on the National Intelligence Directorate.

In October 1980, Minister Jordán ordered Investigations to find the whereabouts of Elba Rosa Moraga Vega, who had not been located to appear before the court. In this regard, the Minister established that the Visit had noted that when Investigations was ordered to summon a specific person, "that Service limits itself to reporting that they cannot be located at their address or that it is closed, without performing any search to locate the person." On this occasion, Elba Rosa Moraga was found and testified before the court on November 11, 1980, ratifying her sworn statement.

In May 1981, it was requested that Minister Jordán issue a letter rogatory to the Civil Court of First Instance of the city of Bonn, Germany, to take the testimony of Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Hevia, a former DINA agent who had acknowledged his participation as an apprehender and guard of disappeared persons, a task he had performed at the same time and place where César Negrete and Marta Neira were held.

Without this action being carried out, Minister Jordán López declared himself incompetent on August 10, 1981, sending the records to the Military Justice system. The resolution was appealed, and the Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed it on September 15 of the same year. The case was assigned to the 1st Military Prosecutor's Office, registered under No. 759-81.

Before this last court, the detectives who participated in the detention of the victim's father and sisters testified. Gustavo Cáceres Soto said—in March 1982—that in 1974 he served as an Inspector in the city of Tomé and that, together with Sergio González, he had participated in the detention of César Negrete Espinoza and his daughters.

He added that he did not remember who issued the arrest warrant, the reasons for it, or to whom the detainees were handed over. Sergio Arnaldo González Vera stated on March 17, 1982, that he had personally detained Mr.

Negrete and one of his daughters by virtue of an order given by Navy Captain Aníbal Aravena Miranda, then Chief of the Plaza of Tomé. He did not remember to whom they had been handed over.

For his part, Fuad Lama Lama said that he had transferred César Negrete Espinoza and his daughters Gabriela and Rosa Negrete Peña as detainees from Concepción to Santiago. Furthermore, the Military Prosecutor's Office sent official letters to the Intelligence Services of the Army, Carabineros, and the Air Force, without positive results.

Subsequently, on July 27, 1982, the case was temporarily dismissed for "the perpetration of the reported facts not being proven in the records," without proceeding to close the summary. It was appealed before the Court Martial, and on August 30, 1983, this court returned the case to the summary stage because the investigation was not exhausted.

As the only action, an order was issued to locate Cristina Verónica Godoy Hinojosa, a witness to the confinement of César Negrete and Marta Neira at the facility known as "Venda Sexy." Investigations could not find the witness's address, and on October 13, 1983, the summary was declared closed as the investigation was exhausted, and the case was temporarily dismissed.

The resolution was appealed before the Court Martial, which issued its report four years later, on December 5, 1987. In this resolution, the Court applied the Amnesty Decree Law (2.191) of April 1978, dismissing the case totally and definitively, with dissenting votes from Ministers Correa and Chaigneau, who considered it "inappropriate to dismiss the case definitively, since, in their view, for amnesty to be applied, it is necessary to establish that the investigated facts correspond to a criminal offense and that the participation of some person as an author, accomplice, or accessory has been determined." This ruling was appealed before the Supreme Court, which revoked it, changing the definitive dismissal to a temporary dismissal.

For its part, the family carried out a series of administrative actions aimed at finding the victim's whereabouts. They went to the Ministry of Defense, SENDET, and the International Red Cross. All without positive results. César Arturo Negrete Peña is currently a forcibly disappeared person.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity