The former uniformed personnel entered the Temuco Infantry Regiment No. 8 to serve the precautionary measure of preventive detention. The minister with exclusive dedication of the Temuco Court of Appeals, Álvaro Mesa, subjected retired military officers Benjamín Farías Lavín and Anacleto Aguirre Rivera to prosecution and preventive detention as perpetrators of the crimes of qualified homicide in the so-called "El Polvorín" case.

The events, which occurred in 1973, were perpetrated against Florentino Alberto Molina Ruiz, Juan Antonio Chávez Rivas, Víctor Hugo Valenzuela Velásquez, Juan Carlos Ruiz Mancilla, Amador Francisco Montero Mosquera, Pedro Juan Mardones Jofré, and Carlos Aillañir Huenchual.

The magistrate established that "the freedom of the accused constitutes a danger to the safety of society," and therefore ordered preventive detention for the retired military officers, who "entered the 'Tucapel' Infantry Regiment No. 8 of Temuco." According to the ruling, on November 10, 1973, the detainees were being held in the gymnasium of the Tucapel regiment in Temuco, from where they were loaded into a military vehicle and transported to the shooting range of the "Isla Cautín" military compound.

There, they were tied to stakes and executed one by one. Following this, their bodies were taken to the morgue of the Temuco Regional Hospital. "A military communiqué was drafted to be published in the press the following day, which reported an attempted assault on the Isla Cautín ammunition dump by a group of extremists," the resolution adds.

Minister Álvaro Mesa Latorre was appointed instructor of human rights cases in place of Minister Fernando Carreño starting in September 2011.

Source: 24horas.cl, November 5, 2015

Minister Álvaro Mesa sentenced retired military officer for the qualified homicide of an unidentified victim executed and forcibly disappeared in Lake Villarrica

In the resolution, the visiting minister sentenced Benjamín Farías Lavín to 12 years in prison and the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime.

The minister in extraordinary visitation for human rights violation cases for the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, convicted a retired army official for his responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide, as a crime against humanity, of an unidentified victim.

The illicit act was perpetrated between January and February 1974, in the commune of Villarrica, La Araucanía Region. In the resolution (case file 39.296), the visiting minister sentenced Benjamín Farías Lavín to 12 years in prison and the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime.

In the sentence, Minister Mesa Latorre established the following facts: A.- That, immediately following the military coup of September 11, 1973, the armed forces and order forces took control of the city of Temuco, with the colonel commanding the "La Concepción" Regiment of Lautaro, Hernán Jerónimo Ramírez Ramírez, establishing himself as Intendant, and the colonel commanding the "Tucapel" Infantry Regiment No. 8 of this city, Pablo Iturriaga Marchesse, as Governor of Temuco, who also remained as head of the Temuco Garrison.

B.- That the aforementioned military unit was composed of different companies, which were made up of officers, non-commissioned officers, and conscript soldiers who were part of the "Tucapel" Infantry Regiment No. 8 of Temuco.

These companies, in turn, formed patrols of military personnel that were stationed in different parts of the city for the purposes of curfew control and guarding places classified as strategic by the military command.

