ID Number: 5.309.807 from Santiago; 148.852 from San Bernardo Date of Birth: 04-12-49, 25 years old at the time of his detention Address: Calle Corta 627, Población Cóndores de Chile, San Bernardo, Santiago Marital Status: Single Occupation: Student Political Affiliation: Communist Party Date of Detention: December 20, 1975

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

David Edison Urrutia Galaz, single, student, and member of the Communist Party, was detained presumably on December 20, 1975, in an unknown location, by members of the so-called Comando Conjunto (Joint Command).

On that day, December 20, 1975, around one o'clock in the morning, eight armed agents dressed in civilian clothes, aged between 24 and 27, arrived at the residence located at Calle Corta 627 in the Población Cóndores de Chile in the capital, where David Edison Urrutia Galaz lived with his parents.

They claimed to be from "Army security." They broke into the house violently; some forced open the window of one of the bedrooms, while others entered through a back door. They interrogated the family about the whereabouts of David Urrutia Galaz, who was not there, further stating that a friend of the victim was in custody and had indicated that David possessed documents related to the Army.

They searched the home and then left. These same individuals returned at approximately four in the morning, after having visited the homes of other relatives of the victim. They brought with them one of the victim's brothers, Guillermo Ronald Urrutia Galaz, who lived elsewhere with his wife and daughter.

They left him at his parents' house and asked again for David Urrutia Galaz. Before leaving, they threatened the family, stating that if they did not find their son David with the documents, or if he had made them disappear, they would kill him.

It should be noted that the so-called Comando Conjunto was an intelligence group that operated approximately between 1975 and 1976, and whose primary objective was the repression of the Communist Party.

It was formed by agents belonging to the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (DIFA), with significant participation from agents of the Carabineros Intelligence Directorate (DICAR), and to a lesser extent, personnel from the Naval Intelligence Service (SIN) and the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE).

It also relied on the collaboration of members of the Chilean Investigative Police and civilians from nationalist or far-right groups, as well as members of leftist parties who, after being detained, began to collaborate.

Some of the names known as members of this repressive group included Adolfo Palma Ramírez, alias "El Fifo"; Roberto Fuentes Morrison, alias "El Wally"; and Otto Trujillo Miranda, among others.

David Urrutia Galaz was a member of the Communist Party and a member of the Southern Regional branch of the Communist Youth. His superior in the party structure was René Basoa Alarcón, who was also detained by this Comando Conjunto on December 19, 1975, and was forced to collaborate in the detention of other members of his party.

Due to his party militancy, David Urrutia would be absent from his home for days, always letting his family know about his status. The last time he was seen was on December 5, 1975, during a meeting with his father, Mr.

Mario Urrutia Villa, at the intersection of Calle Salesianos and the Panamericana. On that occasion, the victim reiterated to his father that he would let him know about his whereabouts, and if that did not happen, he should "do something."

The brother of the forcibly disappeared, Guillermo Ronald Urrutia Galaz, was detained and held incommunicado for 22 days, between November 22 and December 10, 1975, without having seen or heard his brother in the facility where he was held.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 29, 1975, Mr. Mario Urrutia Villa, the victim's father, filed a complaint for the presumed disappearance of his son, David Edison Urrutia Galaz, at the San Bernardo Criminal Court, case file 44.761-G.

In the document, in addition to explaining the circumstances of the victim's disappearance, he requested that the Court issue writs to the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and the Legal Medical Institute in order to clarify his son's whereabouts.

All these requests were denied by the investigating judge, who, after the complainant ratified the statement before the Court, only sent a writ requesting information from the Investigative Police. On February 9, 1976, this agency responded: none of the inquiries made at First Aid Posts and the Local Hospital (San Bernardo), the Legal Medical Institute, and the Identification Cabinet yielded positive results.

The final paragraph of the report added the following comment: "...To date, it has not been possible to locate the whereabouts of David Edison Urrutia Galaz, it being presumed that he would be aware of the events that occurred and would be in hiding..." It does not explain whether the official in charge of the investigation had grounds for his particular presumption.

On March 24, 1976, the Judge sent a new writ to the Investigative Police, this time requesting inquiries be made at the Ministry of the Interior, the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and the Legal Medical Institute.

On April 18 of that year, the investigation order was returned to the Court; none of the mandated inquiries yielded positive results.

