In the resolution, the Minister held Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo and José Amado Flores Vilches responsible as perpetrators.

The visiting Minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, issued an indictment against 2 retired Army members for their responsibility in the qualified homicide of Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz, committed on December 24, 1973, in the José María Caro neighborhood.

In the resolution, Minister Cifuentes held Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo and José Amado Flores Vilches responsible as perpetrators.

According to the evidence gathered during the investigation stage, the visiting Minister established the following facts:

1° That on the early morning of December 24, 1973, Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz was unlawfully detained inside the property located at Pasaje 25 Sur N° 3.984 in the José María Caro neighborhood, in the commune of Lo Espejo, by a military patrol from the Regimiento Blindado N° 5 of Punta Arenas, led by Lieutenant Benjamín José Ortúzar Aguirre and composed of Corporal 2nd Class Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo and Corporal 2nd Class José Amado Flores Vilches.

2° That, immediately thereafter, the detainee Óscar Villagra Albornoz was taken to the bus in which the patrol was traveling and, in said vehicle, transported to the local headquarters of the Policía de Investigaciones de Chile, located at Fernández Albano N° 3.075, for the purpose of checking his records.

3° That, subsequently, Villagra Albornoz was driven in the same vehicle to a vacant lot in the vicinity, located on Avenida Cerrillos, at number 7.410, and, upon arrival, was forced to get off the bus and walk alongside Lieutenant Benjamín José Ortúzar Aguirre, Corporal 2nd Class Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo, and Corporal 2nd Class José Amado Flores Vilches.

4° That, at the aforementioned location, Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz was executed by the impact of two ballistic projectiles, one of which entered through the anterior thorax and exited through the posterior thorax, injuring both lungs, the pulmonary artery, the pulmonary vein, and the thoracic aorta in its trajectory.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, June 27, 2018

Human Rights: San Miguel Court confirms convictions against two former soldiers who executed a resident of José María Caro

In this way, the court confirmed the ruling of the minister with exclusive dedication to human rights cases, Marianela Cifuentes, who had issued an indictment against José Amado Flores and Hernán Celis Quevedo. For the plaintiff lawyer Pablo Fuenzalida, of the firm Caucoto Abogados, "forty-seven and a half years had to pass for a humble family to see justice for the crime of their brother."

The First Chamber of the San Miguel Court confirmed the sentence and convicted two former soldiers as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide, in the consummated degree, committed against Oscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz on December 24, 1973, in the José María Caro neighborhood, commune of Lo Espejo.

The chamber, composed of ministers María Alejandra Pizarro, Leonardo Varas (S), and the acting lawyer Ignacio Castillo, sentenced José Amado Flores to 10 years and one day, and Hernán Celis Quevedo to 5 years and one day, both as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Villagra Albornoz.

In this way, the court confirmed the ruling of the minister with exclusive dedication to human rights cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, who had issued an indictment against both members of the Army.

For the plaintiff lawyer Pablo Fuenzalida, of the firm Caucoto Abogados, "forty-seven and a half years had to pass for a humble family to see justice for the crime of their brother. This is one of the hundreds of invisible crimes committed by the military in the neighborhoods of Santiago after the Coup d'État, in this case, in the José María Caro neighborhood.

It brings peace to his loved ones that impunity did not prevail, but rather justice and reparation."

According to the investigation conducted by Minister Cifuentes, it was established that on the early morning of December 24, 1973, Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz was detained inside the property located at Pasaje 25 Sur N° 3.984 in the José María Caro neighborhood, in the commune of Lo Espejo, by a military patrol from the Regimiento Blindado N° 5 of Punta Arenas, led by Lieutenant Benjamín José Ortúzar Aguirre and composed of Corporal 2nd Class Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo and Corporal 2nd Class José Amado Flores Vilches.

Villagra Albornoz was subsequently transported to the local headquarters of the Policía de Investigaciones de Chile for the purpose of checking his records. He was then taken to a vacant lot on Avenida Cerrillos, at number 7410, and, upon arrival, was forced to get off the vehicle and walk alongside Lieutenant Ortúzar Aguirre and Corporals Celis Quevedo and Flores Vilches.

At that location, the victim was executed by the impact of two ballistic projectiles, one of which entered through the anterior thorax and exited through the posterior thorax, injuring both lungs, the pulmonary artery, the pulmonary vein, and the thoracic aorta in its trajectory.

Source: elmostrador.cl, August 30, 2021

Supreme Court convicts retired Army non-commissioned officers for qualified homicide in Lo Espejo in 1973

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court confirmed the sentence that convicted José Amado Flores Vilches and Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo to effective prison terms of 10 years and one day and 5 years and one day, respectively, as perpetrators of the crime.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals in cassation filed against the sentence that convicted two retired Army personnel for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz. The illicit act was perpetrated in December 1973, in the commune of Lo Espejo.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 81.307-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, minister María Teresa Letelier, and minister Jean Pierre Matus—confirmed the sentence that convicted the individuals, who were Corporals 2nd Class at the time of the events, José Amado Flores Vilches and Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo, to effective prison terms of 10 years and one day and 5 years and one day, respectively, as perpetrators of the crime.

"Regarding the first appeal, a questioning of the exercise of weighing the evidentiary background is immediately observed, asserting that the conviction decision regarding José Flores Vilches is only sustained by the version of someone who would also have participation in the events and by testimonies that would not be conclusive," the ruling states.

The resolution adds: "In this case, the truth is that the appeal is built upon a new assessment of the evidentiary means and protests the way in which the lower court judges evaluated them, which forms part of the sovereignty of the trial judges in their power to determine the facts.

