Occupation : Teacher. Principal of the 5 de Mayo School in the Pablo de Rokha neighborhood, in the La Granja district Repressive Background: Former secretary to the Senator for the Communist Party, Julieta Campusano Date of Detention: September 1974

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz, married, mother of 3, a teacher, was detained by members of a joint operation involving agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and Carabineros officers on August 15, 1974, at approximately 07:30, at her home located at Calle Bueras No. 172, apartment D, in Santiago.

On that occasion, others were also detained: Ricardo Troncoso Muñoz, the siblings Hernán Galo and María Elena Inostroza Suárez—who remain forcibly disappeared to this day—and Rosetta Pallini (who died in August 1975, in exile), who was detained along with her young son, who was five months old at the time of the events.

The group sharing the apartment where they were apprehended were militants of the MIR.

Witnesses to the detention were Mrs. Mercedes Vargas and her husband, Mr. Osvaldo León Rodríguez, who, in their capacity as concierge and caretaker, respectively, of the apartment building where Elsa Victoria and her companions lived, were forced to open the building's access door for the agents.

Thus, around eight in the morning, the León Vargas couple were able to witness how all the occupants of apartment "D" were removed by plainclothes agents and Carabineros.

At least two Carabineros and four or five agents participated in the operation. One of the police officers accompanied the agents to the apartment, while another remained stationed at the building's entrance door.

Subsequently, all the detainees were transported in a pickup truck to the clandestine center for political imprisonment and torture of the DINA, known as "Londres 38," located in downtown Santiago at the address indicated by its name. However, prior to this, the agents took Rosetta Pallini to the home of some relatives, where they handed over her young son.

On the afternoon of that same day, August 15, Pedro Eduardo Moreira Montoya, the tenant of apartment "D" at Bueras No. 176, who had in turn sublet it to the group including Elsa Victoria, was detained by DINA agents.

Mr. Pedro Moreira was taken by his captors to the Londres 38 facility without being officially processed into that location. On this occasion, he was informed by the agents that his subtenants had been detained because they were miristas, while they also questioned him for information about the group of detainees.

After being released, Mr. Moreira was visited on several occasions by the same agents for the purpose of interrogating him about his subtenants.

At the Londres 38 facility, those apprehended in the Bueras street apartment were seen by and were able to speak with other detainees, whose survivors testified regarding their confinement in that place.

Erika Hennings, held at the Londres 38 facility during that same period, was able to hear their voices when they responded to the daily roll call.

From "Londres 38," Elsa Victoria and the other people with whom she was living at the time of her detention were transferred to the "Cuatro Alamos" facility, where they were seen and were able to converse with other prisoners.

Rosetta Pallini, a survivor of that group of detainees who was expelled to Mexico, where she passed away in August 1975, testified that she had been held along with her other companions in apprehension, first at "Londres 38" and then at "Cuatro Alamos."

Viviana Uribe Tamblay, during her time in captivity at the "Tres Alamos" facility, met Rosetta Pallini González, who told her that she had been detained on August 15, 1974, along with Ricardo Aurelio Troncoso Muñoz, the González Inostroza siblings, and Elsa Leuthner.

Regarding these same events, Rosetta Pallini testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Mexico in 1975, prior to August 2, the date of her death.

It should be noted that the building where Elsa Victoria and her companions resided and were detained was visited several times by patrols of Carabineros and the Armed Forces, who specifically requested the names of the people residing in their apartment.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Following the detention of Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz, her brother, Hernán Nibaldo, began efforts to determine her whereabouts. In his search, he visited various detention centers, clinics, and hospitals, and appealed to the National Secretariat for Detainees, without positive results.

For her part, Elsa Victoria's mother, Mrs. Gregoria Muñoz, who was in delicate health, was summoned on two occasions to appear at an organization called "Yaconia," located at Calle Ricardo Lyon No. 560.

There, she was attended to the first time by a Ms. Carmen Mohianelo, who told Mrs. Lidia Rojas, who was accompanying Mrs. Gregoria, that her daughter had been executed by firing squad. Parallel to this, Ms. Mohianelo recommended to Mrs. Lidia that, given the mother's delicate state of health, she should not be told this news, which is why she only learned of it after some time had passed.

Subsequently, in May 1977, Mrs. Gregoria requested her daughter's birth and marriage certificates in order to carry out the relevant judicial proceedings to locate Elsa Victoria's whereabouts, only to be surprised to find that the marriage certificate contained an annotation of "Annulment of marriage," which reads verbatim: "Sentence of the First Court of Santiago.

Date September 30, 1975. Approved October 27, 1975. Husband Carlos Augusto Besamat Bravo. Wife Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz. Petitioner Antonio Edmundo Mercado Arroyo, ID No. 85.231-6 Cabinet Ñuñoa. Tax $170.

Receipt No. 1156 of Quinta Normal. Exempt by -Date (sub-entry) May 2, 1977. Document 128. Signed Fernando Riveros P. Civil Registrar. Quinta Normal, May 13, 1977." There is a signature from Fernando Riveros.

