The ongoing lawsuit regarding the murder of the Lejderman-Avalos couple names Brigadier General Mario Larenas Carmona, Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Army Division, as one of the individuals involved. This judicial process, opened in the year 2000, complicates government efforts to remove active-duty officers questioned for human rights violations.

In December 2000, a lawsuit regarding the murder of the foreign couple—Bernardo Mario Lejderman Konujowska, an Argentine national, and María del Rosario Avalos Castañeda, a Mexican national—was accepted by special judge Juan Guzmán Tapia.

According to the judicial filing, the spouses were killed by a detail that included, among others, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Ariosto Lapostol and the then-Army Second Lieutenant Mario Larenas Carmona, the current Brigadier General and Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Army Division.

This new human rights episode hinders the recently inaugurated "Bachelet doctrine," which seeks to remove from the military branches individuals linked to human rights violations committed during the dictatorship.

Promoted by the Minister of Defense, the policy was put into practice after the case of General (ret.) Patricio Campos, linked to a former agent of the Comando Conjunto, became known. Promoted in 2001 from the rank of brigadier general to general to join the 2002 high command, the senior officer, according to sources linked to the process, has not appeared before the courts; the file is currently in the hands of Judge José Calvo, who took over the case following the reorganization of cases previously handled by Judge Guzmán.

The indictment currently being analyzed in the courts is directed against “Augusto Pinochet Ugarte; the former commander of the Arica Regiment of La Serena, Colonel (ret.) Ariosto Lapostol Orrego; Army Captain Carlos Verdugo Gómez; Army Lieutenant Jorge Cruz Adaro; Army Lieutenant Rubén Fiedler Alvarado; Army Second Lieutenant Mario Larenas Carmona; and Army Intelligence Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, all officers of the aforementioned regiment as of December 1973, for their participation as perpetrators, accomplices, or accessories to the crimes of qualified homicide, illicit genocidal association, and illegal burial.” Although Larenas has not been formally charged, he is named as a defendant and will sooner or later have to face the courts to determine if he was indeed part of this military patrol in December 1973. In the meantime, human rights organizations do not hesitate to include his name as a former DINA agent, information that can only be revealed by the judicial investigation led by Judge Calvo. The Lejderman-Avalos family arrived in the country in 1971, and their only son, Ernesto, was born a few months later. They established residence in Vicuña, where the father collaborated with the local governor. “The military coup found them living in that area. Given their status as foreigners, and because they were well-known in the sector, they feared for their safety, so they sought a way to leave for Argentina through a mountain pass in the area. That is how they arrived at the Gualliguayca sector, trying to achieve their goal on a date that cannot be precisely determined, but which in any case would correspond to late September or early October of that year.” “On December 8, 1973, a military patrol with troops from the Arica Regiment of La Serena, under the command of officer Fernando Polanco Gallardo and guided by Luis Horacio Ramírez, who had been detained the day before, broke into the Angostura ravine, Posesión Los Perales, in the Gualliguayca sector, where there were caves in which the Lejderman-Avalos family had taken refuge.” “At that time, the regiment was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ariosto Lapostol. Luis Horacio Ramírez was interrogated about some people who were hiding in the Angostura ravine and for whom the witness had obtained clothing. Once the information was obtained, a picket was formed consisting of about ten soldiers under the command of officer Fernando Polanco Gallardo, and probably the other officers named, plus a short, dark-skinned, and chubby sergeant. When they approached the place, the soldiers left the witness at a certain distance from the place where we were. A short time later, Luis Horacio Ramírez heard shots, and then he reached the place where the sergeant was, who ordered him to take a shovel and a pickaxe to dig an excavation. The soldier led him about 150 meters from the caves, and the witness was able to see the body of a woman, whom he recognized as María del Rosario Avalos Castañeda, to whom he had previously provided help when she was hiding there with her spouse and son. Her body showed abundant blood in the chest area. The witness did not see Ernesto Lejderman (the father).” The account also states that “the soldiers ordered him—Luis Horacio Ramírez—to dig a grave to bury my mother's body, which he did, burying her body at a depth of about 40 to 60 cm. Regarding Lejderman the father, the witness remembers that the soldiers told him that the man had committed suicide and that his remains were disintegrated one kilometer away inside the ravine. They also told him that after having held a War Council in the same place, they had decided to set him free and that he should continue working without commenting on what had happened to anyone.” However, the following day (December 9), Ramírez “with the help of Modesto Pastén, found my father's body, which they buried on the spot for humanitarian reasons. My father's body was intact and not disintegrated as the soldiers had said, but it was bathed in blood.” The following year, on March 4, 1974, the witness Luis Horacio Ramírez was approached by a military patrol under the command of the same officer, Fernando Polanco Gallardo, who commented on the woman's body. According to the lawsuit, “military doctor Guido Díaz Paci, from the Arica Regiment, and a man who claimed to be the Mexican Consul” participated in the task. Indeed, the woman's body was exhumed and transferred to the General Cemetery, currently located in the Edmundo Marambio U-2 module, niche 76. The official version of the case is that the couple committed suicide with dynamite. The military thesis was refuted years later when the autopsy indicated that the death was due to a series of gunshot wounds.

