Social media erupted during the broadcast of the report by the Chilevisión program "En la Mira," which displayed the faces of the most emblematic medical professionals who participated in acts of torture during the Pinochet regime.

The program aired a report titled "Torturer Doctors," which investigated cases of individuals who were tortured, with these professionals tasked with monitoring their conditions and determining whether or not the detainees could continue to endure the torture session.

In other cases, such as that of Dr. Guido Díaz Pacci, the investigation incriminated him in the execution of Jorge Jordan, a doctor from the Communist Party who, in 1973, was tortured and murdered in the Coquimbo Region at the age of 29. In this regard, Díaz Pacci is allegedly the person who delivered the coup de grâce to the physician.

Several cases were shown in this Wednesday's report, illustrating the cruelty exercised in the country's regiments, such as those in Arica, La Serena, and Tejas Verdes, where sexual torture was also practiced and in which the majority of the repressive agents participated.

The report also showed the case of Dr. Raúl Navarro Quintana who, like all the alleged torturer physicians, still treats patients and moves about the streets in absolute impunity. In the case of Navarro Quintana, he is accused of having been a member of the death squad and is held responsible for the deaths of Absalon Wegner and former detective Rigoberto Achú.

In addition to Navarro Quintana, the report by journalist Alejandro Vega named other professionals who are also involved in some way in the "work" entrusted to them by the dictatorship's repressive apparatus to "keep the tortured alive." Among those named are Vittorio Orvietto, an ophthalmologist at the Clínica Plus Médica; Manfred Jurgensen, a former member of the CNI; Alejandro Forero, a doctor who allegedly participated in the Caravan of Death and currently practices at the Clínica Indisa; and Eugenio Fantuzzi, who was in charge of the DINA health department and was expelled from the Medical Association.

The raw report detailed many cases of torture narrated by victims and witnesses who saw the horrendous actions of some professionals. In the final part of the segment, journalist Alejandro Vega and his cameraman confronted some of those involved, who were surprised by the arrival of the camera and immediately denied their participation with phrases accompanied by evident nervousness that even caused them to stumble over their words.

The Chilevisión program also revealed the friendship that existed between the former Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Juan Emilio Cheyre, and one of the alleged torturers, Dr. Guido Díaz Pacci. In this regard, both victims and witnesses of the macabre events pointed out that the two functioned as a duo that abused and denigrated the detainees.

Finally, it was reported that this Thursday, lawyer Cristian Cruz filed a complaint for torture regarding the case of the torturer doctors broadcast by the program "En la Mira."

Source: La Nacion, May 29, 2014

While it is true that some may have only performed their duties as doctors attending to the health of officials, there is evidence of doctors who dedicated themselves to assisting in methods of torture, allocating medications for interrogations—such as the so-called "truth serum"—falsifying documents, adulterating clinical records, or signing death certificates with causes of death that concealed the responsibility of state agencies.

Death doctors are free and practicing

According to human rights lawyer Carmen Hertz, there is a list of about thirty doctors linked to the dictatorship who remain in impunity. Evidence of this is the case of Bernardo Lejderman and María Avalos, killed in 1973 by soldiers in the north—a crime that became known recently due to Ernesto Lejderman’s public demand for answers upon learning that his parents had not committed suicide with explosives, as stated in the medical report signed by Guido Díaz Paci, a doctor who remains active to this day, working in the Traffic Department of the La Serena municipality.

But this is not the only case, and some treat patients in well-known chains of medical centers. Lawyer Hertz accused in 2013 that doctors complicit in extermination policies today hold executive positions in places like the Clínica Dávila or Clínica Indisa.

But we do not only have death doctors currently practicing in Chile. Journalist Javier Rebolledo, author of the book "La Danza de Los Cuervos" (The Dance of the Crows), points out that nurse Gladys Calderón learned from other doctors who injected people with 5 ml of pentothal to kill them, and between 1976 and 1977, she dedicated herself to murdering detainees at the Simón Bolívar barracks via injection.

The cases are innumerable, some more well-known, such as the doctors who attended to former President Eduardo Frei Montalva.

Sinister doctors in the present

The most chilling thing is knowing that, in the present, doctors with pasts involving death, torture, the CNI, or the DINA may have treated you or your relatives in well-known medical centers. For example, Camilo Azar Saba has served as a traumatologist at Integramédica Alto Las Condes, or Vitorio Orvieto Tiplizki as an ophthalmologist at the same center’s Maipú branch.

In 2016, it was reported that Pablo César Oyanguren Plaza, alias "Cicerón Videla," works at the Faculty of Dentistry of the Universidad Mayor in Alameda. Oyanguren was a member of the DINA "Health Brigade," a repressive apparatus of the Pinochet dictatorship that operated in the clandestine clinic at Calle Santa Lucía 162.

Once the DINA was dissolved, the then-dentist became part of the sinister CNI.

Below is a list of doctors who are in this situation and were published by Radio Universidad de Chile:

Darwin Arriagada

– Doctor, leader of the Medical Association of Chile in 1973. He was appointed by the Military Junta as Director General of Health. He participated in the plan to administer drugs in food to murder political prisoners. He turned in numerous leftist doctors, more than 30 of whom were murdered. He practices at Santa María 217, office 34, Independencia commune.

Camilo Azar Saba

– CNI doctor. He was suspended for six months from the Medical Association for his participation in torture applied to prisoners in CNI barracks. Implicated in the case of Federico Álvarez Santibáñez.

Guillermo Araneda

– Doctor from Punta Arenas, cardiologist. He applied his knowledge to the torture of prisoners in this city.