This annotation on Elsa Victoria's marriage certificate greatly surprised her mother, because on the dates mentioned in the document, her daughter was already a forcibly disappeared person. She also never saw her grandchildren Jean Paul, Christian, and Carla Besamat Leuthner again after the date of Elsa Victoria's disappearance, at which time their paternal grandmother took charge of the children, traveling with their father in May 1979 to the United States, the country where he had resided since 1972.

Subsequently, on January 29, 1980, Mrs. Gregoria Muñoz López, following the appointment of the Visiting Judge Mr. Servando Jordán to investigate the cases of forcibly disappeared persons, filed a complaint for alleged disappearance of her daughter, Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz, before the Second Criminal Court.

On March 7, 1980, the Visiting Judge declared himself incompetent, as it was a complaint that was not in process at the date of the Supreme Court resolution that decreed his appointment to hear the cases of forcibly disappeared persons in the Metropolitan area.

By virtue of this, he referred the records to the Ninth Criminal Court of Santiago, and the case was accepted for processing under Roll No. 25074-9.

In the proceedings in August 1981, it was established that the annulment of the marriage does not appear registered in the First Civil Court of Santiago, as the document mentions, which suggests it may be a forgery of a public document.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

Convictions confirmed for two former DINA leaders for the aggravated kidnapping of a young woman in August 1974.

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that imposed a 10-year prison term on former Army officers and former leaders of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), César Raúl Manríquez Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, for the aggravated kidnapping of the young student Rosetta Gianna Pallini González, 22 years old, a crime committed between August 15, 1974, and March 21, 1975, in Santiago.

In the ruling (roll 16.096-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito Cruz, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Raúl Mera M., Roberto Contreras, and the acting lawyer María Cristina Gajardo—rejected the cassation appeal and ruled out any error of law in the sentence that convicted César Manríquez Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko.

In the first-instance ruling, issued in March 2018, the visiting judge Mario Carroza sentenced the convicted former agents to five years in prison. This sentence was endorsed by the Santiago Court of Appeals in January 2019, but with the declaration that it increased the imposed sentences to 10 years in prison.

It is regarding this latter resolution that the criminal agents filed a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court.

Rosetta Pallini was the wife of the MIR leader from Chillán, Ricardo Catalán, who had been detained since March 1974 by the SIFA at the AGA, a clandestine detention center that operated at the Air Force War Academy in Santiago.

Along with Rosetta, the MIR militants Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz, 32, Ricardo Aurelio Troncoso Muñoz, 26, and the siblings Hernán Galo and María Elena González Inostroza, 26 and 22 respectively, were detained in the same home on the same day, August 15, 1974; these four people remain forcibly disappeared, and the latter two were included in the macabre list of 119 victims with which the DINA staged the macabre Operation Colombo in 1975.

All the detainees were part of a group of mirista militants from Chillán who had taken refuge in Santiago to escape the repression in the south. Their detection and capture occurred as a result of the betrayal by a woman detained months earlier, known as "La Flaca Alejandra," who had become a collaborator for the repressive agencies.

The group of militants was taken to the Londres 38 Barracks, or "Yucatán," a secret detention and torture center used by DINA agents at the time. The kidnappers were part of the metropolitan brigade, led by Manríquez Bravo, and were operatives in the "Halcón" group, led by Krassnoff Martchenko.

Former agent Basclay Zapata, a member of the "Halcón" group, had also been prosecuted by Judge Carroza, but this criminal died during the course of the proceedings.

At the clandestine Londres 38 barracks, the detainees were subjected to constant and brutal torture. Rosetta Pallini suffered the same treatment, and was subsequently transferred to the prison camps known as "Tres Álamos" and "Cuatro Álamos," where she was kept as a kidnapped prisoner for more than 90 days.

Finally, on March 21, 1975, suffering from a deplorable state of health as a result of the torments received, she was expelled from the country bound for Mexico. In that country, she underwent surgery at the end of July 1975, but the aftereffects of the torture made it impossible for her to survive the operation, and she passed away on August 2.

Source: resumen.cl 11/11/2021 Date: 11-11-2021

Supreme Court issues new conviction against DINA agents

In a new ruling that dismisses the Amnesty Law and the statute of limitations, the Criminal Chamber convicted four members of the DINA's Caupolicán Brigade for the kidnapping of four members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in August 1974, who were taken from an apartment in downtown Santiago.

The Supreme Court ratified a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison for the members of the Caupolicán Brigade of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the disappearance of four militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) that occurred in August 1974.

In a unanimous ruling, the Criminal Chamber confirmed the sentence issued against Colonel (Ret.) Marcelo Moren Brito, Brigadier (Ret.) Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Sub-officer (Ret.) Basclay Zapata, and civilian agent Osvaldo Romo Mena for the aggravated kidnappings of Ricardo Aurelio Troncoso Muñoz, Hernán Galo González Inostroza, María Elena González Inostroza, and Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz, who were detained on August 15, 1974, at different points in the capital.

