The 12 retired officers of the Navy and Carabineros who were prosecuted yesterday by Judge Eliana Quezada for the crime of kidnapping and torture against former political prisoners following the 1973 coup d'état on the training ship Esmeralda, were arrested this morning by members of the Special Affairs and Human Rights Brigade, led by Commissioner Sandro Gaete.

The accused are Vice Admirals Juan Mackay Barriga and Sergio Barra von Kretschmann, Navy Captain Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, and Carabineros Colonel Nelson López Cofré. Also prosecuted were Navy non-commissioned officers Bertolino Castillo Soto, Jorge Leiva Cordero, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Reginaldo Rebolledo López, Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, Juan Reyes Bausar, Luis Cabezón Cattanzano, and Alejo Esparza Martínez.

All were taken to the PDI barracks in Viña del Mar, and later, at approximately 11:30, were transferred to the Valparaíso courts to appear before the presiding judge. The judge must determine which naval or Carabineros facility the accused will be held in.

The resolution was issued due to the illegal arrest and torture of María Eliana Comeném, Alberto Neumann Lagos, Claudina Moreno Cortés, María and Rosa Huerta Sánchez, and María Isabel Vásquez Pezoa.

Source: La Nación, December 1, 2009

Kidnapping and torture on the Esmeralda: Court grants bail to 12 former uniformed personnel

VALPARAÍSO.— The Valparaíso Court of Appeals granted bail to 12 former uniformed personnel prosecuted for the kidnapping and torture of six people aboard the training ship Esmeralda. Presiding Judge María Eliana Quezada revoked the preventive detention ordered on November 30 against three retired Navy officers, one former Carabineros officer, and 8 former uniformed personnel.

The accused are retired Navy Vice Admirals Sergio Barra von Kretschmann, Juan Mackay Barriga, and Ricardo Riesco Cornejo; as well as former Carabineros officer Nelson López Cofré, and former uniformed personnel Bertalino Castillo Soto, Jorge Leiva Cordero, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Reginaldo Rebolledo López, Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, Juan Reyes Bausar, Luis Cabezón Cattanzano, and Alejo Esparza Martínez.

All were in preventive detention at various Navy and Carabineros facilities, except for one who was placed under house arrest for health reasons. The plaintiff's lawyer, Daniela Marzi, stated that she would not appeal the resolution: "We decided not to challenge it, because we trust the resolutions of Judge Eliana Quezada, and if she considers that the requirements for preventive detention are not met, regardless of our opinion, we prefer to respect her resolution."

Source: El Mercurio, December 16, 2009

Magistrate notifies fourteen former uniformed personnel involved in the Woodward case of their prosecution

During the morning, the Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police (PDI) began the transfer to the Valparaíso Court of Appeals of the last 14 individuals prosecuted for the disappearance of the English priest Miguel Woodward, who was also tortured aboard the Chilean Navy training ship Esmeralda and subsequently disappeared.

It should be noted that on August 26, Judge María Eliana Quezada ordered the prosecution of these fourteen former uniformed personnel. The events date back to the first days of the military dictatorship, when the Chilean Navy implemented "Plan Cochayuyo," designed to repress social organizations and control the area after the military coup.

After 11:00, the retired Carabineros and Navy officials involved in this human rights case began to arrive at the Fifth Region Court of Appeals so that the magistrate could notify them of their prosecution and preventive detention.

The prosecuted individuals are retired Carabineros Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, and Enrique Corrales Díaz, all colonels; as well as Major Luis Araya Maureira, Captain Nelson López Cofré, and Second Sergeant Jorge Leiva Cordero.

Also prosecuted were former Navy officers, Navy Captain Pedro Abregó Diamanti; and retired Marine Infantry non-commissioned officers Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Bertalino Castillo Soto, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

With this, the number of those prosecuted in this case, which is emblematic of human rights matters in Valparaíso, reaches 33.