Alejandro Babaich Schmith

– Director of the "Cirujano Guzmán" Hospital in Punta Arenas. Advisor on torture against political prisoners.

Gregorio Burgos

– Doctor of the Los Ángeles Regiment. He advised DINA agents on finding ways to torture without the detainee losing consciousness.

Víctor Carcuro Correa

– CNI doctor. This doctor was suspended from his rights in the Medical Association for his participation in the torture that culminated in the death of the transporter Mario Fernández López, in La Serena, in October 1984.

Raúl Díaz Doll – Doctor, official of the General Directorate of the National Health Service. He was part of the military commission that investigated the political affiliation of doctors. He organized spying within the service and participated personally in the interrogations of detained and tortured doctors.

Guido Mario Félix Díaz Paci

– Army and CNI doctor. A military health officer of the Army who participated in the events that culminated in the death of the transporter Mario Fernández López, in La Serena. The causes of Fernández López's death were the torture suffered in the CNI barracks of that city in October 1984.

When Mario Fernández had to be transferred to the La Serena Hospital, Díaz Paci lied to the doctors on duty at the Hospital, claiming that the detainee came from a Carabineros station and not from the CNI, requesting that the doctors hide the detainee's condition.

Once Fernández died, the doctor and CNI agent attempted to have the physician who had performed emergency surgery on the victim falsify the diagnosis of his death, hiding the true reasons for the passing.

For all these reasons, Guido Díaz Paci was expelled from the Medical Association. In 1974, he participated in the exhumation of the body of María Avalos, murdered along with her husband, Bernardo Lejdermann, in December 1973 by a patrol from the Arica Regiment of La Serena. In the death certificate, he claimed that the woman had blown herself up with dynamite.

José María Fuentealba Suazo

– Army doctor. On October 27, 1973, José Fuentealba participated in the delegation that traveled to Río Mayo, Argentina, to transfer 3 detainees—Juan Vera, Néstor Castillo, and José Rosendo Pérez—who had been captured by the Argentine Gendarmerie when they escaped in search of political asylum.

The delegation was under the command of Captain Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (murdered by the son of Manuel Contreras) and also included a Carabinero with the surname Salinas and the non-commissioned officer Evaldo Reidlich Hains.

The three prisoners were put into a vehicle from the Coyhaique Regional Hospital and transported in the direction of Chile, but they never reached their destination. In April 2002, the judge of the First Criminal Court of Coyhaique, Luis Sepúlveda, indicted Fuentealba Suazo and the (retired) Carabinero non-commissioned officer Evaldo Reidlich Hains.

Alejandro Jorge Forero Alvarez

– Cardiologist. Medical Association Registry 9580-K. Squadron Commander and doctor who was working at the time of the coup d'état at the FACH (Air Force) Hospital. In 1976, he served as a second-class soldier at the El Bosque Air Base and at the Colina Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment.

In this place, he participated in the Joint Command, supervising torture and drugging prisoners who were taken out to be forcibly disappeared. He was indicted by Judge Carlos Cerda in the middle of the dictatorship. These days, he has been summoned again in new proceedings regarding the Joint Command.

Werner Gálvez – Pediatrician, Colonel of Health in Iquique. At the beginning of the military regime, he applied intravenous injections of sodium pentothal, alternating with biological serum, during interrogations in this city.

Fernando Jara de la Maza

– Traumatologist from Valdivia. In the days following the military coup, he participated directly in the application of torture to detainees.

Manfred Jurgensen Caesar

– CNI doctor. This doctor, who was also a CNI agent, was expelled from the Medical Association for his participation in torture applied to prisoners in clandestine barracks of this repressive organization. Implicated in the death of Federico Alvarez Santibáñez.

Luis Losada Fuenzalida

– CNI doctor. He was also expelled from the Medical Association for his participation in the torture that culminated in the death of the teacher Federico Álvarez Santibáñez. One hour before the death of Álvarez Santibáñez, who was tortured in August 1979 for seven days in secret CNI barracks in Santiago, he signed a report indicating that the teacher was in good physical condition.

Minoletti – Carabinero doctor, Concepción province. He advised the torturers of Fuerte Borgoño and issued certificates for natural death to cover up the crimes.

Vittorio Orvieto Teplizky

– Army doctor. He performed collaborative functions in the torture committed at the Tejas Verdes Prisoner Camp Number Two. He also participated in the DINA Health Brigade as director of the Santa Lucía Clinic.

América González Figueroa

– Hired during the dictatorship to perform functions in the Legal Medical Service (SML), where she falsified information regarding the causes of death of some political executions. Among the cases in which she is implicated are the death due to torture of Carlos Godoy Echegoyen, which she made appear as "sudden death"; the murder of Cecilia Magni Camino, claiming she had drowned and hiding the vestiges of torture on her body; and the crime of the DC student leader Mario Martínez, who appeared on the coast of Rocas de Santo Domingo after being kidnapped in Santiago.

Another "service to the fatherland" was her participation in the examinations that culminated in the fraud regarding Pinochet's dementia. In the last period, still at the SML, she was appointed head of the Department of Thanatology and acting director of the service.

On December 21, 2000, shortly after her responsibility was proven in the erroneous delivery of the bodies of three young people burned inside the San Miguel Prison, she received a merit notation in her service record signed by the Minister of Justice, José Antonio Gómez, a Radical Party militant.

Jorge León Alessandri

– Dentist, civil agent of the DINE, implicated in the murder of union leader Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro.

