In a questionable decision by the judiciary, the Santiago Court of Appeals granted the writ of amparo filed by Víctor Ernesto Donoso Barrera—a member of Ancla 2 belonging to the CIRE (Regional Intelligence Center), who was convicted for the aggravated kidnapping of MIR member Rudy Cárcamo—against the Ministry of Justice, declaring the latter's refusal to sign the decree granting the former marine his freedom to be arbitrary.

Donoso Barrera is serving a sentence of 5 years and one day for the aggravated kidnapping of Rudy Cárcamo in 1974, the year since which he has been forcibly disappeared. Despite being a prisoner convicted of crimes against humanity, the parole commission of the Santiago Court of Appeals granted him a 10-month sentence reduction, meaning he would be eligible for release. "It is an undisputed fact that the convicted individual began serving the sentence on July 20, 2012, concluding on July 17, 2017.

Under these circumstances, the Sentence Reduction Commission has reduced the petitioner's total sentence by ten months, through resolutions dated November 14, 2013, for two months; November 17, 2014, for two months; November 19, 2015, for three months; and November 15, 2016, for 3 months, respectively.

Consequently, as of September 18, 2016, the petitioner has completed his custodial sentence," the ruling maintains. Donoso Barrera, a former naval officer, along with other beasts such as the head of Naval Intelligence for the zone, Hugo González D'Arcangelis; naval officer José Cáceres González; Investigations official Osvaldo Harnisch Salazar; and Carabineros officer Conrado Sesnic—the latter also benefiting from parole—was part of the Regional Intelligence Center (CIRE), a repressive organization tasked with detaining, torturing, and disappearing leftist militants in the Eighth Region.

Through their hands passed, to mention only three emblematic cases, the forcibly disappeared persons Rudy Cárcamo—"the Vietnamese," a MIR member from Talcahuano—Jane Vanini—a MIR internationalist militant—and the former mayor of Cañete, Elías Jana, who died under torture.

Source: resumen.cl, January 3, 2017

Minister Yolanda Méndez prosecutes retired military personnel for kidnapping and torture at the Talcahuano fort

The visiting minister has initiated proceedings against Hugo Nelson González D’Arcangeli, Víctor Ernesto Donoso Barrera, and Conrado Alfredo Sesnic Guerricabeitía as co-authors of the crimes. The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Yolanda Méndez Mardones, initiated proceedings against three former members of the Regional Intelligence Center (CIRE) of Bío Bío for their responsibility in the crimes of kidnapping with serious injury and repeated application of torture against Desiderio Ceballos Parra, Tito Gerardo Carrillo Mora, Alberto Francisco Vidal Sáez, Carlos Roberto Sandoval Ambiado, and Juan Toribio Riveros Astete. These illicit acts were perpetrated in October 1975 in the communes of Coronel, Penco, Concepción, and Talcahuano. In the resolution (case file 8-2018), the visiting minister initiated proceedings against Hugo Nelson González D’Arcangeli, Víctor Ernesto Donoso Barrera, and Conrado Alfredo Sesnic Guerricabeitía as co-authors of the crimes. In the proceedings, Minister Méndez Mardones established the following facts: "In 1975, the Regional Intelligence Center (CIRE), directed by the Chief of the Third Army Division of Concepción and the Chief of Staff of the Second Naval Zone of Talcahuano, and composed of officials from the Army, Navy, Carabineros, and Investigations, within the framework of a repression plan whose precise objective was to neutralize persons considered militants or sympathizers of leftist political parties, carried out various actions aimed at dismantling, in the case at hand, the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) that was supposedly operating in the Bío Bío Region. Thus, on October 13, 1975, a group of armed State agents, dressed in civilian clothes, detained Mr. Tito Gerardo Carrillo Mora at his parents' house at Calle Luis Emilio Recabarren No. 201, in the La Colonia neighborhood of Coronel; later, in the early hours of October 14, 1975, Mr. Desiderio Ceballos Parra was detained at his home located at La Obra No. 74, Villa Mora, also in Coronel; a few days later, on October 19, 1975, in the early morning, Mr. Carlos Roberto Sandoval Ambiado was detained at his home located at Calle Freire No. 480, in the commune of Penco; and on the same day, they detained Mr. Alberto Francisco Vidal Sáez on the public thoroughfare, near noon, at the corner of San Martín and Paicaví streets in Concepción; and finally, on October 31, 1975, around 9:30 PM, Mr. Juan Toribio Riveros Astete was detained at his parents' house located at Calle Cruz No. 1098, Concepción." For the minister: "The circumstances of their detentions are similar, in that all were detained with great violence by State agents dressed in civilian clothes, armed, mobilized mainly in unmarked pickup trucks, and who did not display any competent order authorizing their apprehension; the detainees, in each case, were blindfolded, beaten with feet and fists, and transported to a place designated precisely by the CIRE authorities as a detention center, that is, the Fuerte El Morro in Talcahuano, located at Jordán Valdivieso s/n in that commune, a fact recognized by Raúl Benavides Escobar, Minister of the Interior at the time, and by Nilo Floody Buxton, Regional Intendant, in October 1975, as evidenced by the Writs of Amparo reviewed, which were filed in favor of the victims after their detention on different dates in that month of October 1975." "Taken to Fuerte El Morro," she continues, "they were interrogated through torture by State agents belonging to the CIRE, in an underground area that the torturers called 'The Embassy,' employing torture techniques such as beatings, the 'submarine,' the 'grill,' forced positions—as they had to remain standing for hours—sleep deprivation, among other methods, in addition to suffering psychological torture such as mock executions or being forced to witness torture sessions of other fellow detainees." "The victims in the case remained locked in said place without a competent judicial order, and were only placed at the disposal of the 'Chief of Department I of the III Army Division' at the end of November 1975, by the 'Chief of the Regional Intelligence Center of Concepción,' Hugo González D'Arcangeli, as evidenced by the CIRE police report RES. No. 2410/408 of November 26, 1975, with 36 detainees, including the plaintiffs in the case, all of which is documented in the Military Justice case file, Rol 1.004-75, of the Third Military Court of Concepción, being transferred on December 5, 1975, to the public jail of this city, and finally sentenced by a War Council on June 23, 1976; some of them were acquitted or released after the sentencing, such as Desiderio Ceballos Parra and Carlos Sandoval Ambiado; others were sentenced to terms of relegation, such as Tito Carrillo Mora, Juan Riveros Astete, and Alberto Vidal Sáez, with the latter's relegation sentence commuted to banishment in March 1978."

