Investigating judge Jorge Zepeda has indicted two retired colonels of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) for the crime of repeated torture against former Minister of Defense and socialist militant José Tohá.

The individuals are former officers Sergio Contreras and Ramón Cáceres, both former assistants to the late former FACH prosecutor Horacio Otaíza. Both were notified by the magistrate this Thursday and subsequently transferred to a facility belonging to the Armed Forces, presumably the Colina air base.

The lawyer for the Tohá family, Deputy Juan Bustos (PS), expressed his full satisfaction with the new direction the case is taking and predicted that further indictments would follow in the coming months.

According to the representative, Judge Zepeda’s charges will target the material authors and accomplices of what he described as the "homicide" of the former head of Defense. Along with highlighting the virtual reclassification of Tohá's cause of death, he explained that it was highly unlikely he could have committed suicide, considering that his deteriorated physical condition (47 kilos in weight and 1.90 meters in height) made it impossible.

According to the information provided by the Rettig Report, the Secretary of State under the government of Salvador Allende died on March 15, 1974, at the Military Hospital of Santiago. On September 11, 1973, Tohá was arrested at the Palacio de la Moneda along with a group of authorities and collaborators of the deposed government.

Subsequently, he was transferred with them to the Escuela Militar, from where he was moved to Isla Dawson, a place where he was subjected to repeated mistreatment and illegitimate coercion by the military personnel in charge of the facility.

Suffering from critical malnutrition and a severely deteriorated psychological state, the former minister ended up committing suicide in his room at the military hospital, according to the authorities at the time.

The reasons of Judge Zepeda

In one of the considerations where Zepeda accounts for the evidence used to indict the former officers, he establishes that the investigation does not substantiate the fact that Tohá committed suicide.

This is because the summary file under the Second Prosecutor's Office of the Army and Carabineros was not attached to this process, as it was impossible to locate. However, the magistrate did establish that Tohá was deprived of his liberty for more than six months, without any trial being initiated or charges being filed against him during that prolonged period.

Furthermore, he determined that during his captivity, he was subjected—by agents of the FACH intelligence service—to "cruel and degrading" acts, with the purpose of harming his psychological and physical integrity.

Indirectly, the magistrate establishes in his document, the repeated torture was intended to instill fear in a sector of the population. On the other hand, Zepeda confirmed that the former minister was secretly transferred from the Military Hospital to the Academia de Guerra Aérea facility to be cruelly interrogated, as he was considered "a source of information." This illegitimate coercion was also applied to him at the medical facility itself, "as proven by the manuscripts discovered in the present investigation, found in the room where Tohá died." Such documents had been prepared by President Allende's collaborator himself and by the agent who was coercing him and formulating the questions in writing.

Source: El Mostrador, April 21, 2005

Judicial testimonies reveal Tohá's final days

The first indictment issued in the trial regarding the 1974 prison death of former Allende minister José Tohá established who interrogated and tortured him, or at least who gave the orders for the torture, but left a major doubt in the air—the most important one in the case—as it did not shed light on the true cause of death: suicide, as the official version claimed, or murder, as even relevant parts of Judge Jorge Zepeda's own ruling indicate.

Even so, the 22-page ruling revealed details of Tohá's final days previously unknown, which lanación.cl recounts to its readers. Among them are the threats that the then-doctor Patricio Silva Marín made to the relatives of this high-ranking authority of Salvador Allende's government. (Marín, according to the resolution, although the then-director or deputy director of the Military Hospital would be Silva Garín, likely the same person who, with those two surnames, is still the Director of Clinical Management at that facility).

According to the former minister's brother, Isidro Tohá, the "director" of the Military Hospital, Patricio Silva, advised his sister-in-law, Raquel Morales Etchevers, not to visit her husband at the facility.

Isidro Tohá states in the proceedings that Dr. Silva told him that "the efforts you have made before various authorities have only aggravated your brother's situation, who is now treated much more harshly and even interrogated with the help of a psychiatrist named Sepúlveda." According to the case file and the indictment document issued by Zepeda, Dr.

Silva issued an even harsher warning to Isidro Tohá when he demanded that "the Military Hospital must look after my brother's life." "Look, Mr. Tohá must now face the consequences of his political actions," he claims Silva replied.

But the then-nurse and corporal second class Juan Cabello Leiva, who worked on the fourth floor of the medical facility where the minister was held, advised Tohá's wife of the exact opposite: "you have to visit him, because that is very important to him." The nurse knew the official's delicate state of health.