Osvaldo Leyton Bahamondes

– DINA doctor. Implicated in the death by torture of Manuel Leyton Robles, a DINA agent who was murdered by his "colleagues" after being publicly involved in the theft of a Renault 4, a job commissioned by his superior Germán Barriga Muñoz.

Dr. Leyton Bahamondes signed a certificate in which the agent appears to have died due to an epileptic seizure and cardiac arrhythmia at Almirante Barroso 76, the location of the clandestine London clinic.

Bernardo Purto – Radiologist from Melipilla. Together with the military prosecutor of Melipilla, he personally took part in the torture sessions of prisoners.

Luis Hernán Santibáñez Santelices

– DINA doctor. Member of the Health Brigade that operated in the London Clinic (Almirante Barroso). Implicated in the disappearance of Juan Elías Cortés.

Hernán Horacio Taricco Lavín

– DINA doctor. Head of the Health Brigade that operated in the London Clinic. Implicated in the death of DINA agent Manuel Jesús Leyton Robles.

Hernán Twane – Psychologist who applied Sodium Pentothal to prisoners so that they could be interrogated by the Investigations Service.

Werner Zanghellini Martínez

– Director of the Santa Lucía Clinic between 1975 and 1976. He is accused by survivors of Villa Grimaldi of having injected the rabies virus into Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, a forcibly disappeared person.

Sergio Marcelo Virgilio Bocaz

– Doctor of the DINA Health Brigade, with duties at the clandestine Santa Lucía clinic, who continued working in the CNI Logistics Command. Marcia Merino says she saw him in advertisements for coffee and financial companies.

DINA Health Brigade: Composed, among others, of doctors Vittorio Orvietto, Werner Zanghellini, Hernán Taricco, Nader Nasser, Osvaldo Eugenio Leyton Bahamondez, Rodrigo Vélez, Samuel Valdivia Soto, Luis Hernán Santibáñez Santelices, Eduardo Contreras Balcarce, gynecologist Juan Pablo Figueroa Yáñez, otolaryngologist Eugenio Fantuzzi Alliende, psychiatrist Roberto Lailhacar Chávez, dentist Sergio Roberto Muñoz Bonta, and nurse María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada.

Another doctor, of whom only the surname is known, is the psychologist Bassaure.

Eugenio Fantuzzi Alliende, Otolaryngologist – Chief Physician of the Otolaryngology Service of the Clínica Dávila. Roberto Lailhacar Chávez, Psychiatrist – Former president of the Chilean Society of Sexology and Sexual Education.

Source: conspiranoicochile.wordpress.com, June 26, 2016

On Saturday the 27th at noon in the commune of Recoleta, a hundred people denounced physician Eugenio Fantuzzi Alliende at his place of work. Fantuzzi was a member of the infamously remembered DINA.

Protesters arrived at the Clínica Dávila, located at Avenida Recoleta Nº464—where Eugenio Fantuzzi currently serves as Head of Otolaryngology—with pamphlets, shouts, chants, and banners to say once again: "If there is no Justice... there is Funa."

"The so-called 'Funa' goes to the home or workplace of those who have violated human rights and denounces them in a loud voice. Since this particular street demonstration began, more than forty people have been 'pointed out.' Most have been amnestied by the courts or simply never spent time in prison," reported the Chilevisión news program.

Julio Oliva, one of the leaders of the Funa, stated: "We have continued to carry out these actions permanently because there is still no justice in this country. That is why we came to warn the patients who were being treated here to think about it a little more, because this doctor used his knowledge to help kill people."

In the denunciation flyer distributed to passersby and patients at the medical center, the Funa Commission reported that Eugenio Fantuzzi worked in the clandestine clinics at Santa Lucía Nº162 and the London clinic, located at Almirante Barroso Nº76.

In these facilities, which were dependent on the DINA, they not only treated personnel from the dictatorship's repressive apparatus but also prisoners who had begun to collaborate—as a way of rewarding them—and detainees who were dying as a result of torture, so that they could be "recovered" and the repressive agents could continue their interrogations and torture.

Accounts from survivors who passed through these facilities indicate that torture also took place there and that there was direct communication with the Villa Grimaldi concentration camp, which allowed prisoners to hear the torture of family members.

Hundreds of detainees passed through these clandestine clinics, many of whom are now among the forcibly disappeared or were victims of political executions by the DINA. Among them: René Acuña Reyes, 22 years old, who was detained and wounded by gunfire on February 14, 1975; Dina Aarón, 24 years old, a journalism graduate, detained on November 18, 1974, by DINA agents, who, upon realizing she was about to be apprehended by civilians, attempted to flee and was wounded by bullets in the lung and kidney; Isidro Pizarro Meniconi, 21 years old, detained on November 19, 1974; Ida Vera Almarza, 31 years old, detained on November 19, 1974; and Nilda Peña Solari, 23 years old, detained on December 10, 1974, who suffered a miscarriage as a result of the beatings and torture to which she was subjected. There is evidence and testimony indicating that all of them passed through these facilities and subsequently disappeared at the hands of the DINA agents themselves. Also documented is the case of agent Manuel Leyton Robles, who passed through the London "clinic" and was murdered after his connection to the organization was discovered when he stole a Renault 4 (a "recoleta") on the orders of Germán Barriga, head of the Purén Brigade.