Source: Radio Universidad de Chile, August 30, 2010

Supreme Court rejects complaints and upholds sentences in the Woodward case

The highest court backed the decision of the local Court of Appeals, which determined the dismissal of 19 people in the investigation into the qualified kidnapping of priest Miguel Woodward, which occurred starting in September 1973.

The Supreme Court rejected the complaints filed against the resolutions of the visiting judge Julio Miranda Lillo and the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, which determined the dismissal of 19 people in the investigation into the qualified kidnapping of priest Miguel Woodward.

In a unanimous ruling, judges Nibaldo Segura, Jaime Rodríguez, Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, and the participating lawyer Alberto Chaigneau rejected the filings made by the Ministry of the Interior, the State Defense Council (CDE), and the plaintiffs who sought to annul both rulings.

The Supreme Court's sentence determines that the judges in question did not commit a fault or serious abuse in ordering the dismissal, considering that participation in the crime, which occurred starting in September 1973, was not proven.

On May 12, visiting judge Julio Miranda Lillo declared the summary investigation into the kidnapping of priest Miguel Woodward closed, issuing two resolutions in the process. In the first, he accused Luis Francisco Pinda Figueroa, Carlos Alberto Miño Muñoz, Guillermo Carlos Inostroza Opazo, José Manuel García Reyes, Marcos Cristián Silva Bravo, Nelson Roberto López Cofre, Jorge Leiva Cordero, Manuel Atilio Leiva Valdivieso, Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, and Héctor Fernando Palomino López as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, in the second, he ordered a partial and temporary dismissal in favor of Guillermo Aldoney Hansen, Juan Mackay Barriga, Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, Carlos Costa Canessa, Víctor Valverde Stelenlen, José Yañez Riveros, Pedro Vidal Miranda, Alfredo Mondaca Salamanca, Claudio Cerezo Valencia, Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, Enrique Corrales Díaz, Luis Araya Maureira, Pedro Abregó Diamantti, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

Source: El Mercurio, September 29, 2011

Definitive: Judicial rulings determine a truth we did not want to know: savage torture took place on the training ship Esmeralda

The ruling by the visiting judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda, establishes a legal truth that was an open secret for years in Chile. Aboard the flagship of our Navy, people were tortured and raped mercilessly; they were also murdered.

The sentences were another slap in the face. Three years and one day for two non-commissioned officers. In total, they will only be imprisoned for 19 days. The sentence was handed down in criminal case Roll No. 943-2007, which investigated the kidnapping of María Eliana Comené Hidalgo, Alberto Enrique Neumann, Claudina Rosa Moreno Cortes, María Elvira Huerta Sánchez, María Isabel Vásquez Pezoa, and Rosa Angélica Huerta Sánchez.

Non-commissioned officers Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto and Jaime Segundo Lazo Pérez were found responsible and sentenced to three years and one day in prison, to which they will never go, as their sentence was commuted.

That is what they received for kidnapping and subsequently torturing 6 people aboard the training ship Esmeralda. Only two non-commissioned officers, with no one else found guilty, on a ship with hundreds of sailors, with officers in charge... only 2 guilty.

Some others were exempted from responsibility for having died or having been declared insane. "Stay still, we have orders to shoot" It is stated on page 2,573 of the file "that on September 11, 1973, a group of people were gathered at Cerro La Cruz, summoned by a CUT leader named Manuel Solís.

After a few hours, two Navy trucks arrived at the location, and the house was surrounded by personnel from that branch. They made them lie on the floor with their hands on their heads and their legs spread; they began to insult and disparage them, kicking them and hitting them with the butts of the rifles they were carrying." Then they loaded them onto a transport, lying face down, and took them to the Molo de Abrigo; in that sector, their captors, a group of sailors, simulated executions.

Later, they were all taken aboard the "Training Ship Esmeralda." The welcome they received consisted of insults and blows with rifle butts. The torture began later. "A witness remembers: 'on September 13, I was violated by a group composed of eight sailors inside a bathroom, where, amidst the beatings, I had to take off my underwear to see if I had anything hidden inside my body.'" It was not the only time, nor the only one who suffered such cruelties.