Source: pjud.cl, December 16, 2021

Minister Méndez prosecutes retired Navy officials for the application of torture against a student

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Yolanda Méndez Mardones, issued an indictment against five retired Navy officials for their responsibility in the crime of applying torture to Héctor Wladimir Carvallo Ospital.

This illicit act was perpetrated in October 1973 in the city of Talcahuano. In the resolution (case file 3-2018), Minister Méndez Mardones identifies the former Navy personnel José Raúl Cáceres González, Víctor Ernesto Donoso Barrera, Luis Eduardo Kohler Herrera, Ary Antonio Acuña Figueroa, and Julio Humberto Salvador Alarcón Saavedra as the authors of the torture applied to Carvallo Ospital, a high school student at the time of the events.

Héctor Wladimir Carvallo Ospital was 18 years old, a third-year high school student, and a MIR militant when, on October 6, 1973, he was detained by Carabineros officials at the house he shared with his parents, located at Calle Cañerías s/n, Hualpencillo sector, commune of Talcahuano.

His captors, who did not display a competent order, transported him to a police station in that commune, beating him repeatedly from the moment they left the house and asking him about grenades that he had supposedly handed over in a box to Rodrigo Leiva Canales.

Once at the Carabineros facility, he was taken to a cell, where they continued to beat him and also applied electric current while he was naked, in order to obtain information about the contents of the box, which his captors insisted were grenades.

The following day, he was handed over to a group of marines, who took him to the Francisco Acosta Stadium, a place where the Navy Intelligence Service was operating at the time, whose chief was Ary Acuña Figueroa.

After remaining in that place for about 20 days, he was transferred, along with a group of prisoners belonging to the MIR, to the covered gymnasium of the Talcahuano Naval Base and was subsequently taken to the Navy facilities known as Fuerte Borgoño.

A detainee named Tulio Gáez broke under torture and confessed that Carvallo Ospital had weapons hidden in his house, which is why they were confronted, and after he confessed that this was the case, Navy personnel went to his house and found some weapons, so the torture continued.

He continued to be subjected to intense interrogations regarding the weapons by people who belonged to the Navy, according to the victim, with physical duress such as making him go down a staircase sitting down with his feet tied so that he would hit himself on the steps; they also performed "the submarine," which consisted of submerging his head in a drum of sewage while holding him by the hair; and, likewise, "the bell or the telephone," which consisted of striking him with open palms on his ears, as a result of which one of his eardrums burst, resulting in serious damage.

