The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence of 10 years and one day of effective imprisonment for 9 retired officials of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of French citizen Etienne Marie Louis Pesle de Menil. The crime was committed at the Maquehue Air Base, in the commune of Temuco, in September 1973.

Unanimously (case file 3.525-2018), the Second Chamber of the high court—composed of ministers Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, and acting attorney Jorge Lagos—rejected the appeals for cassation on form and substance filed by the defense of Emilio Sandoval Poo against the sentence issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which convicted him along with eight other defendants for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Etienne Marie Louis Pesle de Menil.

The crime was committed starting on September 19, 1973, in Temuco.

In the ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed the resolution that sentenced the retired members of the Air Force: Emilio Sandoval Poo, Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco, Jorge Aliro Valdebenito Isler, Heriberto Pereira Rojas, Luis Osmán Yáñez Silva, Luis Alberto Soto Pinto, Enrique Alberto Rebolledo Sotelo, Leonardo Reyes Herrera, and Jorge Eduardo Soto Herrera to 10 years and one day of imprisonment as perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of the French citizen; plus 541 days of imprisonment for illicit association.

During the investigation phase of the case, the minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, established the following facts:

«1.- That after the military coup occurred on September 11, 1973, the Commander of Aviation Group No. 3 of the Maquehue Air Base, Colonel Andrés Pacheco Cárdenas (now deceased), delegated the operational command of the Base to the Second Commander, Benjamín Fernández Hernández (also deceased), so that he could assume the so-called Jurisdictional Action Command for Internal Situations;

2.- That, once Commander Benjamín Fernández received the operational assignment, he organized a select group of permanent staff and retired reserve officers of the Air Force to carry out, in general terms, intelligence work; however, the tasks they actually performed had clear illicit purposes, such as the indiscriminate raiding of homes and offices, the detention of persons opposed to the military regime or supporters of the outgoing administration without any judicial order, followed by interrogation under torture and, on occasions, their total elimination, with their remains being hidden.

In doing so, they acted at all times conscious of both the illegality of their acts and that they were violations of human rights, relying for their execution on infrastructure, material resources, organization, and a pyramidal hierarchy, with their objectives being conduct contrary to criminal law;

3.- That the French citizen Etienne Marie Louis Pesle de Menil, a member of the Socialist Party and at that time a technician for INDAP, was first detained on September 12, 1973, by police officers at his home and then handed over to the Military Prosecutor's Office, which decided to release him and place him under the custody of the Director of COPALCA at the time, Luis Hoffman Gómez Contreras (now deceased), with the obligation to report daily to sign a register, a commitment he fulfilled rigorously until September 19 of that year;

4.- That on that day, September 19, once he arrived to perform his duties at INDAP, around 11:00 AM, a group of Chilean Air Force personnel, known as the ‘Savage Gang,’ ‘The Bad Boys,’ or ‘Department II,’ in an authoritarian manner and without showing any judicial or administrative order, removed him from the Turna Building where the aforementioned Institute was located, put him in a pickup truck, and took him to the Maquehue Air Base, where he was held unlawfully and interrogated under torture, as has been proven by the testimonies of eyewitnesses to the kidnapping and his subsequent confinement in said place. He then disappeared without a trace, and no further news of him has been heard. The efforts deployed by his relatives to locate him were fruitless, and the only information finally obtained was informal, when the aforementioned Second Commander of the Air Base, Benjamín Fernández, admitted to Etienne Pesle's custodian, Luis Hoffman Gómez Contreras, that he had been deprived of liberty at the Maquehue Air Base, but added that they had released him—a matter that was verified in the case files as never having occurred;

5.- That this repressive organization of State agents belonging to the Chilean Air Force, created with criminal objectives, were the ones who detained Etienne Marie Louis Pesle de Menil on September 19, 1973, and took him to their base of operations, the Maquehue Air Base, where, like all detainees, they kept him with his hands tied and his eyes blindfolded, and interrogated him in the Command Pavilion under torture, keeping him held unlawfully for an indefinite period at the same Air Base, a place from which there is no further knowledge of his existence, and he disappeared without any news of his fate or records confirming his death to this day».

Regarding civil matters, the ruling was confirmed ordering the State to pay a total compensation of $180,000,000 (one hundred and eighty million pesos) for moral damages to the victim's relatives.

Source: adprensa.cl, November 19, 2019

Minister Álvaro Mesa sentences retired Carabineros colonel and FACH non-commissioned officer for illegal detention and illegitimate coercion.

The visiting minister sentenced the Carabineros lieutenant at the time of the events, Figueroa Nieto, for his responsibility in the illegal detention of victims Juan Luis Díaz Cortez, Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez, Rubén Enrique Leal Riquelme, Renato Ariel Saravia Flores, Baldomero Osvaldo Salazar Salgado, René Esteban Díaz Cortez, and Renato Santana Dubreuil.

In sentence number 57 issued by the minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases for the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, he sentenced retired Carabineros Colonel Gonzalo Humberto Figueroa Nieto and retired Air Force Sergeant Major Enrique Alberto Rebolledo Sotelo to 5 years in prison as perpetrators of the crimes of illegal detention and illegitimate coercion, respectively.

These crimes were perpetrated in September and October 1973 in the commune of Curarrehue.