Another witness, whose statement is on page 2575, remembers having identified among the detainees Sergio Vuskovic, the Mayor of Valparaíso at the time, Alberto Neumann, María Eliana Comené, the sisters María and Rosa Huerta, among others.

She remembers that every day Navy personnel interrogated her, during which they assaulted her with punches and kicks, in addition to the mistreatment; during their entire stay on the "Ship Esmeralda," they were made to listen to the beatings that the others were subjected to, "they mistreated us for fun," she points out.

The violence included the application of electricity, blows with any blunt object the torturers had available, punches and kicks, and, of course, collective rapes of the women. The illegally detained were transferred from the Esmeralda to the ship Lebu and from there to the Maipo, all anchored in Valparaíso.

Some were also occasionally taken ashore to a Carabineros unit. The Cochayuyo Plan A member of the Carabineros testified in the process: "k) Statement of Ricardo Alejandro Riesco Cornejo, on page 326, ratified on page 536 and page 1,181, in which he indicates that on September 12 or 13, 1973, he was ordered to report to the 'Training Ship Esmeralda,' where he was notified that he had to proceed to guard all the people arriving at the ship and all the people who were already being held." He continues by pointing out: "the detainees were interrogated inside the Training Ship, specifically in the midshipmen's chamber or dining room, by a group of external people who arrived at the ship dressed in civilian clothes and were in charge of Frigate Captain Jaime Román (deceased). As he learned, the interrogating personnel belonged to the Carabineros de Chile, though he did not know their names. He adds that on one occasion he witnessed an interrogation where the application of electric current was used so that the detainee would confess faster." According to the torturers themselves, those participating in the interrogations included, among others: Sergeants Alejo Esparza, Jaime Lazo, Bertalino Castillo, nicknamed "El Choro," Francisco Prado Espejo, Valentín Riquelme, nicknamed "Gerónimo," Francisco Lagos, and Héctor Santibáñez and Juan de Dios Reyes Bazeur. The plan intended to capture opponents of the regime in the V Region was called "Cochayuyo." In the Lebu were the women, Maipo to Pisagua, and the Esmeralda was the torture center. According to the statement of Rafael Guillermo Mac-Kay Backler, on pages 373, 1,061, and judicial 1,284, ratified on page 1,287, "upon arriving in Valparaíso on September 11, 1973, from Talcahuano, he learned of the military uprising. The Commander of the Esmeralda, Navy Captain Jorge Sabugo, informed the midshipmen that people would arrive at the Molo de Abrigo in the capacity of detainees, and they were to proceed to guide them from the moment they got off the trucks until they reached the ship Lebu or Maipo." "A large number of people began to arrive, including men, women, and some foreigners, a situation that occurred day and night," states Mac-Kay. Other guards of the Esmeralda declared that "the prisoners were held 24 hours a day in the midshipmen's between-decks, where there were approximately five rows of double bunks; he remembers that on occasions they were taken out of the place through a restricted access, to which he did not have access; some detainees arrived complaining of pain, to which he provided dipyrone." They add that "the detainees inside the Training Ship were male, but he remembers that there was a foreign woman who was there for a short time; the women were held inside the ship Lebu." Between one thousand and 1,500 detainees on the Maipo alone It is estimated by a jailer that inside the Maipo there were between one thousand and 1,500 detainees after the coup. The judicial statement of Augusto Pedreros Silva, on page 565, is clear: "starting on September 11, 1973, I was assigned the task of sea guard, which I performed at the entrance door of the ACANAV building, in order to control the entry of personnel." He remembers that "the entry of civilian detainees was through the Silva Palma Barracks and from there they were taken by the Marines to the third floor, a place set up for interrogation at the ACANAV." And he continues: "The detainees were lined up one after another, with one arm resting on the person in front of them; they were hooded. He adds that one of the interrogators during the first period was Officer Jaime Román Figueroa, who had been a professor at the Academy. Subsequently, a group of Marines began to perform this function, whose chief was a non-commissioned officer with the surname Leiva. He points out that the interrogations were accompanied by torture, as the screams of the detainees could be heard, which consisted, among other things, of applying current; he affirms this because he had seen, on occasions, Investigative officials carrying magnets in their hands. Finally, he points out that there was Carabineros personnel in the facility, remembering, in particular, a Lieutenant nicknamed 'La Paloma,' who would correspond to Lieutenant Patricia Orellana Alvarado, whom he saw passing to the interrogation rooms." Electric plates on the detainees A witness pointed out on page 2,588: "They took me with a kind of hard fabric bag on my head, then, in an office where there were three officers, they took off the bag and handcuffs, one named Cristian Gantes and Jaime Román Figueroa; there I was interrogated." "I don't remember if the next day or hours after that event, they covered my head again with a bag and took me to an upper floor, arriving at a kind of dungeon; there they tied me by my back to a wooden pole with handcuffs, they took off my clothes from the waist up; in the interrogation, they asked me about weapons, while at the same time they put electric plates