Source: Primera Línea, December 18, 2002.

Body of Mario Lejderman exhumed to determine causes of death

Without letting up and continuing with the efforts to apply justice against the murderers of his parents, the young Argentine Ernesto Lejderman Avalos, son of the Argentine Mario Bernardo Lejderman Konujowska and the Mexican María del Rosario Avalos Castañeda, who were executed by a Chilean military patrol on December 8, 1973, traveled to Santiago de Chile last Thursday to witness the exhumation of his father's body and clarify the manner of his death.

Ernesto Lejderman, a member of the H.I.J.O.S. association and AFEPOC (relatives of those subjected to political executions in Chile), made the trip to the Chilean capital accompanied by his lawyer so that a forensic team, after the exhumation of his father's body, could report the details regarding the causes of his death.

VERSION. According to the version provided by the military government of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the Argentine Bernardo Lejderman died as a result of an explosion caused by dynamite that he and his wife detonated.

However, eyewitnesses to the events declared to the authorities at the time that they did not hear any explosion, but rather the sound of bursts of gunfire. In mid-2000, a soldier who worked in the same regiment identified as a participant in the executions of the Argentine-Mexican couple declared before Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia that the couple had not committed suicide but had been executed by the military patrol.

BACKGROUND. With this information, Ernesto Lejderman and his lawyer are certain of how the events occurred, and to provide more elements to the cause of justice, they have requested the presiding judge to exhume the body of Bernardo Lejderman so that anthropologists and biochemical experts can determine the true causes of his death.

The exhumation was carried out last Friday at the Vicuña cemetery, in the north of Santiago de Chile, according to a statement from AFEPOC. THOSE INVOLVED. Seeking the application of justice and punishment for the executioners of his parents, the survivor of the Lejderman-Avalos family presented a letter to Chilean President Ricardo Lagos in December 2002, requesting that his government dismiss General Mario Larenas Carmona and initiate proceedings against him for having participated in this treacherous crime.

The letter adds that on December 4, 2000, Ernesto Lejderman filed a complaint, pointing to the murder of his parents, who were executed in the Elqui Valley on December 8, 1973. In 1991, the Chilean justice system investigated the event, and it was documented and clarified as a cold-blooded murder; later, due to pressure from the military, this judicial process was moved to the Supreme Court and subsequently archived in the Military Prosecutor's Office.

Involved in this criminal act are: Ariosto Lapostol Orrego, Carlos Verdugo Gómez, Jorge Cruz Adaro, Rubén Fiedler Alvarado, and Fernando Polanco Gallardo. Also named is the current General Mario Larenas Carmona, who was promoted by order of his government during 2001, that is, after the criminal complaint against him had been filed.

Following the young Argentine's recent visit to Santiago de Chile in December 2002, the process following his complaint filed in 2000 has remained under a veil of mystery, as the Chilean authorities have not shown results against any of the military personnel accused of the execution of the Lejderman-Avalos couple, so the collection of evidence will be key to keeping the case alive before the courts.

The case is still being reviewed in Chilean courts. Without any results having been disclosed regarding the case of the execution of the Argentine-Mexican couple on December 8, 1973, in Chile, the case file is currently under review and analysis in the Chilean courts, as the lawsuit filed by Ernesto Lejderman, son of the Argentine Bernardo Lejderman and the Mexican María del Rosario Avalos Castañeda, is directed against the former dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, as well as against the former commander of the Arica Regiment of La Serena, Colonel (ret.) Ariosto Lapostol Orrego; Army Captain Carlos Verdugo Gómez; Army Lieutenant Jorge Cruz Adaro; Army Lieutenant Rubén Fiedler Alvarado; Army Second Lieutenant Mario Larenas Carmona; and Army Intelligence Captain Fernando Polanco Gallardo, all officers of the aforementioned regiment who were part of said group. Justice against impunity. Supported by his family since he was two years old, the Argentine Ernesto Lejderman, who appears next to his grandmother (image above), has turned to various human rights defense organizations to be heard and to bring the punishment that the murderers of his parents deserve. The union he has had with relatives of those forcibly disappeared during the dictatorship led him to reach President Ricardo Lagos and deliver his complaint by hand.

Source: Cronica.com.mx, January 26, 2003