The Funa Commission reported that along with Eugenio Fantuzzi Alliende, the doctors Vittorio Orvieto Teplizky, Werner Zanghellini, Hernán Taricco, Nader Nasser, Osvaldo Leyton Bahamondez, Rodrigo Vélez, Samuel Valdivia Soto, Luis Santibáñez Santelices, Eduardo Contreras Balcarce, Juan Pablo Figueroa Yáñez (gynecologist), Roberto Lailhacar Chávez (psychiatrist), Sergio Muñoz Bontá (dentist), and the nurse María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada belonged to the DINA Health Brigade.

Several of these "doctors" have already been "funados." In edition Nº1179 of El Siglo, the report "The Doctors of Death" provided background on the role many physicians played in the crimes of the dictatorship and their current workplaces in the public or private health sectors, protected by impunity.

Julio Oliva warned that Funas will continue: "We want to continue this fight against impunity, not only against the criminals of yesterday, but also against those who are getting rich today, against those who have power, against those who murder students fighting for their right to study, like Daniel Menco, who murder Mapuche people fighting for their right to land, like Alex Lemún.

That is the impunity that still continues. Impunity for the politicians involved in the pedophilia network, impunity for those who do whatever they want because our strength is lacking. We must continue to give strength, organizing from below to change this country."

At the end of the activity, the Funa Commission invited attendees to pay tribute to the brothers Rafael and Eduardo Vergara Toledo, to Lumi Videla, and to the communist professionals Manuel Guerrero Ceballos, Santiago Nattino Allende, and José Manuel Parada, murdered by the dictatorship. "These days, we have some dates that bring to mind the pain of having lost some friends and comrades, but also the joy of knowing that it is for them that we are in this fight," he concluded.

(*) Pablo Ruiz, former political prisoner. Editor of www.libertad.ya.st

Source: El Siglo, April 10, 2004

Torturers and murderers: Doctors of death.

Cardiologists, psychiatrists, dentists, traumatologists, pediatricians, gynecologists, and otolaryngologists used the knowledge they acquired to save lives for the application of torture and executions against hundreds of political prisoners.

Most of them are still working in public hospitals, private clinics, and health institutions of the Armed Forces.

The Hippocratic Oath states in part: "I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia, and Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill this oath according to my ability and judgment.

I will hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money, I will give him a share of mine, and will regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and will teach them this art—if they desire to learn it—without fee and covenant.

I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. I will not give a deadly drug to anyone if asked for it, nor will I advise the course of such a thing; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.

With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. Now, if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me."

Evidently, those who placed their knowledge at the service of torture and death violated this oath and all norms regarding the defense of human rights. The worst part is that, with the protection of the Armed Forces or the extreme negligence of public hospital directors appointed by the Concertación, they remain in their positions, treating people who have not the slightest idea that "their doctor" has such a sinister past.

This happened, when the public denunciations known as funas began, with hundreds of patients who started calling the doctors to confront them and cancel their visits upon learning of the facts. Among other cases, this was what happened with Alejandro Forero at the INDISA Clinic, Sergio Muñoz at the Barros Luco Hospital, and Roberto Lailhacar at his office on Obispo Salas street in the commune of Providencia.

From the early days

The collaboration of doctors who had sided with the coup plotters occurred from the very first days of the Pinochet dictatorship. The case of José María Fuentealba, a health official of the Army, is one of them.

On October 27, 1973, Néstor Hernán Castillo Sepúlveda, 23, Regional Secretary of the Communist Youth; José Rosendo Pérez Ríos, 24, employee and MAPU militant; and Juan Vera Oyarzún, 53, worker, Regional Secretary of the Communist Party, union leader, and former councilman of Punta Arenas, were handed over by the Argentine Gendarmerie to Chilean military personnel in the border town of Río Mayo.

On September 20, a group of four people, including Juan Vera, had crossed the border to seek political asylum in Argentina. Two days later, they were handed over to the Argentine Gendarmerie by the owner of a ranch in the area, taken to Aldea Veleiros, and subsequently to Río Mayo. In this town, they remained under the custody of the 38th Squadron of the Gendarmerie.

On the other hand, on September 28, José Rosendo Pérez and Néstor Castillo, who had also arrived from Chile days earlier, were detained in a boarding house in Río Mayo. Along with Juan Vera, they were tasked with performing work at the Río Mayo Municipality while they remained detained.

This lasted until October 27, when they were handed over to a military commando composed of Army Captain Joaquín Molina, a Carabineros officer named Salinas, Sub-officer Evaldo Reidlich Hains, and Dr. José María Fuentealba Suazo, who were traveling in an ambulance from the Coyhaique Regional Hospital.

According to the newspaper La Epoca of November 2, 1988, the military "informed them that their families were waiting for them at the border. Once in Chilean territory, the military patrol forced the group to board a truck and began the return trip toward the Las Bandurrias prison camp.

Hours later, the vehicle arrived at the military facility. Only the uniformed men and the doctor were inside. The three detainees have never appeared to this day."

The justice system prosecuted Dr. Fuentealba Suazo and retired Sub-officer Evaldo Reidlich, while continuing efforts to identify the other member of the patrol and conducting inspections at the Coyhaique Forest Reserve of the El Claro Cemetery, the place where the three Chilean citizens were allegedly executed and disappeared.

Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida, the captain who commanded the group, was murdered by Manuel Contreras Valdebenito, son of the head of the DINA.

As in this case, the cardiologist from Punta Arenas, Guillermo Aranda, and Alejandro Babaich Schmith, Director of the "Cirujano Guzmán" Hospital in that city, also appear from the first moment, recognized by many tortured people from that locality.