And he knew how they returned him to the Military Hospital every night after having taken him almost clandestinely to the Academia de Guerra Aérea to apply torture. "Mr. Tohá would arrive in very bad shape; he would tell me that they treated him badly, that they didn't torture him physically, but psychologically." "I remember that Mr.

Tohá was admirable for his education; I would talk to him quite a bit and try to console him," he adds.

Contradictions of the official version

The autopsy of the body performed by forensic expert Alfredo Vargas Baeza on the afternoon of that same day, March 15, 1974 (Minister Tohá's death occurred before noon), followed the line of the official version, that of the Second Prosecutor's Office of the Army with its prosecutor Rolando Melo Silva, and of the Military Junta with Pinochet at the head: suicide.

A strange suicide with his feet resting on the floor, tied by the neck with his belt to a pipe that ran inside the closet of the room, which for a person of normal height, like the former agent Luz Arce Sandoval, reached "barely to the eyes," as she declared in the process.

In fact, Luz Arce occupied Tohá's same room at the Military Hospital, room 303, a few months later, when Manuel Contreras ordered her to be hospitalized to treat a gunshot wound she had received during a torture session, "softening her up" so that she would transform from a socialist militant into a DINA collaborator.

The scientific elements that contradict the official version have been published. Former dictator Augusto Pinochet was permanently aware of the fate of Minister Tohá. "But nothing is happening, nothing is happening," Pinochet told Moy de Tohá and Isabel Morel de Letelier one day in September 1973, after Tohá had been transferred from the Escuela Militar to Isla Dawson on Saturday the 15th.

Both had met Pinochet in a hallway at the Ministry of Defense. "What do you mean nothing is happening, if my husband was transferred to Isla Dawson," Moy replied, according to her statement in the process.

Pinochet was surprised that she knew about the transfer, because it was supposed to be secret, and told her to return the next day to "talk." But the next day Pinochet was annoyed because she arrived with the wife of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and Irma de Almeyda, the wife of socialist leader Clodomiro Almeyda.

All three had been sent to Isla Dawson. They were able to send each of them a suitcase with warm clothing.

Source: La Nación, April 23, 2005.

Nine retired FACh officers indicted for genocidal criminal association

The Santiago Court of Appeals revoked the decision adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who had dismissed the request to indict the former officers. In addition, the appellate court indicted three of them for qualified kidnapping.

The Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals accepted the request to indict nine retired officers of the Air Force (FACH) under the charge of genocidal criminal association, due to evidence identifying them as authors of illegal detentions, torture, and disappearances inside the Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA) following the 1973 coup d'état.

With the dissenting vote of Judge Rosa María Maggi, Judge Carlos Cerda and lawyer Andrea Muñoz voted to revoke the first-instance decision adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who had denied these indictments.

Thus, the appellate court indicted Ramón Pedro Cáceres Jorquera, Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, Juan Bautista González Figueroa, Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, Omar Arturo Insunza Melo, Juan Luis Fernando López López, Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán, Roberto Francisco Serón Cárdenas, and Luis Campos Poblete as authors of the crime of genocidal criminal association. "It is justified that in 1974, a group of individuals organized to work in a coordinated manner in the persecution of persons who might hold Marxist ideology or extra-party leftist activism, with the object of exterminating these social groups, criminally attacking their members or followers," the ruling states. To this end, "they proceeded to detain them without a prior order issued by a legitimate authority, to then confine them in the Academia de Guerra of the Chilean Air Force, located in the Las Condes commune of this city, where they were kept incommunicado for prolonged periods and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and other varied forms of physical and psychological torture," it added. Likewise, the Sixth Chamber ordered the issuance of arrest warrants against all these officers, given that the gravity of the imputed crime makes their preventive detention necessary.

Qualified kidnapping

On the other hand, the appellate court indicted Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, Juan Bautista González Figueroa, and Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán as co-authors of the crime of illegitimate deprivation of liberty of José Luis Baeza Cruces.

As noted in the resolution, the evidence in the case is also sufficient to justify the existence of the illegitimate deprivation of liberty of the aforementioned victim, a crime that at the time of its perpetration was described and sanctioned in article 141, third paragraph, of the Penal Code.

