Ruling by visiting judge Joaquín Billard affects retired Army Lieutenant Carlos Figueroa Silva and retired Carabineros Colonel Gerardo Aravena Longa. Retired Army Lieutenant Carlos Figueroa Silva and retired Carabineros Colonel Gerardo Aravena Longa were sentenced to 16 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide against five opponents of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship at Cuesta Barriga, in Curacaví.

In his ruling, visiting judge Joaquín Billard establishes that the crimes took place between September 1973 and March 1974, when the military officers kidnapped and executed by firing squad José Barrera Barrera, Segundo Gárate Torres, Jorge Toro Toro, Justo Mendoza Santibáñez, and Jorge Yañez.

The judge also ordered an indemnity of $30 million, a sum that the Treasury must pay to Víctor Barrera, brother of one of the victims, based on the moral damages suffered by the family, which "must be compensated and regulated," the ruling states.

The resolution was reached after "30 years of impunity," highlighted plaintiff attorney Nelson Caucoto. "(The ruling) serves to establish justice; this is an emblematic case for the Curacaví area, where five residents of that sector were kidnapped and murdered," he added.

On September 14, 1973, a group of Carabineros detained the four victims, telling them they would be transferred to the Estadio Nacional, a situation that never occurred, as they were instead taken to "Cuesta Barriga," where they were executed by firing squad.

Despite the shots, Barrera was the only one who survived and managed to remain in hiding for several months, after which he contacted his brother to tell him what had happened. The latter went to the Ministry of Defense to clarify the situation.

The authorities communicated with Colonel Aravena, who indicated that there were no charges against him and that he could return home safely, which took place on the night of March 14, 1974. However, at two in the morning, while he was sleeping in his room, a group of uniformed men arrived at the property to arrest him and take him to the Curacaví Carabineros station, where his trail was lost.

Source: El Mostrador, July 17, 2007

Judge Marianela Cifuentes informs children of Carlos Zelaya Suazo of the identification of their father's remains

Expert analysis performed on skeletal remains found in March 2018 determined that they belong to their father. The judge with special jurisdiction for human rights violation cases at the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, met with the children of Carlos Hugo Zelaya Suazo, whose whereabouts and fate had been unknown since February 7, 1974, the date he was detained at his workplace, a warehouse at the Carafi vineyard located on Carlos Valdovinos, by a military patrol.

Via teleconference, the magistrate—along with the executive secretary of the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of Justice, Mauro Torres Soto; the head of the PDI Central Criminalistics Laboratory, Sub-prefect Viviana Acevedo Silva; the head of the PDI Investigative Brigade for Human Rights Crimes, Sub-prefect Carolina Naamor Esbry; and experts from the Legal Medical Service, Marisol Intriago, head of the Special Forensic Identification Unit; Cecilia Figueroa, Stefano de Lica, and Giselle Contreras—informed the victim's children, Beatriz, María, Orlanda, Mario, José, Carlos, Juan, Erasmo, and Luis Zelaya López, that expert analysis performed on skeletal remains found in March 2018 determined that they belong to their father. Identification was made possible following the discovery of a tibia found on March 25, 2018, inside the "Hacienda San José" condominium, located in the commune of Curacaví, at kilometer 52 of Route 68, in the vicinity of Cuesta Zapata. Said bone fragment was sent to a specialized laboratory in the United States, whose professionals subjected it to radiocarbon analysis, managing to determine that it was a fragment of a left tibia belonging to an individual over 14 years of age, of indeterminate sex, who died between the years 1965 and 2014. Following the discovery and the dating of the remains, Judge Cifuentes Alarcón ordered a series of investigative procedures, including excavations at the site where they were found, which began on December 5, 2018, resulting in the discovery of new skeletal and cultural evidence (two socks, a buckle, and remains of footwear). Subsequently, two bone samples were sent to the laboratory of the Institute of Legal Medicine at the Medical University of Innsbruck (GMI) in Austria, where they were subjected to genetic testing, managing to determine with a 99.99999% probability that the genetic profile obtained from the bone fragment (talus of the right foot) belonged to Carlos Hugo Zelaya Suazo and that it matched the genetic profile of the left tibia fragment identified previously. Military patrol According to the background information gathered in the investigation conducted by Judge Cifuentes Alarcón (case file 34-201), Carlos Zelaya Suazo was detained on February 7, 1974, in the afternoon, at his workplace, a warehouse at the Carafi vineyard located at Carlos Valdovinos No. 1553 in the commune of San Miguel, by a military patrol led by Lieutenant Carlos Dionisio Figueroa Silva (deceased) and composed, among others, of soldiers Luis Armando Elgueta Rivas and Eugenio Humberto Vásquez Miranda, from the personnel of the "Coraceros" regiment of Viña del Mar. Subsequently, "the detainee was taken to the Curacaví station, located at Avenida Ambrosio O’Higgins No. 1440 in the same commune, under the command of Carabineros Lieutenant Gerardo Aravena Longa, where he was kept imprisoned," it adds. At night—it continues—the patrol, again led by Chilean Army Lieutenant Carlos Dionisio Figueroa Silva and composed, among others, of soldiers Luis Armando Elgueta Rivas and Eugenio Humberto Vásquez Miranda, transported Carlos Hugo Zelaya Suazo and two other detainees from the aforementioned police unit to kilometer 14 1/2 of Cuesta Barriga, specifically to a plain on the side of the road, where they executed them, firing upon them with the rifles they were carrying, and abandoning the bodies at the site. Those involved in the proceedings are currently under indictment by Judge Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, awaiting the first-instance sentence, which will be handed down shortly.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, January 8, 2021