The ruling ratified the judgment of the special judge Joaquín Billard Acuña issued in April 2004, which had not been modified by the Santiago Court of Appeals, applying once again the criterion of the country's highest court to accept the Geneva Conventions for cases of human rights violations committed during the dictatorship, thereby dismissing the figures of amnesty and the statute of limitations.

"It is not acceptable that those who took refuge in the advantages granted to them by the aforementioned declaration of a state of war, established by the only legislative instrument available after the breakdown of the constitutional institutional order in force until then, now intend to ignore its value to disregard the sanctions that the transgressions of the laws of such a state impose, and the limits that the Geneva Conventions and other international instruments already in force on the matter at that time impose on self-exoneration regarding them," says the ruling written by Minister Jaime Rodríguez Espoz, which has more than 70 pages and 90 considerations.

It adds that "if, by making use of the superiority of force, a state of war was established to facilitate the fight against those who opposed the military government, one must also accept the consequences that follow from having violated the regulations that govern armed conflicts in relation to the treatment of combatants, who could no longer be considered common criminals, and much less be made victims of brutal repression such as that which the records of this process account for."

Of those sentenced, only Sub-officer Zapata, known as "El Troglo," is not currently serving prison time for any previous conviction for human rights violations, so once the files are sent to the first instance, he must enter one of the two special penal facilities for military personnel located in the Metropolitan Region.

Ricardo Aurelio Troncoso Muñoz, Hernán Galo González Inostroza, María Elena González Inostroza, and Elsa Victoria Leuthner Muñoz were detained on August 15, 1974, in a raid carried out by DINA agents at the apartment located at Calle Bueras 172, Apartment D, in Santiago, and were taken to the detention centers of Londres 38 and Tres and Cuatro Álamos, from where their trail was lost.

The case of Troncoso Muñoz is particular. Before his detention, he had remained in asylum at the Mexican Embassy in Santiago from October 10, 1973, until March 1, 1974, the date on which he left the asylum, desperate due to the delay in being granted a safe-conduct. Fifteen days later, he was detained by DINA agents.

Source: May 12, 2007, El Mostrador Date: 12-05-2007

Judge issued convictions in three cases of forcibly disappeared persons

The head of the First Criminal Court of Santiago with exclusive dedication to human rights cases, Joaquín Billard, sentenced the former operations chief of the CNI, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, to ten years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnapping and resulting death of Juan Luis Rivera Matus, recorded in December 1975.

Along with Corbalán, and for the same sentence, the former member of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), Sergio Díaz López, was convicted.

Meanwhile, in the capacity of accessories after the fact, the head of the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA), Freddy Ruiz Bunger, and Carlos Madrid Hayden received sentences of 600 days of commuted prison time.

The notification, for Corbalán's case, was made this morning at Punta Peuco. Sources close to the case indicated that the Army would have preferred not to transfer him to the court, in order to avoid problems following his recent outings.

Juan Luis Rivera Matus was named in the first report of the Dialogue Table as one of the victims of the repression who had been thrown into the sea, along with 131 other people. However, in 2001, his remains appeared on the grounds of the "Justo Arteaga Cuevas" Fort in Peldehue. For many, this fact shattered the credibility of that body.

Rivera Matus was a militant in the PC and was a union leader at Chilectra. He was detained on November 6, 1975, at the corner of Santo Domingo and San Antonio by about five people in plainclothes who put him into a white Peugeot station wagon without license plates.

On the same day of his kidnapping, a writ of amparo was filed on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which, like almost all similar actions filed during the military regime, was rejected without further processing by the appellate court, following a negative report on the detention issued by the Ministry of the Interior. On May 26, 1976, the case had been temporarily dismissed.

Other cases But this was not the only sentence issued by the magistrate. He also convicted former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena for the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Espinoza Méndez, nicknamed "Abel" or "Juancho," whose last traces date back to June 18, 1974.

According to the Rettig Report, Espinoza Méndez was seen by witnesses at the Londres 38 detention center and disappeared while in the power of the DINA, without any further news of him ever being received.

The magistrate also sentenced former DINA agents Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren Brito, Basclay Zapata, and Osvaldo Romo to ten years and one day for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against former MIR militants Elsa Leuthner, María González, Hernán González, and Ricardo Troncoso Muñoz.

The case of Troncoso Muñoz is particular. Before his detention, he had remained in asylum at the Mexican Embassy in Santiago from October 10, 1973, until March 1, 1974, the date on which he left the asylum, desperate due to the delay in being granted a safe-conduct. Fifteen days later, he was detained by DINA agents.

The magistrate is still investigating the case of Juan Suil Faúndez, who was made to disappear by SIFA agents in the mid-seventies. The other two cases the magistrate had, one of them for Operation Colombo, were attached to the file being substantiated by special judge Juan Guzmán Tapia.

With the convictions in these three cases, the path is opened for the Supreme Court to unify the criteria regarding the application of the Amnesty Law. In 1997, the criterion of the ruling of the Second Criminal Chamber of the highest court changed, where the application of that legal body was modified and the theory of permanent kidnapping was established.

Source: May 4, 2004, El Mostrador Date: 04-05-2004