On September 18, 1973, the farmer Manuel Huentén argued with a soldier at the Regimiento 17 in Los Ángeles. According to testimonies gathered in the proceedings substantiated by Judge Carlos Aldana, the then-lieutenant Juan Delgado Mera allegedly executed him at point-blank range.

On September 22, 1973, the daughter of the farmer Manuel Huentén was working her shift at the Hospital de Los Ángeles. As usual, she went to the morgue and encountered the worst surprise of her life: her father was dead with a bullet in his skull.

Huentén had been detained on September 11 and taken to the Regimiento 17 in Los Ángeles. Pedro Aguilera, a conscript who was performing his service at that time, witnessed the murder: "It was an artillery lieutenant from the Regimiento de Los Ángeles; he shot him with his service weapon, wounding him mortally with a shot to the back of the head."

ANATOMY OF A CRIME

Thirty years have passed since then. For the Huentén family, there has been no justice. However, the situation has changed after the visiting judge Carlos Aldana, who is investigating this and other cases related to human rights, ordered the Special Affairs and Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police to clarify the murder of Huentén, following a criminal complaint for qualified homicide within the regiment filed in 2002 by the victim's relatives. "The progress has been remarkable.

The investigators managed to reach the very scene of the crime, interrogating the people who were there," notes a person linked to the case. All the testimonies in the proceedings accuse Juan Delgado Mera, who until now has been under a summary secrecy order.

According to the same source, the investigation "is 98% complete. The facts are proven and only the final details are missing." For this reason, the indictment of Delgado is imminent. Until now, Juan Delgado has been a complete unknown to the public, but some of his former colleagues at the Regimiento de Los Ángeles have already been prosecuted for other murders during the dictatorship.

According to another detainee in that regiment, Delgado "liked to beat the detainees brutally for no reason," as stated in his declaration. For the protagonists of this episode, it is strange that Delgado rose through the hierarchical scale until reaching the rank of colonel, the rank with which he retired from the Army just last year.

José Apolinero Toledo García, who was detained at the regiment, remembers that on that September 18, they left the cells for the courtyard. Next to him was Huentén, arguing with a soldier. The farmer turned around and headed toward the courtyard. "It was about three in the afternoon.

I remember that Lieutenant Delgado was at the scene, who, alerted by the prisoner's argument with his comrade, proceeded to take a revolver from his holster. He aimed at Huentén's body and then fired at him three times.

The officer was about three meters away from Huentén, who immediately collapsed," he notes. Carlos Alberto Castillo Llanos, who was also detained there, declares that while he was in the courtyard, he heard a shot at the same time that someone ordered everyone to get on the floor. "At that very instant, I looked to one side and spotted Lieutenant Juan Delgado about six meters away with a short firearm in his hands, aimed at the body of a person who was on the floor.

We commented that it was a farmer from Santa Bárbara with the surname Huentén, whom I met when he had just arrived at the stables. He was gunned down by Lieutenant Juan Delgado," he notes. Another prisoner remembers that the soldiers brought the corpse to their cell and showed it to them: "He was completely covered in blood, and they told us that the same thing would happen to anyone who tried to escape," he stated in his declaration.

THE PLACE

The Regimiento 17 de Los Ángeles was under the command of Colonels (R) Gustavo Marzán and Walter Klug, both prosecuted for five homicides and 20 qualified kidnappings, all of which occurred in Los Ángeles.

The recently detained Patricio Abarzúa, named by various witnesses as "the 'guatón' Romo of the regions," also made his visits. A source close to the matter explains that the testimonies indicate that the prisoners were treated as if in Nazi concentration camps. "They loaded them onto trucks, one on top of the other, lying down.

Then, when they arrived at a destination and took them out, many had been crushed to death," he says. Although Judge Aldana has not revealed the deadlines for his investigation, the evidence accumulated in the proceedings indicates that Juan Delgado will be indicted before the end of the year for the alleged murder of Manuel Huentén, who disappeared anonymously on a September 18, 1973.

Source: La Nación, October 23, 2005

Concepción: Colonel (r) released on bail in human rights case

The Concepción Court approved the resolution of visiting judge Carlos Aldana for Juan Delgado Mera, who was detained at the Regimiento Chacabuco. The Court of Appeals of Concepción approved yesterday the release on bail granted by Judge Carlos Aldana Fuentes to the former officer Juan Delgado Mera, who is being prosecuted for the qualified kidnapping of Manuel Huentén Valenzuela.

The Colonel (r) of the Carabineros was being held at the Regimiento Chacabuco, where he arrived after being detained in Santiago by personnel from the Homicide Brigade of the Investigative Police. Delgado was indicted along with four other former officers in one of the 15 summary proceedings being instructed by Judge Aldana for human rights violations during the military regime.

According to the high magistrate's investigation, Colonel (r) Delgado is suspected of murdering Huentén days after September 11, 1973, after which he made his body disappear. Upon being notified of the indictment, the former member of the Carabineros reserved the right to appeal.

Along with Delgado, former officers Pedro Ruiz Pardo, Héctor Echeverría Beltrán, José Godoy Godoy, and Planté Aravena Sáez were also indicted. However, the Colonel (r) is the only one notified of the judicial resolution so far.

One aspect that differentiates this measure by Judge Aldana from others issued in the framework of human rights violation cases is the indictment for the disappearance of indigenous farmers from the foothills sector of Santa Bárbara.

Thus, Planté Aravena is the alleged perpetrator of the qualified kidnapping of brothers Juan de Dios and Julio Rubio Llancao, José Tranamil Pereira, and José Purrán Treca. Another particular aspect of the resolution is the indictment of Godoy Godoy for the case of Elba Burgos Sáez, the only woman who disappeared during the dictatorship in the Biobío province.

Source: El Sur, November 26, 2005