Puerto Aysén-. After 37 years and following the submission of evidence provided by the Human Rights Commission, Coyhaique Regional Chapter, the remains of political execution victim Sergio Osvaldo Alvarado Vargas will be handed over to his family this Wednesday.

He was murdered at the Puerto Aysén Carabineros Station in October 1973, according to what was published by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, better known as the Rettig Report. As reported by the Chilean Commission of Human Rights, this event marks the end of a process involving many years of investigation and work, which began in the 1980s, when the case became known and the relevant records were requested, such as the respective death certificates, which claimed that the laborer and well-known athlete from Puerto Aysén, Osvaldo Alvarado, had died from acute anemia due to a projectile impact. In this context, Ninón Neira, on behalf of the Human Rights Commission, expressed gratitude for the professional work carried out by the judge at the time and current Minister of the Coyhaique Court of Appeals, Luis Sepúlveda Coronado; the work developed by PDI officers in charge of the Human Rights investigation; by Rose Mary Bornand, former Executive Secretary of the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior; and by the lawyer Cristián Cruz, of the same institution, all of whom contributed to culminating a process of truth. This was a quite difficult case, as it was possible to discredit the official version through testimonies and investigations that confirmed the systematic torture received by Alvarado. Subsequently, it was necessary to exhume his body from the Puerto Aysén cemetery, where he had been buried illegally and without a name in a mass grave in 1973, in order to then perform DNA analysis at the Legal Medical Service. It is worth mentioning that Osvaldo Alvarado was executed by firing squad alongside Julio Antonio Cárcamo Rodríguez, a case for which former Captain Aquiles Segundo Vergara and José Roberto González Mejías, both officials of the Carabineros de Chile, have been convicted as perpetrators, and Miguel Angel Quiroga and the physician Oscar Orlando Concha Navia as accessories.

Source: Eldivisadero.cl, April 4, 2011