José Luis Baeza Cruces, married, father of 2, a leader of the Central Unica de Trabajadores (CUT) and the Communist Party, was arrested on July 9, 1974, by security personnel belonging to the FACH, presumably at the residence located at El Mirador 1868, Santiago.

After his capture, he was taken to the AGA, where he was seen until August 29 of that same year, in very poor physical condition as a result of the torture to which he was subjected. (Source: memoriaviva.com)

Source: La Nación, December 19, 2006

Alberto Bachelet: How the judicial file reconstructs the death of the FACh general

How he was arrested; the indignities at the hands of those who were his subordinates; the contradictions of the case regarding his torture and death; and the steps to be taken by the visiting judge of the case, Mario Carroza.

Testimonies related to retired General Fernando Matthei: Next week the magistrate could reopen the case for potential confrontations. Although it could be reopened next week to confront the former commander-in-chief of the FACh, Fernando Matthei, with witnesses in the case, the case regarding the torture resulting in the death of FACh General Alberto Bachelet—father of the Concertación candidate—was closed two weeks ago by visiting judge Mario Carroza. "La Segunda Sábado" accessed the full content of the file, which reveals throughout its more than 2,000 pages the life of the man who was in charge of the supply of basic goods during the government of Salvador Allende, through the General Secretariat of Distribution. A responsibility that led some officers—even before September 11, 1973—to ask their subordinates not to render honors to him for being a "supporter of the UP." In that climate, subordinates allegedly buried objects under his fingernails; blindfolded him; kicked him; and made him go hungry and thirsty. Part of the narratives correspond to testimonies he left in writing and verbally with his companions in misfortune. Today the case has only two people indicted for "torture resulting in death": the then-commanders Edgar Ceballos Jones and Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, although the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees is pushing for more (see related note on Matthei). Kicked down the stairs. If victims and potential perpetrators agree on anything, it is that Alberto Bachelet was empathetic; athletic; strong-willed and in poor health, as he had already suffered a couple of heart attacks. Sick, he continued his duties, which, by Allende's request, had more to do with supporting the administration of the UP than with the development of the FACh. In charge of the sensitive area of supply, he had contacts with leftist leaders, without anyone pointing out that he was part of a "Plan Z" or anything similar, which was later "investigated" by the Air Force Military Prosecutor's Office. Yes, like many at the time, he sold dollars on the black market for a minor operation. On the 11th, he presented himself at his post in Defense, despite not being part of the conspiracy. There he was arrested by his course mate who would eventually prosecute him, General Orlando Gutiérrez, seconded by the indicted Ceballos. Although the latter denies any humiliating treatment, one of Bachelet's former secretaries, Myriam Heilig Pérez, recounted that the general's driver confided that "he was kicked down the ministry stairs to the basement." His wife, Angela Jeria, remembers that he arrived home having resigned "because of the way he was humiliated."

Detained and 7 kilos lighter

On September 14, he was arrested again and taken to the Colina Anti-Aircraft Regiment, of which the retired FACh group commander, also detained, Ernesto Galaz, said that he gave "very deferential treatment." But later, Bachelet was transferred on September 20 to the Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA), where "we were treated like torturers.

Bachelet suffered the same treatment: before entering (to testify to the Aviation Prosecutor's Office at the AGA for the 'treason to the fatherland' case) there was a 'softening up' session, which consisted of beatings, making us stand with our hands against the wall and semi-flexed with bayonets under our bodies." With the hood on, he lost track of the general, but recounts that "during the interrogation before the prosecutor we were tortured again.

They buried an object in our fingernails and lifted us by cords tied to our testicles." Through a letter he left for his lawyer Alfredo Etcheberry, the candidate's father recalled: "When someone asked for water, they were told there was none and a faucet was turned on... when the back pain was unbearable, our hands were tied in front, but high up, on a metal post." His wife, Angela Jeria, saw him return in mid-October 7 kilos lighter.

Thus began a period of house arrest, but everything changed for unclear reasons: his wife says he asked for permission to attend a wedding in Talca, where the conversation with landowners became unpleasant when he referred to the torture he suffered.

She believes they must have accused him. According to the indicted retired Colonel Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, the same general who gave him the "benefit" of house arrest met him face-to-face in a supermarket in the "upper neighborhood" and revoked the measure on December 18, 1973, the date from which Bachelet remained in the Public Prison.