Another is Darwin Arraigada Loyola, at that time a leader of the Medical Association of Chile, who was subsequently appointed by the Military Junta as Director General of Health and who is accused, among other things, of turning in numerous leftist doctors, more than 30 of whom were murdered, and participating in the plan to administer drugs in food to murder political prisoners.

The doctor Raúl Díaz Doll, an official of the General Directorate of the National Health Service, was part of the military commission that investigated the political affiliation of doctors. He organized the spying within the service and participated personally in the interrogations of detained and tortured doctors.

In Iquique, the pediatrician Werner Gálvez, a Health Colonel, administered intravenous injections of sodium pentothal, alternating with biological serum, during interrogations of prisoners of war. Meanwhile, in Valdivia, the traumatologist Fernando Jara de la Maza participated directly in the application of torture to detainees.

In the province of Concepción, a Carabineros doctor named Minoletti advised the torturers of Fuerte Borgoño and issued "natural death" certificates to cover up the crimes. Meanwhile, in Tejas Verdes, the cradle of the DINA, Dr.

Vittorio Orvieto Teplizky performed collaborative functions in the tortures committed in Prisoner Camp Number Two of that military facility; he would later join the Health Brigade of said illicit association, appearing as director of the clandestine Santa Lucía clinic.

In the vicinity of Santiago, the radiologist Bernardo Pulto, together with the military prosecutor of Melipilla, personally took part in the torture sessions of prisoners.

The Health Brigade

The DINA had its own team for the care of service personnel, collaborating prisoners, and the application of torment to those it considered its "enemies." Along with the aforementioned Vittorio Orvieto Teplizky, the following performed functions: Werner Zanghellini, Hernán Taricco, Nader Nasser, Osvaldo Eugenio Leyton Bahamondez, Rodrigo Vélez, Samuel Valdivia Soto, Luis Hernán Santibáñez Santelices, Eduardo Contreras Balcarce, the gynecologist Juan Pablo Figueroa Yáñez, the otolaryngologist Eugenio Fantuzzi Alliende, the psychiatrist Roberto Lailhacar Chávez, the dentist Sergio Roberto Muñoz Bonta, and the nurse María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada. Another doctor, of whom only the surname is known, is the psychiatrist Bassaure. Without being part of the structure, the doctor Gregorio Burgos of the Los Angeles Regiment collaborated with DINA agents by looking for ways to torture without the detainee losing consciousness.

Many of them seem to no longer practice in their respective areas, although they remain close, like the nurse María Eliana Bolumburú, who works in a chemical laboratory on Ejército street. Others remain active and assume prominent roles in their profession, such as Roberto Emilio Lailhacar Chávez, who in the late 90s and until 2001 held the position of president of the Chilean Society of Sexology and Sexual Education, whose headquarters operated in his private office at Obispo Salas 290 in the commune of Providencia.

This organization included, as a "natural person," the lawyer Víctor Manuel Avilés Mejías, a member of the DINA Legal Department.

For his part, the dental surgeon Sergio Muñoz Bonta, who worked in the clandestine Santa Lucía and London clinics, treated, among other people, Marcia Merino, the "flaca Alejandra," and was a "founding partner" of the front company Pedro Diet Lobos, through which the DINA laundered money from the State, from arms and drug trafficking, and legalized the theft of houses, cars, and assets of those prisoners who were made to disappear.

Here he was a "colleague," for example, of Francisco Ferrer Lima, Emilio Sajuria Alvear, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Fernando Gómez Segovia, Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, and Pedro Espinoza Bravo.

Luis Hernán Santibáñez Santelices appears implicated in the disappearance of Juan Elías Cortés Alruiz, a communist militant kidnapped in April 1976, a case for which he was even called to testify by Minister Servando Jordán in 1980 along with Germán Barriga Muñoz (a retired colonel who committed suicide), Emilio Troncoso Vivillos, Heriberto Acevedo, Vianel Valdivieso, and Julio Leyton Robles, brother of Manuel Leyton, who died under strange circumstances at the London clinic.

Dr. Santibáñez acknowledged on July 17, 1980, that he had been part of the DINA as a doctor. He reported that the London Clinic existed on Almirante Barroso street, under the charge of Dr. Taricco. When shown a photo of Cortés, he said the face looked familiar and that he might have seen that person at the San Juan de Dios Hospital.

In the same proceeding, he was questioned about the case of Gabriel Castillo Tapia, who has been missing since August 5, 1976.

In the death of Manuel Leyton Robles, another doctor appears implicated: Osvaldo Leyton Bahamondes, who signed a death certificate stating that the DINA agent had died due to an epileptic seizure and cardiac arrhythmia.

The death allegedly occurred at Almirante Barroso Nº 76, where the London Clinic operated. The truth is that Manuel Leyton was murdered by his "colleagues" when his role as a DINA member was discovered after he participated in a job commissioned by Germán Barriga: the theft of a Renault 4.

For his part, Sergio Marcelo Virgilio Bocaz, after finishing his work at the DINA, based at the Santa Lucía Clinic, continued working in the CNI Logistics Command, and at the end of the dictatorship, he was seen appearing in various types of advertising, such as one for Nescafé, another for Tritón cookies, and for financial institutions.

He still works at the Félix Bulnes Hospital. Dr. Eugenio Fantuzzi has his private practice and is Head of the Otolaryngology Service at the Clínica Dávila. The gynecologist Juan Pablo Figueroa sees patients from Monday to Friday at the Clínica Arauco, and Hernán Taricco Lavín continues to work for the Army at the Maipú Military Medical Center.