C.- That, likewise, these companies were sent, on occasions, to different places in the region for the purpose of carrying out patrols and military campaigns. Thus, the counter-guerrilla company, under the command of Lieutenant Velásquez, who was a commando and who arrived in Temuco after September 11, 1973, and which was also composed of non-commissioned officers Heraldo Espinoza Elgueta, Manuel Segundo Mora Torres, Rafael Lizama Saldías, and Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín, who had just arrived from the Training School, among others, and a contingent of between 30 to 40 conscript soldiers selected from different companies, was sent for military instruction to the city of Villarrica in the first months of 1974. D.- That contemporaneously, there was a detainee in the "Tucapel" Infantry Regiment No. 8 of Temuco who remained for about two months in the custody of the regiment's guard service, in an annex facility called "prevention." The physical characteristics of this person were: thin build, dark complexion, approximately 1.70 m tall; furthermore, from the conversations that witnesses held with him, it was observed that he had considerable knowledge of leftist ideology, was very educated, and apparently held a high position within the militancy he possessed; his face was thin, not very long, he was neither fat nor thin, of an athletic build; his estimated age was between 25 and 35 years, according to the testimonies of Manuel Segundo Mora Torres, Heraldo Valentín Espinoza Elgueta, Eduardo Gastón Zúñiga Díaz, and Ricardo Guillermo Gayoso Molina. E.- That, continuing with the above, several soldiers were able to see him, among whom are Manuel Segundo Mora Torres and Heraldo Valentín Espinoza Elgueta, who point out that he never received visitors, and it was unclear whether he was from Temuco or another city; he was nicknamed in the regiment as the "telephone operator" or the "northerner." He was also seen by Ricardo Guillermo Gayoso Molina and Eduardo Gastón Zúñiga Díaz. F.- That while the counter-guerrilla company was undergoing instruction in Villarrica, on the shores of the lake of the same name, one day in the months of January or February 1974, a military truck arrived with a blindfolded detainee, who was recognized by Manuel Segundo Mora Torres and Heraldo Valentín Espinoza Elgueta as the same person who had been in the room called "prevention" at the "Tucapel" Infantry Regiment No. 8 in Temuco. G.- That the detainee was handed over to Lieutenant Velásquez by the truck driver, implying that he should be eliminated. Immediately thereafter, Lieutenant Velásquez proceeded to hold a draw with folded papers, one with the word YES and the others with the word NO, with the non-commissioned officers and the officer taking a paper, and whoever took the paper with the word YES was to be the one to execute the detainee. Non-commissioned officer Lizama Saldía was chosen for the execution, to which he refused, and the corporal who had just arrived from the Training School, Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín, offered himself for the task, stating that it would be the 24th on his list of executions, according to the statements of Manuel Segundo Mora and Heraldo Valentín Espinoza Elgueta. H.- That later, as dusk began, Lieutenant Velásquez ordered the conscript soldiers to withdraw a few meters back from the shores of Lake Villarrica so they would not observe the execution, but everyone still realized that it was going to be carried out by the newly arrived corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín, according to the statements of Manuel Segundo Mora Torres and Heraldo Valentín Espinoza Elgueta. I.- That the detainee was placed sitting down and blindfolded on the shores of Lake Villarrica, facing the lake, while Lieutenant Velásquez, Espinoza, Lizama, and Mora positioned themselves behind the detainee at a distance of one meter. Subsequently, the newly arrived corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín took out his 9 mm Stagger pistol and placed the barrel on the part connecting the cervical spine to the neck, proceeding to fire the weapon, causing his death immediately. Then, a rope was tied to the body so that it would have weight and remain in the depths of the lake, so Lieutenant Velásquez and Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín transported the body in a boat to a deep part of the lake, where they threw it in so it would sink. Upon their return, Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín commented that Lieutenant Velásquez, with a corvo (military knife), had opened the victim's abdomen, and had also cut off his penis and placed it in his mouth, and in this way they threw him into the depths of Lake Villarrica, according to the statements of Manuel Segundo Mora Torres and Heraldo Valentín Espinoza Elgueta.

Source: Judiciary, April 24, 2023

Former Army non-commissioned officer convicted for the crime of an unidentified political prisoner in Villarrica in 1974

The minister in extraordinary visitation for human rights violation cases, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, convicted former Army non-commissioned officer Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín for his responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide, as a crime against humanity, of an unidentified victim.

The crime was perpetrated between January and February 1974, in the commune of Villarrica, Cautín province. In the resolution (case file 39.296), the visiting minister sentenced Farías Lavín to a penalty of 12 years in prison and the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime.

In the judicial investigation, Minister Mesa Latorre was able to establish that immediately after the military coup of September 1973, control of the Cautín province was exercised by army personnel, with Colonel Hernán Jerónimo Ramírez Ramírez, commander of the "La Concepción" Regiment of Lautaro, establishing himself as Intendant, and Colonel Pablo Iturriaga Marchesse, commander of the "Tucapel" Infantry Regiment No. 8 of Temuco, as Governor.