The cruel "reviews." He was accommodated in gallery 2, intended for about 60 "political prisoners" of the FACh and in cell number 12, which he shared with other officers. From there, he was taken from time to time to the AGA to be "reviewed." "They would regularly come to get detainees (and when they were warned that they would come for them) they would get very nervous and scared.

They always arrived hungry... They stated that they were beaten," recalls former prison guard Daniel Soto Sepúlveda. How bad was it to go to the AGA? Retired Colonel Pedro Guerrero Rojas says that there he was electrocuted, hung, and beaten: "The strongest thing I experienced was when they inserted two sharp sticks into both ear canals, bursting my right eardrum, while (on the left side) the inner bones had to be reconstructed in Germany." A large part of the tortured saw by accident or heard Ceballos and Cáceres, although the accused deny the mistreatment and even point out that they were given the same food as the officers who worked there. Others present at the prosecutor's office, such as the now-retired Colonel Sergio Lizasoaín, maintain that "they had the right to have a lawyer present"; the security officer, Víctor Mattig, speaks of how even "some went back for seconds" and in another torture case, the now-deceased former prosecutor, Orlando Gutiérrez, indicated that the only coercion was stripping the detainees and applying a few drops of ether, which upon evaporating quickly produced the "sensation" of being burned, but that "in reality it is only a sensation." The former prosecutor acknowledged that the detainees were interrogated beforehand by officers "without my presence" and that they were taken away with the documents already written. They limited themselves to ratifying "confessions that they had planned a movement to reaffirm Allende's government and that they had planned to kill people." Bachelet desperate. Some say that Bachelet was not tortured that much and that he had a separate room on the 2nd floor of the AGA. But the truth is that Dr. Alvaro Yáñez remembers that while in prison, the day before he died, he was notified that he would be taken for a review, "news that impacted him in such a way that it caused a state of anxiety and desperation." To transfer him to the Academy, he was picked up by the now-retired squadron commander Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, who says that "the day before his death" he arrived before noon and that the interrogation lasted only 20 minutes, "without torture." Curiously, that proceeding was not recorded in the Gendarmerie logbook and the other prisoners recount that in reality he returned at midnight. Versions of his death. Upon his return, non-commissioned officer Gustavo Lastra Saavedra says that from cell 14 they shouted to cell 12, asking him how it had gone "and he answered that he was doing badly, but using a more popular phrase." His cellmate, Captain Jorge Silva Ortiz, asserts that "before proceeding to rest, lying next to each other, he tells me that the people who had been interrogators that day and who inflicted the aggressions were Ceballos and Cáceres." But what would have hurt him most is that, hooded, he was kept standing for hours, while a woman screamed while being tortured: they were asking her about him. "He commented to me that it affected him a lot, that he felt very bad and that his pulse was somewhat altered," says Yáñez. Shortly after, retired Captain Carlos Carbacho Astorga indicates that "I was next to him, at the moment he was washing some glasses and plates and he points out to me that he felt very bad, falling unconscious." There is also a minority version that he was playing basketball when the attack occurred. Even the FACh doctor, Wladimir Rosales Barrueta, ventured to say that "I have the feeling that the general wanted to die," because of the way he practiced sports. He was attended to by his companions, there were complaints about the slowness of the Gendarmerie, but the means were not there either. In gallery 2 of the prison, on October 12, 1974, the father of the former President died. The day before he died he was forced to listen to the torture of his former secretary. General Alberto Bachelet had three secretaries until September 11, 1973, and the laments of one of them would have broken his heart and precipitated his death. After being taken from prison on March 11, 1974, and taken to the Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA), he returned dejected, in large part because while he was hooded he heard the sobs and screams of desperation of a woman who was being tortured meters away from him, asking her for details of her work life and her political ties. All the questions to her were related to Bachelet, who, immobilized and hooded, could do nothing. It was such emotional stress and physical mistreatment that the next day he died of a heart attack. At least that is what the expert reports carried out by the Legal Medical Service indicate. The request that sank her. In his inquiries, Judge Mario Carroza allegedly found the identity of the mysterious victim: Georgina del Carmen Manquián Grandón, the secretary in charge of the most complex tasks that the high-ranking officer had in the Accounting Directorate during the government of President Salvador Allende. The former official began working with Bachelet on April 1, 1972, and continued her duties after the military officer's arrest. "I worked normally until the beginning of January 1974, when I was arrested on the premises of my work by a captain I didn't know, telling me that I had to go testify at the AGA." Although her other subordinates also went to testify at the Academy, the treatment of her was especially harsh. Perhaps that was so because the general himself had allegedly asked that during his confinement he could be visited by the person he considered his friend, at least according to one of the alleged tormentors of the officer, retired Colonel Ramón Cáceres Jorquera. When he was in prison and in the hospital, "he requested as a special favor to the prosecutors a written authorization in the name of his friend Carmen Manquián so that she could visit him," declared Cáceres. "I have psychological and physical sequelae that prevent me from walking normally." But the woman could not see him again: "I was in that place (AGA) for three days, where I was asked about the activities of Mr. Bachelet. They released me, but after two or three days they arrested me again." A patrol arrived at her house at night and the worst began. "I was hooded and handcuffed immediately. I was detained for more than a month, during which time I was brutally tortured physically and psychologically. They applied electric current to my genitals and breasts, they tied me with a stick to my back, for which to this day I have psychological and physical sequelae that prevent me from walking normally," she confided to the judge. The mistreatment also coincided with nightfall. "The questions were all directed about the activities that General Bachelet carried out, even while they were torturing me they told me that the general was outside the door listening to everything and laughing at what I said." The high-ranking officer was not laughing and was not present either, at least until the last time he set foot in the AGA on the eve of his death. When Carmen recently found out that her former boss had become desperate upon hearing the moans "of a woman," she immediately thought it was her. "I am almost sure that that woman was me," sentenced the former official, who today can be seen walking with difficulty near her residence in the surroundings of the Estadio Español, in Las Condes. The same one they forced to sign a paper stating that she was never tortured. Simulating dementia? The defense of one of the main suspects for the torture resulting in death against General Bachelet, Edgar Ceballos Jones, presented exams from professionals of the SML with which they intend to point out that the retired officer suffers from vascular dementia, which makes it impossible for him to face justice. However, expert reports conducted by other specialists from the same Legal Medical Service, requested by the judge, conclude that "he does not present psychosis or dementia, he possesses normal intelligence and is simulating cognitive pathology." Another similar one adds that "the examinee is simulating a picture of organic deterioration."