Werner Zanghellini Martínez, who injected the detainee Jorge Fuentes Alarcón with the rabies virus, quickly abandoned his office, located at Galvarino Gallardo 1983, when he was "funado" by dozens of people a couple of years ago.

It is known that he continues to see patients at an office on Avenida Providencia that belongs to a relative, although his name does not appear on the plaque attached to the door.

The CNI and the Joint Command

Although the presence of other doctors is known in the Joint Command, basically composed of members of the Air Force, the one who has been prosecuted as a permanent part of this illicit association is the cardiologist Alejandro Jorge Forero Alvarez, a squadron commander of the FACH and an official of the institutional hospital.

Named in most of the cases involving the Joint Command, it is known that in 1976 he served as a second soldier at the El Bosque Air Base and at the Colina Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, used as a clandestine detention center by the FACH.

In this place, he allegedly participated by supervising the tortures and drugging the prisoners who were taken out to be made to disappear. Forero participated in Patria y Libertad during the government of the Unidad Popular, where he met Roberto Fuentes Morrison, alias "el Wally."

Already in the dictatorship, he was prosecuted by Minister Carlos Cerda, but that process was closed and amnestied by a judge appointed especially for that purpose. For the crimes of illicit association and illegal detention of Víctor Vega Riquelme, he was prosecuted along with 20 other members of the Joint Command.

In the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), Jorge León Alessandrini appears, a dentist and civilian agent, implicated in the assassination of union leader Tucapel Jiménez, where he allegedly acted by providing the murder weapon.

The CNI also had its own medical team, especially in the clandestine torture facilities located in Santiago, such as the Cuartel Borgoña, and others in the regions. Cases that have reached notoriety exposed some of them, for example, those implicated in the death by torture of the teacher Federico Alvarez Santibáñez in August 1979.

The young MIR militant was handed over by the Carabineros to the CNI, where he was subjected to terrible duress while being "monitored" by health professionals to prevent his death. Among these appear Luis Losada Fuenzalida, Manfred Jurgensen Caesar, and Camilo Azar Saba, all sanctioned by the Medical Association on March 31, 1986.

Losada Fuenzalida signed a report indicating that the teacher was in good physical condition only an hour before the death of Alvarez Santibáñez. Dr. Camilo Azar Saba (he currently has a website and a blog: http://camiloazar.blogspot.com/ and http://camiloazar.com/ ) is a traumatologist and orthopedist, so he knew perfectly well the most sensitive areas of the body, which could cause the greatest pain with the least danger of death.

However, in this case, they did not serve: Federico Alvarez died due to multiple contusions, hemoptysis, and pulmonary insufficiency. Another case is that of the transport worker from La Serena, Mario Fernández López, kidnapped by the CNI in October 1984.

After the death by torture of Fernández, the doctors Víctor Carcuro Correa and Guido Mario Félix Díaz Paci, participants in the application of torment to the detainee, were sanctioned by the Medical Association.

Guido Díaz Paci, a well-known Army doctor, lied to the doctors on duty at the La Serena Hospital, claiming that the detainee came from a Carabineros station and not from the CNI, and asking the doctors to hide the detainee's condition.

Once Mario Fernández died, Díaz Paci tried to get the physician who had operated on the victim in an emergency to falsify the diagnosis of his death, hiding the true motives for the death.

Already in 1974, when he participated in the exhumation of the body of María Avalos, murdered along with her husband Bernardo Lejdermann in December 1973 by a patrol of the Arica Regiment of La Serena, he lied when issuing a death certificate, claiming that the woman had blown herself up with dynamite.

Like many of these "doctors of death," Díaz Paci continues to work in La Serena.

The workplace H. Darwin Arraigada Loyola, General Medicine. Sees patients at Santa María 217, office 34, commune of Independencia. Phone 7372626. Dr. Eugenio Fantuzzi Alliende, Otolaryngologist. Head Physician of the Otolaryngology Service at the Clínica Dávila, located at Avenida Recoleta 464, Santiago.

Private Practice at Luis Thayer Ojeda Norte 073, office 606, Providencia. Phone 233 7524. Fax 234 1740. Dr. Juan Pablo Figueroa Yáñez, Gynecologist and Obstetrician. Sees patients from Monday to Friday at the Clínica Arauco, located at Parque Arauco.

Avenida Kennedy 5413-B. Phone 2990299. Werner Zanghellini Martínez, Cardiologist. Last known address: Galvarino Gallardo 1983, Providencia. Now sees patients without advertising at a relative's office in the same commune.

Sergio Marcelo Virgilio Bocaz, General Medicine. Still in service at the Félix Bulnes Hospital, located at Leoncio Fernández 2655, Quinta Normal, Santiago. Hernán Horacio Taricco Lavín, Pediatrician. Sees patients Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, from 12:00 to 14:30, at the Maipú Military Medical Center, located at Avenida Ramón Freire Nº6097, Villa Militar Oeste, Paradero 3 1/2 de Pajaritos, Comuna Estación Central.

Phones: 450 8564, 450 8565, 450 8566. Fax: 4508563. Manfred Jurgensen Caesar, General Medicine. Works at the Military Hospital of Santiago. Alejandro Forero Alvarez, Cardiologist. Works at the Clínica INDISA, Avenida Santa María 1810, phone 2254555.

Private Practice Apoquindo 6275, office 116. Guido Díaz Paci, Pediatrician. Sees patients at the Infantry Regiment N°21 "Arica" of the Second Army Division based in La Serena, under the command of Brigadier General José Gabriel Gaete Paredes.