A political detention camp was installed in the "Tucapel" Regiment where detainees remained held and subjected to interrogations and torture. During the last months of 1973, there was a detainee in "Tucapel" who remained for about two months in the custody of the regiment's guard service, in an annex facility called "prevention." According to the testimonies of surviving prisoners, this person was of thin build, dark complexion, approximately 1.70 m tall; furthermore, from the conversations that witnesses held with him, it was observed that he had considerable knowledge of leftist ideology, was very educated, and apparently held a high position within the militancy he possessed; his face was thin, not very long, he was neither fat nor thin, of an athletic build; his estimated age was between 25 and 35 years. Several soldiers were also able to see him, who, as witnesses, point out that he never received visitors, and it was unclear whether he was from Temuco or another city; he was nicknamed in the regiment as the "telephone operator" or the "northerner." The companies that made up the "Tucapel" Regiment were sent, on occasions, to different places in the region for the purpose of carrying out patrols and military campaigns. Thus, the counter-guerrilla company was sent for military instruction to the city of Villarrica in the first months of 1974; this company was under the command of a lieutenant surnamed Velásquez, who was a commando and who arrived in Temuco after September 11, 1973, and which was also composed of, among others, non-commissioned officers Heraldo Espinoza Elgueta, Manuel Segundo Mora Torres, Rafael Lizama Saldías, and Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín, who had just arrived from the training school, and a contingent of between 30 to 40 conscript soldiers selected from different companies. While the counter-guerrilla company was undergoing instruction on the shores of Lake Villarrica, a military truck arrived with a blindfolded detainee, who was recognized by other prisoners as the same person who had been in the room called "prevention" at the "Tucapel" Regiment in Temuco. The unidentified detainee was handed over to Lieutenant Velásquez by the truck driver, implying that he should be eliminated. Immediately thereafter, Lieutenant Velásquez proceeded to hold a draw with folded papers, one with the word YES and the others with the word NO, with the non-commissioned officers and the officer taking a paper, and whoever took the paper with the word YES was to be the one to execute the detainee. Non-commissioned officer Lizama Saldía was drawn for the execution. This non-commissioned officer refused to carry out that task, and the corporal who had just arrived, Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín, offered himself for the task, stating that it would be the 24th on his list of executions, according to the statements of other non-commissioned officers. Later, as dusk began, the detainee was placed sitting down and blindfolded on the shores of Lake Villarrica, facing the lake, while Lieutenant Velásquez, Espinoza, Lizama, and Mora positioned themselves behind the detainee at a distance of one meter. Subsequently, Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín took out his 9 mm Stagger pistol and placed the barrel on the part connecting the cervical spine to the neck, proceeding to fire the weapon, causing his death immediately. Immediately, a rope was tied to the body so that it would have weight and remain in the depths of the lake, so Lieutenant Velásquez and Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín transported the body in a boat to a deep part of the lake, where they threw it in so it would sink. Upon their return, Corporal Benjamín Rodemil Farías Lavín commented that Lieutenant Velásquez, with a corvo, had opened the victim's abdomen, and in this way they threw him into the depths of Lake Villarrica. by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, April 25, 2023

The man who never existed: the enigmatic story of the man executed at Lake Villarrica (Part I)

In 1974, a man whose identity has never been established was violently murdered by military personnel in the middle of a campaign. A non-commissioned officer was sentenced to 12 years, but the Supreme Court recently annulled that conviction.

This is the first of three parts recounting the events. It was 1974. According to most versions, the events occurred around January or February, although another testimony says it was at the end of that year.

What is clear is that a group of 40 conscripts from the Tucapel Regiment of Temuco was carrying out an instruction campaign on the shores of Lake Villarrica, in charge of the officers who formed a "counter-guerrilla" company, but one afternoon an unexpected event broke the routine of running, jumping, crawling on elbows and knees, etc.