Source: La Segunda, June 8, 2013

Santiago Court of Appeals sentences four retired FACH personnel for engineer's homicide

In a unanimous ruling, the Third Chamber of the appellate court sentences four retired personnel of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of the engineer and leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) José Francisco Bordas Paz.

The crime was perpetrated in December 1974, in the Las Condes commune. The Santiago Court of Appeals upheld the sentence that a retired officer of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) must serve and reduced it regarding three other personnel for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of the engineer and leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) José Francisco Bordas Paz.

The crime was perpetrated in December 1974, in the Las Condes commune. In a unanimous ruling (case roll 1.257-2021), the Third Chamber of the appellate court—composed of judges Verónica Sabaj, Lidia Poza, and Rodrigo Carvajal—confirmed the resolution that sentenced Luis Enrique Campos Poblete to 17 years in prison as the author of the crime.

In contrast, regarding Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías and Juan Luis López López, it reduced the sentence, setting it at 15 years and one day in prison; meanwhile, Braulio Javier Wilckens Recart must serve 10 years and one day in prison as authors of the qualified homicide.

The Santiago Court applied the reduction of sentences by accepting the mitigating factor of the irreproachable prior conduct of the sentenced individuals and their degree of participation in the events. "The sentencer being empowered to traverse the entire extent of the referred penalty, the imposition of major imprisonment in its medium degree is shared only regarding Campos Poblete, given his qualitatively superior contribution within the framework of the co-authorship of article 15 N° 3 of the cited Code, since this was to concur in tracing the plan, gathering the means to implement it, coordinating the availability and concurrence of the contributions, making use of the ascendancy in which the hierarchy he enjoyed placed him, coming to initiate the detention work of Castedo Mira, of alert and liaison for the execution of the attack on José Bordas Paz, through radio communications," the ruling maintains. The resolution adds that: "In relation to Contreras Mejías and López López, there is disagreement with the exact determination of the penalty reached by the first-instance sentencer, equating them to Campos Poblete, in circumstances where they corresponded to a contribution through preparatory and executive acts, within the framework of a division of labor, of a strictly material order, without their category of officers or previous experience influencing the devaluation of the act for which they are now judged in terms such as to equate them, without further ado, to the reproach expressed regarding Campos Poblete." "Then—it continues—according to what was reasoned by this Court, the penalty applied to Contreras Mejías and López López will be that of major imprisonment in its medium degree. In the case of Wilckens Recart, concurring in his respect the last referred criterion, in addition to that expressed by the sentence under appeal for the determination of the applicable custodial sanction, concerning his quality as a second-class conscript soldier at the time of the events, the penalty of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, at the minimum, will be imposed on him." "That concerning the invocation of the defenses regarding the configuration of the mitigating circumstance of irreproachable prior conduct provided for in article 11 N° 6 of the Penal Code, the appealed ruling supports its impropriety regarding all the sentenced individuals. In what is pertinent to López López and Wilckens Recart, due to the insufficiency of the mere lack of prior criminal records to the events investigated in this case to establish a notable, impeccable, unblemished, and upright conduct, without this deficit being overcome by sufficient meritorious antecedents in professional, social, labor, or family spheres. In relation to Contreras Mejías and Campos Poblete, the dismissal of the mitigating factor in reference is based, in addition to the lack of elements regarding prior meritorious behavior, on having been convicted for events perpetrated prior to those of this case, in the process roll 12.806 