Those injuries persisted over time, as upon arriving in Norway once he went into exile, he had to undergo treatment because he was still losing blood. Another form of torture was running a knife over his body, causing many wounds and leaving scars, so that due to the deplorable physical state he was in, he was never granted visits.

Minister Méndez's resolution indicates that the recounted facts constitute "repeated crimes of application of torture," which also constitute crimes against humanity "since the punishable acts were perpetrated in a context of grave, massive, and systematic human rights violations of detained persons, verified by State agents who had at their disposal all the material and economic means to carry out a state policy of exclusion, persecution, and/or extermination of citizens who, immediately before and after September 11, 1973, were identified as belonging to or sympathizing with the political regime deposed by the military government that assumed control of the country..."

Source: agenciadenoticias.org, April 15, 2022

Former Navy officers prosecuted for kidnapping and torture at the Talcahuano Naval Base in 1974

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Yolanda Méndez Mardones, issued an indictment against five former Navy officers for their responsibility in the crime of kidnapping with serious injury against Rubén Ángel Roca Zapata, perpetrated in July 1974 at the Talcahuano Naval Base and Isla Quiriquina.

In the resolution (case file 7-2018), Minister Méndez Mardones prosecuted Hugo Nelson González D’Argangeli, Víctor Ernesto Donoso Barrera, José Raúl Cáceres González, Luis Eduardo Kohler Herrera, and Julio Humberto Salvador Alarcón Saavedra as co-authors of the crime, in the nature of a crime against humanity, against the laboratory technician of the Department of Organic Chemistry of the University of Concepción at the time of the events, who was detained at Fuerte Borgoño, the Talcahuano Naval Base, and Isla Quiriquina in the Biobío region, and finally transferred in April 1975 to the Tres Álamos prisoner center in the Metropolitan Region. For the court, the facts constitute the crime of kidnapping with serious injury provided for and sanctioned in Article 141, paragraph 3, of the Penal Code, in its text in force at the time of the investigated events, in the consummated degree, committed to the detriment of Mr. Rubén Ángel Roca Zapata. In this regard, the resolution specifies: "That the aforementioned illicit act is, furthermore, a crime against humanity, since the punishable acts were perpetrated in a context of grave, massive, and systematic human rights violations of detained persons, verified by State agents who had at their disposal all the material and economic means to carry out a state policy of exclusion, harassment, persecution, and/or extermination of citizens who, immediately before and after September 11, 1973, were identified as belonging to or sympathizing with the political regime deposed by the military government that assumed control of the country from the indicated date," it concludes. In the case, the visiting minister ordered the total house arrest of the accused, while the Concepción Court of Appeals resolves the matter of provisional release on bail for the individuals. Likewise, she ordered the PDI's Human Rights Crimes Investigation Brigade to personally notify the accused Hugo Nelson González D’Argangeli, Ernesto Donoso Barrera, José Raúl Cáceres González, and Luis Eduardo Kohler Herrera of the issued resolution, while for Julio Alarcón Saavedra, said procedure will be carried out by Gendarmerie officials, as he is currently incarcerated at the Punta Peuco Penitentiary Compliance Center. During the investigation stage, Minister Méndez Mardones gathered sufficient evidence to establish that: "In the month of July 1974, Rubén Ángel Roca Zapata was ordered to be detained by the authorities of the Intelligence Service of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area Command (SICAJSI) of Concepción, presumably due to his political orientation, and was transported to the detention facility established since September 11, 1973, by the Navy, located at the Talcahuano Naval Base, where the Ancla II Intelligence Department of the Second Naval Zone operated, directed since the beginning of 1974 by Frigate Captain Hugo González D’Arcangeli, seconded by 2nd Lieutenant OM Víctor Donoso Barrera, and where a group of interrogators was organized and coordinated by the military commands, with the objective of having him provide information about his political activities and the locations or hiding places of weapons that had supposedly arrived from abroad at the port of Lirquén. The victim, a 25-year-old chemical laboratory technician at the time, an official of the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Concepción, and at the same time a third-year student of Pedagogy in Chemistry at the same university, was a sympathizer of the MIR, but was not registered or a militant in any political party. The plaintiff, Rubén Ángel Roca Zapata, was detained on July 3, 1974, in the afternoon, at his workplace, located at the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Concepción, by three State agents—two of them Carabineros—who were dressed in civilian clothes, who took him to the Talcahuano Naval Base. Once there, they blindfolded him, and hours later they took him out of the gymnasium and brought him to a room to be interrogated; in that place, he was stripped naked, handcuffed by his feet and hands behind his back, while they began to apply various forms of torture that were repeated at intervals over several days."

Source: elrodriguista.org, September 6, 2023