on me, and so that I wouldn't faint, they threw water on me violently or threw themselves on me abruptly; said interrogation was repeated several times consecutively and was directed by Jaime Román Figueroa, whom I could identify by his perfume and voice. Finally," she adds, "I was on the Esmeralda until September 18, 1973." What one of the convicted declared Page 2600: "That while giving an investigative and evidentiary statement, the accused Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, on pages 192, 340, and 1,033, points out (...) Regarding the detainees they interrogated, they arrived at the War Academy transported by the Carabineros de Chile and the Gendarmería de Chile. (...) He also points out that he had to dress in civilian clothes at the moment of interrogating a person, covering his face with a ski mask so that they would not recognize him, in order to prevent future attacks or personal or family reprisals. He states that the interrogation techniques were only dialogue, he only asked and they answered; there were no beatings, torture, or degrading or inhuman treatment, nor the application of electric current or torture of any other type." Convictions constitute another slap in the face to the victims The statements are of a cynicism that irritates, which is why the visiting magistrate rejected them for not being in accordance with the reality of the facts. However, having so much time passed, they were acquitted of the rapes, as the court could not consider them proven, and although they did happen, the judge could not convince himself that the convicted were the ones who raped the women. Three years and one day is the sentence. Added to the benefits, they will never be in prison for the aberrations they committed. Only the 19 days when they were arrested for the first time. Human Rights organizations estimate that 500 political prisoners were on the Esmeralda, 1,000 on the ship Maipo, and 4,000 on the ship Lebu. Nearly 3,000 people passed through the Valparaíso Stadium, and 4,000 through the War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks, all of whom were tortured and several of whom were murdered. A bloody testimony María Eliana, a Spanish literature student, recounts: "They were stuck to all the walls; I counted eight marines, some hooded and others with their faces painted black. They tell me to undress. I started to undress and left my bottom part on, because I was wearing a menstrual pad. So, when they forced me to even take off my panties, I said I couldn't, because I was indisposed. They forced me to do it, and that's where all the feminine rebellion comes in, the rebellion of the fighter; no matter how much they wanted to make us feel like animals, the moment arrived when the dignity of the human being rebelled against all that. And it was such my anger, the indignation, that I took off my panties, took the bloodied pad, and put it on the face of the lieutenant who was leading the group." It was not enough: "After that, still naked, by order of the lieutenant, two marines from behind grabbed my buttocks and bent down to look at my anus." Surely they were the same ones who raped women to demonstrate their power and lower the dignity of the detainees. They covered their faces with ski masks and hid their ranks. "On the Esmeralda," remembers María Eliana, "there was violence 24 hours a day; they would take out the comrades, beat them, torture them; they would return purple and vomiting blood." "When they transferred me to the Lebu, we were separated from the comrades who were in the holds. We were in the cabins and there were so many of us that we couldn't breathe; we had to sleep sitting on the floor. They fed us only once a day, at 9 in the morning. They were beans that even had worms; once when we complained, they told us mockingly, 'why are you complaining if we are giving you meat?'" The treatment was truly inhuman and cruel. Among the torturers, there were also civilians and Carabineros. On one occasion, recounts María Eliana, "they took me to a cabin that had been set up as an interrogation room, and there was a lieutenant who began to grope me and shout, saying: 'defend yourself now, huh, you bitch!' He groped me in a frightening way; it was more than an hour of just that." The horror of the Naval War Academy María Eliana also passed through the Naval War Academy on the Playa Ancha hill. "I was there for about four weeks; they took me out every night to interrogate me; they hit my ears with their hands, they put current on my tongue, in my vagina. They took us out to have fun with us, to sexually abuse us. There were mass rapes. In the end, one disconnects, tries to sublimate what is happening, but it is impossible to forget; in fact, when I was already in prison, I developed a serious infection, with vomiting and fever." "They sent me to the Naval Hospital and there they said it was just a gallbladder attack and they sent me back to prison. However, it was something much more serious. It was gonorrhea, and it was impossible to know how and where I had contracted it: on the Esmeralda, on the Lebu, at the Academy? The only thing clear is that I was left with my endometrium totally and absolutely destroyed," she finishes by recounting. Priest Miguel R. Woodward It is estimated that there were about 40 women detained on the Esmeralda, who were subjected to all kinds of mistreatment, torture, humiliation, and rape. Among the detainees, it is worth noting the presence of the Chilean-British Catholic priest, Miguel R. Woodward, who died as a result of the torture when, on September 22, 1973, he was taken to the Naval Hospital of Valparaíso on the recommendation of a doctor from the same Navy. Although the Catholic Church claimed his body, it was never delivered to them, and he was buried in a mass grave over which a road was later built.