of the year 2002, established by sentence of August 29, 2014, firm and executed," it adds. "However—according to the Santiago Court—regarding the requirements of the mitigating factor in question, it has been maintained that: 'The Law requires an irreproachable prior conduct, that is, free of blemish. The requirement is purely negative and, therefore, it is not necessary to prove that the subject has led a 'virtuous' life, since the latter implies a positive activity in the sense of good. It is enough to establish that the author always abstained from doing evil (…). Jurisprudence generally understands that there is no irreproachable prior conduct if the author has been convicted before for any crime (…). As the law does not establish a time limit, it is required that the entire previous life of the criminal has been unblemished' (Cury Urzúa, Enrique. Penal Law, General Part, Eighth expanded edition, 2005, pages 489 to 491)." For the Third Chamber: "According to this doctrinal premise, the mitigating circumstance of criminal responsibility contemplated in N° 6 of article 11 of the Penal Code is considered sufficiently accredited regarding all the convicted individuals with the merit of their respective filiation extracts and records added to the process, which do not register convictions for crime, simple offense, or misdemeanor by firm ruling, prior to the event that motivates this sentence. The cited provision only requires an irreproachable prior conduct, that is, free of reproach, in such a way that the requirement is purely negative, in terms that to enjoy the mitigation it is not necessary to demonstrate that the respective sentenced individual has led an exemplary or particularly virtuous life, since the latter implies a positive activity." "Jurisprudence has uniformly recognized the mitigating factor in reference to those who lack convictions by executed sentence for events that occurred prior to the current trial and also issued prior to the start of this one, a budget that is satisfied regarding all in whose favor it was alleged, so it will be considered in their favor," it concludes.

Therefore, it is resolved that

"

I.-

That the appeals for cassation in the form deduced by the defenses of Braulio Wilckens Recart and Sergio Contreras Mejías in the presentations on pages 2,814 and 2,859 are rejected.

II.-

That the sentence of February 12, 2021, which appears on pages 2,605 and following, written from page 2,605 to page 2,711, is confirmed, with the following declarations: A.- That the custodial penalty imposed on each of the convicted individuals Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías and Juan Luis Fernando López López is reduced to that of fifteen years and one day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree.

B.- That the custodial penalty imposed on the convicted individual Braulio Javier Wilckens Recart is reduced to that of ten years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree." In the civil aspect, the ruling that accepted the claim for compensation for damages and that condemned the State of Chile to pay the total sum of $450,000,000 (four hundred and fifty million pesos) for moral damages to the victim's relatives was confirmed.

SIFA

In the first instance, the visiting judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza considered the following facts proven: "a) That, a group of agents of the Air Force Intelligence Service, SIFA, who worked in the Aviation Prosecutor's Office that operated in the Academia de Guerra Aérea, became aware through an informant who had belonged to the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) that José Bordas Paz, nicknamed 'Coño Molina', a leader of said movement, would go to a point to meet with another militant, which was previously agreed upon with the aforementioned agents; b) That, on December 5, 1974, the Air Force agents, under the indications of the mentioned informant, forming two teams and mobilizing in two vehicles, intercepted the car in which José Bordas Paz was traveling, surrounding it, to then shoot, without any provocation and with great firepower, as a result of which he was wounded by various bullet impacts, being taken by the agents to the Air Force Hospital, where he received medical attention, dying later on December 7, 1974, at 03:00 hours; c) That, according to the conclusion of the autopsy, the death of Bordas Paz occurred as a consequence of the abdominal gunshot wounds."