Meanwhile, Rebolledo Sotelo was sentenced for the illegitimate coercion inflicted upon Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez, Rubén Enrique Leal Riquelme, Renato Ariel Saravia Flores, and Baldomero Osvaldo Salazar Salgado.

In the case, Minister Mesa Latorre decreed the acquittal of Figueroa Nieto and retired Carabineros First Sergeant Héctor Guillermo Sepúlveda Chacón from the accusation that identified them as perpetrators of the illegitimate coercion of Juan Luis Díaz Cortez.

Regarding civil matters, the minister ordered the State to pay compensation of $50,000,000 for moral damages to the plaintiff victim Leal Riquelme, and $30,000,000 to Santana Dubreuil.

In the resolution, the visiting minister established the following facts:

After September 11, 1973, the Curarrehue Carabineros station was reinforced with personnel from other detachments, remaining under the command of Carabineros Officer Lieutenant Gonzalo Humberto Figueroa Nieto, who immediately and on his own initiative ordered the detention of local civilians without having any order issued by a court that authorized such action.

Juan Luis Díaz Cortez, a supporter of the Unidad Popular government, was detained by Curarrehue Carabineros personnel on September 13, 1973, by order of the Lieutenant in charge of the station, Gonzalo Humberto Figueroa Nieto.

Upon arriving at the aforementioned unit, he saw that Renato Santana Dubreuil, Luis Cid Hernández, and Benito Tapia were also being deprived of their liberty. Subsequently, they were all loaded into a pickup truck owned by a civilian named Clorindo Mena (deceased) and taken to the Pucón Carabineros Sub-station, to be later transferred to the 2nd Carabineros Precinct of Temuco, where Juan Luis Díaz Cortez spent the night.

The next morning, he was taken to the Maquehue Air Base, where he was interrogated and subsequently released, being able to return to Curarrehue the following day.

On September 17, 1973, Juan Luis Díaz Cortez was detained again by Curarrehue Carabineros, by order of the Lieutenant in charge of the station, Gonzalo Humberto Figueroa Nieto, this time along with his brother René Díaz Cortez, Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez, Rubén Enrique Leal Riquelme, Renato Ariel Saravia Flores, Baldomero Osvaldo Salazar Salgado, and other people, under the charge of being ‘activists – extremists.’ Subsequently, they were loaded into a vehicle and taken to the Pucón Carabineros Sub-station, to be later transferred to the Tucapel Regiment of Temuco.

In that place, they remained in a gymnasium located inside the military unit, and after some interrogations, they were taken to the public jail.

After 12 days of being deprived of their liberty, Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez, Rubén Enrique Leal Riquelme, Renato Ariel Saravia Flores, Baldomero Osvaldo Salazar Salgado, and other people were taken to testify before the Military Prosecutor's Office of Temuco, located inside the Tucapel Regiment, and were released days later without any charges having been filed against them, so they all returned to Curarrehue.

In the case of Mr. Juan Luis Díaz Cortez, he was released at the end of September 1973 and decided to return to Curarrehue, where he had to report daily to the Carabineros of that commune. At that police unit, he was subjected to physical coercion every time he went there, such as kicks and punches or blows with the butt of the rifles carried by the uniformed officers, leaving his torso and face very swollen and bruised.

On one occasion, he was detained and forced to fight with another person named Pedro Raín (deceased); they were taken to the entrance hall of the station and forced to hold a bare-knuckle fight, after which they were released. Faced with the harassment suffered, Díaz Cortez decided to leave Curarrehue, requesting a safe-conduct to move to Temuco, a situation that occurred on October 15, 1973.

At the beginning of October 1973, Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez, Rubén Enrique Leal Riquelme, Renato Ariel Saravia Flores, and Baldomero Osvaldo Salazar Salgado were detained again, this time by Chilean Air Force personnel, who, in a group of 4 to 5, appeared at the school where the aforementioned teachers worked and led them on foot to the Curarrehue Carabineros station, where they proceeded to tie their hands and blindfold them.

Immediately afterward, they were taken inside the stables of that police unit.

Once inside the aforementioned facility, where there were more detainees lying on the floor, the victims in the case were subjected to interrogations and torture consisting of kicks and punches, blows with rifle butts to the stomach, and other humiliations such as forcing some of them to undress and sing while simulating holding a guitar, in addition to squeezing their testicles with their hands.

During the interrogations, Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez recognized the voice of one of his jailers as that of a corporal from the Maquehue Air Base, a helicopter mechanic who had maintained a romantic relationship some time ago with a sister-in-law of Manuel Humaña; it was the then-Corporal Enrique Alberto Rebolledo Sotelo, who had also been in Curarrehue during the summer together with FACH Captain Benjamín Fernández Hernández, and who had stayed for some time at the school that was under his direction.

Corporal Enrique Alberto Rebolledo Sotelo, mentioned above, at a certain moment when another member of the torture group wanted to shoot Humaña, took the victim by the arm and took him out of the place, whispering in his ear, ‘don't worry because you are with a friend,’ irrefutable proof of the bond that united them.

The next day, the wife of Manuel Antonio Humaña Jiménez, having learned of the presence of Captain Benjamín Fernández Hernández at the location, interceded with him on behalf of the detainees, after which they were all released.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, June 6, 2022