Camilo Azar Saba, Traumatologist. email: camiloazar@vtr.net . Phones: (56-2) 679 65 00. Sergio Roberto Muñoz Bonta, Dentist. Sees patients at the Barros Luco-Trudeau Hospital and at the "San Lucas" dental medical office at José Domingo Santa María 1338. Phones 7377674 and 7379978. Roberto Lailhacar Chávez, Psychiatrist. Continues to see patients at Obispo Salas 290, Office 168. Phone 2239405.

Source: El Siglo, January 13, 2004

CHV program reveals the identity of the "torturer doctors"

The Chilevisión program "En la Mira" aired a report last night that revealed the identities of the so-called "torturer doctors," physicians who currently practice despite having been accused of participating in human rights violations during the dictatorship.

One of them is Guido Díaz Pacci, who works in La Serena. He is accused of having murdered the pediatrician Jorge Jordan with a tiro de gracia (coup de grâce).

"I have nothing to do with that mess, I was a doctor for the Arica regiment and nothing more," the professional maintained. When confronted by the victim's sister, the doctor replied: "Shut your mouth, don't say stupid things, dear."

Another of the "torturer doctors" is the former CNI member Manfred Jurgensen, who also works in La Serena. "I have had a terrible time. I have never participated in anything that is unethical, never in my life as a doctor," he said.

"I was involved in something that doesn't correspond; I did a replacement shift and that has meant an ordeal for my whole life," he added.

For its part, the case of Alejandro Forero was shown, who allegedly participated in the Caravan of Death and currently treats patients at the Indisa Clinic.

"I was judged and found free of all guilt by the Court of Appeals, during the government of Ricardo Lagos," the doctor pointed out.

Eugenio Fantuzzi also appeared in the report, who was in charge of the DINA health department and was expelled from the Medical Association.

"I was very young and we dedicated ourselves only to treating people who were members (...) things also happen for different causes, one must remember that my industry was taken over by the UP," he indicated.

Source: El Mostrador, May 29, 2014

The civilian doctors who worked at the DINA clinic

Romina Ampuero, Director of the Ex Clínica Santa Lucía Site of Memory and coordinator of the team that investigated how the facility functioned during the dictatorship, points out that its primary objective was "to obtain support, in medical terms, for the functioning of the repression."

The Health Brigade operated in the first medical service of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA). The group, composed mainly of civilians, worked at the Clínica Santa Lucía from 1974 to 1977.

This was revealed by the investigation led by the team from the Site of Memory located in the Santiago commune. On October 24, the results of this study, conducted in 2018, were released; it sought to reconstruct a history that has gradually come to light over the last 10 years.

50 officials worked at this location.

"That is where an important emphasis must be placed in this investigation, because these civilian doctors initiated the work of the Health Brigade, which operated throughout the entire dictatorship," recounted Romina Ampuero, Director of the Site of Memory and coordinator of the team that investigated these events.

The National Intelligence Center (CNI) also had 3 clinics. Therefore, the work that was done did not end with the closure of Santa Lucía in 1977. "It was moved for various reasons to other places and was perfected, which was the idea," commented Ampuero during the presentation of the document.

The investigation provides details on the organizational chart within this secret organization, coordinated and led by the DINA and its agents.

Romina Ampuero cited one of the key men in this management. She recalled that the structure was headed by Werner Zanghellini Martínez (cardiologist, director of the former clinic in the years 75-76) and Dr. Dámaso González.

"It was set up from the beginning of the DINA's functions; they were previously tasked with organizing the Health Unit. What was the objective? To obtain support, in medical terms, for the functioning of the repression," affirmed Ampuero.

The information collected also showed that these doctors attended to other facilities, and at the site, they determined whether detainees were treated or transferred to the Clínica Santa Lucía. The team had shifts and a specific work structure.

With various clandestine centers operating, the number of detainees was increasing. The demand was high and the objective clear: the need to make torture sessions permanent.

Among the list of officials, various specialties are recognized: pediatricians, general practitioners, surgeons, gynecologists, psychiatrists, cardiologists, and dentists.

"I did not know, until before this study, that this place also had a particular practice of extermination," added Lautaro Videla Moya, President of the Board of Directors of the Ex Clínica Santa Lucía Site of Memory.

Videla refers to the use of sodium pentothal, the so-called "truth serum," which was lethal in high doses. "I am struck by the knowledge that lethal injections were administered here to comrades who ended up in this facility," he lamented.

Lautaro Videla: "This work has no end"

This report considers several sources. One of them is the "limited information" from former DINA agents in their statements before the courts.

Secondly, the material collected over years in various documents linked to sites of memory and in the Archive of the Vicariate of Solidarity. In this systematization, Lautaro Videla highlighted the work of previous boards and the role of Silvia Pinilla and Samuel Houston.

With this presentation of the text after 10 months of work, a new stage of compilation is closed. This latest effort responds to a project that received state funding through the Presidential Grant Allocation.

Lautaro Videla, President of the Board of Directors of the Site of Memory, highlighted that this history must be known throughout Chile. For this reason, they will consider a new project with the objective of publishing the results "in the form of a book."

"We were aware that we would try to go as far as possible, but we also recognize that this work has no end," he reflected.

Videla shared a conclusion: "We have not had the support of personnel from the Armed Forces or Intelligence Services, who were direct or indirect actors, which is why we rule out that they will ever support us in complementing the information we have collected during this time."

Romina Ampuero: What about the civilian doctors?

Romina Ampuero specifically highlighted the impunity that has existed regarding the participation of civilians in the commission of crimes against humanity.