It was the arrival of a military truck, in the back of which there was a single occupant. Several of the non-commissioned officers who were in the instruction had seen him before. He was a young man of about 25 to 30 years old, a thin, kind, and educated man who was a prisoner at the Tucapel, in a room attached to the regiment's guard, which they informally called "Prevention." No one knew or knows—to this day—his name, although in the judicial file that remained as the only testimony that he once lived and was murdered, several nicknames appear by which he was known in the military barracks: "El Nortino" (The Northerner) seems to have been the most common, although they also called him "El Porteño" and, likewise, "The Telephone Operator," because according to some testimonies, they forced him to work answering the phone. "Didn't you bring me here to kill me?" he asked when they made him get off the truck. "Noooo, we are going to do an instruction here," replied one of the lieutenants in charge of the instruction, Sergio Velásquez, according to the witnesses' version. Of course, that was not true. The draw The investigation, which was led by visiting minister Álvaro Mesa, in charge of the investigation of human rights violation cases in the La Araucanía jurisdiction, began almost by chance, when the judge was investigating another homicide, this one with a name and surname: that of Exequiel Zigomar Contreras Plotsqui, a 21-year-old young man who was executed by gunfire by a Tucapel regiment patrol outside his home on March 30, 1974. In search of the military officer who had fired—who turned out to be Gabriel Matus Hernández—the judge and detectives from the Human Rights Brigade of the PDI in Santiago interrogated numerous military personnel who were part of the local regiment on that date and, as happens in most of these cases, practically everyone summoned said they had seen nothing anomalous. However, there were two exceptions, two non-commissioned officers who, along with recounting various situations they lived through at that time, coincided in telling what they had seen at Lake Villarrica. Manuel Mora Torres was the first to remember. He described "El Nortino" as a thin young man, with a dark complexion and approximately 1.70 m tall, "with considerable knowledge of the left and who apparently held a high position within his ideology." According to Mora—who places the lake campaign toward the end of 1974—after the truck arrived, Lieutenant Velásquez held a draw with several small papers with the word "No" or "Yes." The first one to get "Yes" had to fire at the prisoner. According to Mora's testimony, that paper was drawn by a corporal surnamed Farías, better known as "Crazy Farías," who "upon knowing that he would have to execute, stated that it would be the 24th person to eliminate." That is, it would be the twenty-fourth homicide he would commit. This Farías was a peculiar character. Another former military officer, José Romero Silva, said that he remembered a Corporal Farías who once "pretended to be a lieutenant before a lady he was courting" and that, furthermore, when he arrived in Temuco, transferred from Santiago along with another corporal surnamed Oporto, "they told us that they had killed Allende." The second witness to remember the events that occurred at the lake was Heraldo Espinoza Elgueta, who at that time was a second corporal. Just like Mora, he recounted to the minister the way in which the prisoner arrived, as well as the draw by which it would be decided who would end the life of "El Nortino," with one difference: Velásquez "held a draw with Spanish playing cards," he asserted, adding that the one in charge of putting the victim to death would be the one "who got the card with the highest number." Velásquez, who is currently 84 years old and whose family did not agree to speak with El Mostrador, also stated in the judicial case that a corporal surnamed Lizama Saldías was the one who was drawn, but that despite this, "Corporal Farías volunteered and killed him." The execution What both former military officers agree on is the way in which "El Nortino" was murdered. "The detainee was placed sitting down and blindfolded on the shores looking toward the lake, while Lieutenant Velásquez, Espinoza, Lizama, and I positioned ourselves behind the detainee at a distance of one meter. Immediately thereafter, Farías took out his 9 mm Stager pistol and placed the barrel on the part connecting the cervical spine to the neck, proceeding seconds later to fire the weapon," Mora recounted. After that, they mutilated him. "Immediately thereafter, with a nylon rope, a stone was tied to the body so that it would have weight and remain in the depths of the lake, so Lieutenant Velásquez and Corporal Farías transported the body in a boat to the middle of the lake, where they threw it in so it would sink. When they returned to the group, Farías commented that Lieutenant Velásquez, with a corvo, had opened him up for the purpose of removing the viscera and that he had cut off his penis and placed it in the detainee's mouth." In a subsequent statement, he added more details: "This person did not make any gesture of pain nor