Source: pjud.cl, January 3, 2022

Supreme Court confirms convictions of former FACH intelligence agents for crime of MIR leader in 1974

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted four former agents of the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA) for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified homicide of the leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), the civil engineer José Francisco Bordás Paz, who was shot in an operation carried out in the Las Condes commune, dying on December 7, 1974, at the FACH hospital where he had been admitted.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 10.234-2022), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of Judge Leopoldo Llanos, Judge María Teresa Letelier, Judge Roberto Contreras, and lawyers Leonor Etcheberry and Pía Tavolari—rejected the appeals for cassation in the form and in the substance filed against the ruling issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals in December 2021, and confirmed the sentence that convicted the former FACH officers Luis Enrique Campos Poblete to the penalty of 17 years in prison; Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías and Juan Luis Fernando López López to respective penalties of 15 years and one day in prison; and the former member of the troop Braulio Javier Wilckens Recart to 10 years and one day of imprisonment, as authors of the crime as a crime against humanity.

Treason and ambush

José Bordás Paz, 31 years old, a graduate of the University of Concepción, was a member of the leadership of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in the underground. On October 5, 1974, Bordas Paz, known in the MIR as "Coño Molina", was with the leader and maximum head of the revolutionary organization Miguel Enríquez, at the house on Santa Fe street 725, in the San Miguel commune, the latter's place of residence, and managed to break the siege that the DINA laid over the house and where Miguel Enríquez was killed.

Since that date, the repressive apparatuses of the dictatorship began a demented hunt to capture and kill "Coño Molina". In that hunt, the SIFA had the collaboration of an individual who set the trap to lure Bordás to the scene of the crime.

Indeed, in the fall and death of Bordás Paz, the former MIR militant, Leonardo Alberto Schneider Jordán (already deceased), had a decisive role, who after the military coup became a traitor and infiltrated by the SIFA into the clandestine organization of the MIR.

The Academia de Guerra of the Air Force (AGA) was the center of operations for the SIFA and a detention center for political prisoners captured by that repressive body. "El Barba", as he was called in the MIR, became known among the prisoners in the dungeons of the AGA as "Lieutenant Juan Pablo Velasco", sometimes wore a uniform, and was characterized by his cruelty against his former comrades.

In his role as an infiltrator, he managed to gain links and a history that allowed him to approach Bordás Paz's networks. Thus, "El Barba" set the lure that on December 5, 1974, led the leader Bordás Paz toward the Rotonda Kennedy, in the Las Condes commune, a contact point where he was supposedly supposed to meet him.

That was where the SIFA agents under the indications of the mentioned informant ambushed and riddled "Coño Molina". Forming two operational teams and mobilizing in two vehicles, they intercepted the car in which José Bordás Paz was traveling, surrounding it, to then shoot, without any provocation and with great firepower. "Coño Molina" was seriously wounded by various bullet impacts, being taken by the repressive agents to the Air Force Hospital, dying later on December 7, 1974, at 03:00 hours.

In the sentence, the Criminal Chamber ruled out formal infringement when issuing a conviction against the former SIFA agents for the homicide of Bordás Paz and for the application of torture to a second victim. "That, in the analysis of these facts and those that are the subject of the current trial, although in them a contextual link is observed, and a certain connection that could be typical of a criminal plan aimed at an objective in the operation, which is the death of José Bordas Paz; the truth is that said events respond to the execution of two illicit acts—that of application of torture, provided for and sanctioned in article 150 N°1 and 2 of the Penal Code, in the person of Beatriz Aurora Castedo Mira and that of qualified homicide of José Bordas Paz, provided for in article 391 N° 1 of the Penal Code," the ruling maintains.

And it adds that

"The detention suffered by Beatriz Castedo Mira on December 5, 1974, at the intersection of Vitacura and Alonso de Córdoba avenues, the excesses in that detention and the serious physical and psychological suffering inflicted on Castedo Mira thereafter, mainly in the facilities of the Academia de Guerra of the Air Force, by personnel functionally attached to the Air Force Intelligence Service."

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, November 16, 2024