"None have been held accountable, and Santa Lucía makes this situation transparent," concluded the Director of the Site of Memory.

The health apparatus installed in Rinconada de Maipú was destined for the Clínica Santa Lucía, by order of Zanghellini. The facility, with a strategic location in the center of Santiago, operated with an administrative area and resources. And with a gradual incorporation of physicians, many of them civilians who were hired privately.

From the Association, they warned that the information revealed by the report can support lawsuits and further judicial actions.

"What about the civilian doctors? Good question, because none have been prosecuted. Given their ages, the vast majority are still working, for example, in universities giving classes, others in private clinics, and some in the Army in medical units," recounted Romina Ampuero.

Among them, according to the report, Dámaso González appears to be attending patients in his private practice in Providencia, and Carlos Rodolfo Ulrrich Dünner, who has his office as a dentist in Las Condes. Both appear on the roster of the College of Dentists.

Milena Cecilia Zulic Lolic, Pediatric Dentist, is associated with the "Zulic" Orthodontics and Aesthetics Clinic (Las Condes) and is also a member of the Orthodontic Society of Chile.

Eugenio Andrés Fantuzzi Alliende (Otolaryngologist) attends at the Dávila and Santa María clinics, and is a member of the Chilean Society of Otolaryngology.

Camilo Antonio Azar Saba, Traumatologist, attends at the MEDS Clinic – Sports Medicine (Lo Barnechea).

Pablo César Oyanguren Plaza, Dental Surgeon, is an academic at the School of Dentistry (Universidad Mayor).

Luis Hernán Santibáñez Santelices, Surgeon – Bronchopulmonary specialist, attends at Integramédica and two offices in Las Condes.

"The 12 o'clock cannon shot"

Out of a total of 17 survivors, this investigation also added interviews with ten of them. In this way, unprecedented details were revealed about a property that, according to Manuel Contreras himself, "acted as a clinic for the medical care of DINA officials and for detainees who required service" (1985).

However, it was more than that: in parallel to this official operation, it was also used as a clandestine detention and torture center.

The "packages," as the officials called the arrival of detainees, was a code that the agents maintained. The people who were transferred to the former clinic suffered from serious injuries or wounds. According to some testimonies, the noon cannon shot at Cerro Santa Lucía was a key element in trying to confirm the location where they were.

Renato Alvarado Vidal, who was in this facility twice, recounts his experience to our media outlet.

"One of the experiences upon returning here (former Clínica Santa Lucía) was discovering that it was much smaller than I remembered; I realized the state of defenselessness I was in at that moment," he recounted in an interview with Radio Universidad de Chile.

Since he met the members of the Association, he affirmed that his commitment would be to collaborate with this type of investigation. For this reason, he traveled from Puerto Montt and told his experience in the Clinic of Horror.

The "patients" without a trace

The Ex Clínica Santa Lucía Site of Memory Association had managed to identify, through the history of this place, the case of 12 forcibly disappeared persons. The latest investigation confirmed the passage of two more people through this extermination center.

Ramón Hugo Martínez González. He was 23 years old when he was detained by DINA agents. The student, single and a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR-Chile), was transferred to Villa Grimaldi. According to the records, "el Tano" was tortured and executed in this facility.

"He had been detained on January 6 (1975) on Bascuñán Guerrero street in Santiago. At the time of his detention, Ramón Martínez was wounded by gunfire, being taken in those conditions to the Villa Grimaldi facility.

On the 13th, his body was sent to the Legal Medical Institute by a Military Prosecutor's Office, where it was recorded that he died as a result of two recent thoracic gunshot wounds, which do not correspond to those inflicted at the time of the detention. Those records allow us to affirm that the victim was executed by DINA agents, in violation of his human rights."

Claudio Enrique Contreras Hernández. He was 27 years old at the time of his detention. Civil Constructor, student of Civil Engineering at the State Technical University. As a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), he was detained on January 7, 1975.

"According to the witness, the affected person remained in Villa Grimaldi until January 25, 1975, the date on which he was taken from the facility along with Patricio Urbina Chamorro, Carlos Guerrero Gutiérrez, and Luis Piñones Vega, to an unknown destination...

Subsequent to his detention, the victim's name appeared on the list of 119 Chileans who had allegedly died in clashes abroad (July 1975). The 119 names on these lists were all people who had disappeared after being detained between the months of June 1974 and February 1975, and most of them were seen by witnesses in secret DINA detention centers." (Memoriaviva.com)

Romina Ampuero refers to this revelation. "To do justice in the reconstruction of both stories," she concluded.

Gathering information about what happened at the Clínica Santa Lucía "has been complex." The cases of forcibly disappeared persons who passed through this center have been recognized by statements from fellow prisoners. The survivors, by recognizing the place, have also contributed to historical memory.

After several years of work, next October 24 will be an important date for the Ex Clínica Santa Lucía Site of Memory Association. The results of an investigation that will provide new data on the history of the property during the dictatorship will be published.

Between October 1974 and 1977, it was used as a clinic for the personnel of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and their families. Simultaneously, it functioned as a detention and torture center, as well as an archive and documentation center.

With this information in hand, in December of last year, the Association's Board of Directors officially began this project that seeks to compile and systematize information regarding the facility located at 162 Santa Lucía street, Santiago commune.

The investigation process, which was coordinated by Romina Ampuero, a Law graduate and Director of the Ex Clínica Santa Lucía Site of Memory, included the work of historians Tamara Carrasco, Macarena Castillo, and Viviana Salinas.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, October 31, 2018