Based on this information, on May 4, 1976, the summary was declared closed and the case was temporarily dismissed, a resolution that was approved by the Santiago Court of Appeals on June 29 of the same year.

To the date of this report, nothing has been known of the whereabouts or the fate of David Edison Urrutia Galaz, who remains in the status of forcibly disappeared.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

In Peldehue (now Fuerte Arteaga), remains were found in 1995 that have now been identified as those of PC (Communist Party) militant David Urrutia Galaz. A new blow was dealt to the Armed Forces' report on the fate of 200 disappeared persons, submitted in 2001, after the Legal Medical Service (SML) identified the remains of David Urrutia Galaz, which were found in a clandestine grave in Peldehue.

Urrutia, a communist militant, appeared in the military report as having been thrown "into the sea, 40 miles off San Antonio." Urrutia's bones were found in 1995 in a grave in Peldehue, along with those of Ricardo Weibel Navarrete and Ignacio González Espinoza.

At that time, only the remains of the latter two were identified and handed over to their families. The case of Urrutia Galaz is added to that of Juan Luis Rivera Matus, whose remains were found on March 13, 2001, at what is now Fuerte Arteaga in Colina (formerly Peldehue) through the efforts of Judge Amanda Valdovinos.

On May 2 of that year, his identity was judicially certified, and his remains were handed over to his family. Rivera Matus, also a communist militant, appeared in the Armed Forces report as having been thrown "into the sea, 40 miles off San Antonio." The remains of David Urrutia Galaz will be handed over to his parents today at the Legal Medical Service.

The trial for this crime is being conducted in the Third Criminal Court of Santiago. David Urrutia was detained on December 20, 1975, by eight agents dressed in civilian clothes who were members of the Comando Conjunto, and his trail was lost from that moment on.

The judicial efforts made by the family during those years were null. In 2001, the case regarding his disappearance was reopened, and the judge of the First Criminal Court of San Bernardo, Cecilia Flores, after an exhaustive investigation, managed to identify four former agents of the Comando Conjunto and indicted them for the crime of kidnapping.

Subsequently, the case moved to the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, currently presided over by Graciela Gómez. The identification of Urrutia confirms once again the doubts that both the associations of victims' families and human rights lawyers have raised regarding the seriousness and rigor of the information provided, especially by the Army, for the compilation of the report.

Recently, retired Air Force General Patricio Campos accused the Army, in a procedural statement, of having manipulated some data provided by the Air Force. Among other things, he stated that he himself reported that the destination of Rivera Matus was not the sea, as the Army maintained, but Peldehue (Fuerte Arteaga), where his remains were indeed found.

Ruling in favor of Human Rights Program The Eighth Chamber of the Court of Appeals, presided over by Minister Carlos Cerda, unanimously revoked the resolution of Judge Doris Ocampo of the 11th Criminal Court of Santiago, which had prevented the Ministry of the Interior's Human Rights Program from becoming a party to the trial for the kidnapping and disappearance of Carol Flores Castillo.

The magistrate had considered that this office did not have the authority to act as a party in the case, accepting a request from the former head of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, retired General Enrique Ruiz Bunger, who is accused in the case.

The ruling of the Eighth Chamber now allows the Human Rights Program to be a party to the investigation. Lawyer Francisco Bravo argued on behalf of the state office.

Source: Friday, August 8, 2003, La Nación Date: 08-08-2003

AFDD asks senators not to confirm Judge Muñoz Pardo to the Supreme Court

Dear all, I am sending you a letter that we sent to ALL senators of the Republic, urging them NOT to vote in favor of Juan Muñoz Pardo, the judge proposed by the Government to join the Supreme Court and, more seriously, the Criminal Chamber.

This individual has been a clear defender of the dictator and a proponent of the statute of limitations in human rights violation cases. As always, we ask for your help in disseminating this. Cordially, Gabriela Zúñiga F. – Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared (AFDD) (

AFDD

To the Senators of the Republic of Chile PRESENT. We take the liberty of addressing you for the purpose of making known the extreme gravity and concern that the nomination of Mr. Juan Muñoz Pardo to join the Supreme Court represents for our organization, the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared.

His track record in favor of those who committed crimes against humanity is well known; his complicity in their impunity is demonstrated, among other occasions, when in his capacity as a criminal judge in Santiago, he was responsible for substantiating the case against Augusto Pinochet for fraud against the treasury in relation to the irregularity of the purchase of land in El Melocotón; he set a bail for slander that scandalously exceeded the rationality of any amount—it was ten million pesos—which clearly hindered the continuity of judicial action.