did he complain that they were going to kill him. Then I approached and on his forehead, at the height of his nose, (I saw) a trickle of blood coming out," he said. When questioned by Mesa regarding the state in which "El Nortino" was in, he was clear: "The person did not arrive with signs of torture or mistreatment in Villarrica. Fully conscious. I would dare to say that they never tortured him." Espinoza points out that he was further away at the moment of the execution, about 15 meters away. Likewise, he differs from Mora in the way the victim was positioned, as he stated that "they positioned the detainee on his knees facing the lake." However, he again coincided on the essential, the actions of Farías: "The latter, the executor of the shot, killed that person with a ballistic impact from an automatic pistol directly into the nape of the neck," he told the PDI in August 2015. After that, he recounted that Velásquez (whom he mentions as a captain), Farías, and a second officer loaded the body onto a private boat to throw it into the water. "The next day I went, out of my curiosity, to the place where they executed him, where I observed in the sand the tracks of the body and bloodstains, but at that moment Corporal Farías, in an arrogant manner and without respecting my rank, approaches me and tells me what I was doing in the place, that I should not be there, meanwhile he manipulated his weapon and pointed it at the sky." Conviction and acquittal After several years of investigation, Judge Mesa concluded that the Corporal Farías mentioned above was Benjamín Farías Lavín, who has always denied it, arguing that there is an error, since there was another military officer with the same surname in the regiment. An essential part of Farías Lavín's defense was, furthermore, the fact that he was transferred from Santiago to La Araucanía on February 18, 1974, and only reported to the regiment at the beginning of March, so if the events occurred in January or February, he could not have been there. During a confrontation between him and Espinoza in 2017, the latter could not recognize him, and the same happened with Mora. Given this, Farías Lavín asserted that there was another corporal in the regiment, with the surnames Farías Veliz. However, as Minister Mesa pointed out to him on that occasion, he belonged to a different company, unlike him, who was indeed in the company where Espinoza and Mora also served, as evidenced by the documentation. Velásquez, in turn, when interrogated in 2016, responded somewhat enigmatically when asked about the homicide: "I must point out that I do not remember the events described above, nor do I rule them out." However, immediately afterward he reconsidered and said that he did not remember having carried out campaigns in that body of water and that he also did not remember having received orders from his superiors related to carrying out detentions in that area and putting someone to death. Despite the contradictions and inaccuracies—as Mora said in the last confrontation, "I already have 80 years in my body"—Minister Mesa sentenced Benjamín Farías to a penalty of 12 years, after accusing him of qualified homicide, the same as the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of Justice, which was the only plaintiff in the case. For the judge, it was a more than complex decision, given that not only was there no body, but the name of the victim was not even known, for which he based his ruling even by resorting to international situations in which perpetrators of NN (unidentified) persons had been convicted, such as a case that occurred in Argentina. The local Court of Appeals subsequently confirmed the first-instance ruling, but on March 12, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court acquitted Farías, because—among other reasons—the ministers did not find the foundation of the accusation against him sufficient and, furthermore, asserted that "there is only the physical description of a body that, according to the very words of the accusing witnesses, was disappeared, and despite the searches carried out in search of obtaining his identification, they were fruitless, all of which affects the degree of veracity and the probative force." Indeed, although a composite sketch of "El Nortino" was made in 2018, which heads this report, his identity has never been found. In other words, the Supreme Court justices say, the "corpus criminis" and other elements of evidence that would allow supporting the statements of Mora and Espinoza are missing. El Mostrador tried to speak with Farías's lawyer, Christian Salgado, in order to know his version after being acquitted, but the professional did not respond to the messages sent to him. In turn, the Judiciary, through the communications office of La Araucanía, responded on March 28 to the requests of this media outlet, in order to speak with Minister Mesa, that "the request" was being processed, without a concrete response ever arriving. Regarding Manuel Mora, none of the phones or forms of contact that appear regarding him currently work. However, this is a story that we have not yet finished writing.

Source: elmostrador.cl, April 5, 2025