Source: Cambio21, May 17, 2014

Roll No. 21-2016: Kidnapping case with serious injury and illegal detention of Marco Antonio Contardo Guerra

Seventeenth: That while giving an investigative statement, the accused Sergio Hevia Febres on page 64, indicates that he was a Navy official and retired on April 1, 1984. He was an interrogator at the War Academy between November 22, 1973, and the end of December of the same year.

Then he was designated as a vehicle driver in the operational groups at the same Academy that went out to carry out operations and surveillance, which he fulfilled until February 1978, when he was transferred to Santiago as a student at the Army Intelligence School, until June of that year.

At the Academy, he interrogated men and women who were brought in as detainees for being accused of belonging to leftist groups and having participated in acts considered terrorist. He does not remember having interrogated minors as detainees.

There were young detainees, but they were over 18 years old; it seems to him that they were university students. He points out that on those dates, the War Academy and the Silva Palma functioned as a single unit, so the interrogators operated in the Silva Palma, as in his case.

His treatment of the people he interrogated was severe, but without reaching physical aggression. He exerted psychological pressure through threats and insults, but he never resorted to beatings or torture.

His direct boss was Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, deceased, nicknamed "Cicerón." Among his colleagues who were also interrogators, he remembers Juan de Dios Reyes, Francisco Prado, deceased, a certain Lagos, deceased; it seems to him that Esparza was also there, and others he does not remember.

Regarding whether there were female interrogators, there was a dark-skinned woman who apparently was from the Navy, but she went occasionally to interrogate women, and there was another who was from the Army; he does not remember their names.

V.- That ALEJO ESPARZA MARTINEZ, HÉCTOR VICENTE SANTIBÁÑEZ OBREQUE, and SERGIO HEVIA FEBRES are sentenced, as authors of the crime of kidnapping with serious injury to the person of Marco Antonio Contardo Guerra, an event that occurred between the months of October and December 1973, in Valparaíso, to the penalty of FIVE YEARS AND ONE DAY of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, to the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and positions and political rights, and that of absolute disqualification for titular professions for the duration of the sentence.

Source: Judiciary, April 30, 2019