Likewise, he has expressed himself in favor of the statute of limitations and against international legislation, disregarding the validity of international human rights treaties and conventions. Such as in the cases of Bernardo Lejderman and his wife María del Rosario Avalos, both forcibly disappeared.

Also his actions in the case of the brothers Saúl Raimundo and David Edison Urrutia Galaz, where despite the fact that David's remains were found at the Colina Air Base, he was in favor of applying the statute of limitations.

We believe that with just the background information presented, he is morally and ethically disqualified from occupying such an important responsibility. Senators, we are approaching 40 years since the coup d'état, and those of us addressing you today are the relatives of the disappeared victims of the dictatorship who, despite the time that has passed, have not achieved all the Truth or all the Justice to which we are not only entitled, but which the country requires to deepen its democracy and to honor those men and women about whom we still know nothing.

There are many members of the Association who have died with the pain of not finding an answer, and it is in their honor that we appeal to you, of whom we do not doubt will take a dignified stance, preventing that IMPUNITY which has done so much damage to Chile from being perpetuated if you vote favorably for someone who has given clear signs of indifference toward our pain and JUSTICE.

Grateful for your attention and with the certainty of the commitment to the respect for human rights that you represent, we greet you cordially. Lorena Pizarro S. – Mireya García R. – Marta Vega A. – Gabi Rivera S. – Marta Rocco – Gabriela Zúñiga F.

Source: elciudadano.com 18/12/2012 Date: 18-12-2012

Judge establishes identity of third body found at Fuerte Arteaga

The head of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Graciela Gómez, acting as a judge with exclusive dedication to human rights violation cases, confirmed that the third body found in 1995 at the Fuerte Arteaga in Colina was fully identified as belonging to the forcibly disappeared David Edison Urrutia Galaz, who—according to information disseminated at the Dialogue Table—had been thrown into the sea.

In her six-page resolution, Judge Gómez points out that "after anthropomorphic and DNA tests were established at the Legal Medical Service, it was proven that the body corresponds to the great-nephew of Matilde Urrutia, the last wife of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Pablo Neruda." She adds that the three cases investigated by the magistrate correspond to people who were "murdered, their bodies burned and illegally buried." Judge Gómez ordered the remains to be handed over to the victim's family for burial.

With this ruling, it is completely ratified that the bodies found in 1995 at the former Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment of Colina, currently the Army's Fuerte Arteaga, are those of DAVID URRUTIA GALAZ, Ricardo Weibel Navarrete, and Ignacio González Espinoza, all forcibly disappeared since December 1975 by members of the so-called Comando Conjunto.

In this case, retired Air Force General Fredy Enrique Ruiz Bunger, retired officers of that institution Juan Saavedra Loyola, César Palma Ramírez, Eduardo Cartagena Maldonado, and retired non-commissioned officer Otto Trujillo Miranda are prosecuted for aggravated kidnapping.

Source: COOPERATIVA.CL 7/08/2003 Date: 07-08-2003

11 former agents of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile prosecuted

SANTIAGO DE CHILE.- Chilean judge Cecilia Flores has prosecuted 11 former agents of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship for illicit association and kidnapping. The magistrate is in charge of the cases regarding the disappearance of communist militant DAVID EDISON URRUTIA GALAZ, detained on December 20, 1975, by approximately eight agents of the Comando Conjunto.

This command was a repressive group formed after the coup d'état of September 11, 1973, and composed of members of all branches of the armed forces, the police, and civilians. The presiding judge of the First Court of San Bernardo has been investigating for six months the remains of nearly 70 disappeared persons at the Army Infantry School, located in San Bernardo, belonging to the Maipo province.

The magistrate reactivated excavations at the beginning of last February at Cerro Chena, which belongs to the Infantry School, where in December she had found small bone fragments, skull remains, and dental pieces.

In the Maipo province, which includes the municipalities of Maipo, San Bernardo, Buin, Paine, and Calera de Tango, 150 forcibly disappeared persons are registered, of whom about half have been found. Judge Flores, along with seven other magistrates, investigates exclusively human rights violation cases, according to a mandate from the Supreme Court, which has allowed for the reopening of 149 cases and the prosecution of more than 80 people in less than six months.

Source: elmundo.es 28/03/2002 Date: 28-03-2002