Such a postulate prevents the Supreme Court from reviewing the facts and compels it to accept them. Doctrine has already explained this by maintaining that 'it is up to the trial judges to establish the facts, and for this purpose, they have the exclusive and sovereign power to assess the intrinsic merit of the various legal means of proof accumulated in the case, without the exercise of this power to weigh and compare those same elements of the process subjectively and at their discretion being subject to the censure of the court of cassation, nor can it fall within the scope in which the cause of N° 7 of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure operates, since the laws regulating evidence, whose infringement provides the basis for the appeal in cassation, are only those that establish prohibitions or limitations to the aforementioned power, as would be the admission in the grounds of the ruling of evidence extraneous to the means of proof recognized as such by Article 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure' (Rev. D. y J. T. LI, Second Part, Fourth Section, Page 56, cited in the work Tratado de Derecho Procesal Penal, Vol. II, Pages 393 and 394, by author Rafael Fontecilla Riquelme)."

"This position forms a marked jurisprudential trend, where the reviewing action of the Supreme Court is limited, unless the judges violate the rules regulating evidence, it being necessary to describe precisely and clearly the way in which said violation has occurred and that it, of course, has an influence on the dispositive part of the ruling," it adds.

For the Criminal Chamber: "Such a characteristic is not present in this case because the appellant only proposes a different assessment of the statements and enumerates the legal norms that are alleged to have been violated but does not refer to or specify which evidentiary rule or rules have been disregarded, which leads to the rejection of the proposed appeal."

"Regarding the defense of the convicted Celis Quevedo, as exposed, it proposes a cause for invalidation indicated in numeral 1° and relates it to numeral 7°, both of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure," it notes.

"The first—it continues—this Court notices a defect in the way in which the causes for invalidation are developed and proposed. Indeed, when directing their arguments in the first ground for nullity of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it is necessary to accept the facts established by the trial judges and find the error of law, whether in determining a penalty more or less severe than that designated in the law, in determining the participation that the convicted person has had in the crime, in qualifying the facts that constitute aggravating, mitigating, or exculpatory circumstances of their responsibility, or, finally, in fixing the nature and degree of the penalty."

"On the other hand, when proposing a ground for nullity such as the one described in the seventh numeral of the aforementioned article, the observance of the laws regulating evidence in the construction of said facts is contested, which, as stated, were accepted with the first chapter of nullity, a matter that makes them contradictory and incompatible with each other, and this conspires toward the rejection of the appeal presented," it highlights.

"Furthermore, as in the previous appeal, a different exercise of assessment is proposed regarding aspects already settled in both instances, and all its argumentation is sustained on an error regarding the consideration of the crime that brings us here as a crime against humanity.

In that sense, as has already been said, such considerations were already weighed by the trial judges in the exercise of their own powers, which are exclusive and escape the control of this Court, an idea that has predominated since the Draft Code of Criminal Procedure for the Republic of Chile and which is revealed in the words of Mr.

Manuel Egidio Ballesteros, who expressed: 'we set general rules for the manner of estimating evidence, and we record the cases in which it must be considered sufficient to prove the existence of a fact, but at the same time we leave the judge the freedom of criteria to make their inductions or deductions'," the ruling cites and shares.

"Moreover, a cursory review of the censored rulings is sufficient to estimate that both the connotation of a crime against humanity and the criminal participation of both appellants correspond to the fruit of the analysis that fell upon the content of the evidence presented in the trial, which justify the reasoning and conclusion of guilt that is reached, and this, as has been maintained repeatedly, makes the institution of the partial statute of limitations (media prescripción) that the appellant postulates incompatible, and it is therefore necessary to reject the appeal on this point, the same as the claim regarding the mitigating factor contemplated in numeral 9° of Article 11 of the Penal Code, which, moreover, was recognized in both instances and this produced, precisely, the reduction in the penalty applied to the convicted Celis Quevedo, which reinforces the decision that is being anticipated," it concludes.

Execution

In the first-instance sentence, the visiting Minister Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón established the following facts:

"1° That on the early morning of December 24, 1973, Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz was detained inside the property located at Pasaje 25 Sur N° 3.984 of the José María Caro neighborhood, in the commune of Lo Espejo, by a military patrol from the Batallón Blindado N° 5 of Punta Arenas, led by Lieutenant Benjamín José Ortúzar Aguirre and composed of Corporal 2nd Class Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo and Corporal 2nd Class José Amado Flores Vilches.

2° That, immediately thereafter, the detainee Óscar Villagra Albornoz was taken to the bus in which the patrol was traveling and, in said vehicle, transported to the headquarters of the Policía de Investigaciones de Chile, located at Fernández Albano N° 3.075, for the purpose of checking his records.

3° That, subsequently, Villagra Albornoz was driven in the same vehicle to a vacant lot, at Calle Fernández Albano and Avenida Cerrillos, and, upon arrival, was forced to get off the bus and walk alongside Lieutenant Benjamín José Ortúzar Aguirre, Corporal 2nd Class Hernán del Carmen Celis Quevedo, and Corporal 2nd Class José Amado Flores Vilches.

4° That, at the aforementioned location, Óscar Humberto Villagra Albornoz was executed by the impact of two ballistic projectiles, one of which entered through the anterior thorax and exited through the posterior thorax, injuring both lungs, the pulmonary artery, the pulmonary veins, and the thoracic aorta in its trajectory."

Source: Judiciary, December 20, 2023