Case Roll 113.969: Qualified homicide of Hernán Henríquez Aravena and Alejandro Flores Rivera and unlawful coercion of Jorge Silhi Zarzar and others

José Daniel Cifuentes López

In a police statement from pages 1,713 to 1,715 (Volume V) dated June 29, 2012, he states that in 1971 he was assigned to the No. 3 Helicopter Group at the Maquehue Air Base, where he remained until 1974, when he was detained and discharged for treason, and subsequently sentenced by a court-martial for failure to perform military duties.

He adds that two years before September 11, 1973, a conspiracy against the government of President Salvador Allende began to take shape.

On the day of the coup, Andrés Pacheco informed them that the Chilean Armed Forces had decided to overthrow the incumbent government and that anyone who opposed this should step forward; however, despite his disagreement, he did not do so due to fear of what might happen to him.

At that moment, the occupation of the city was ordered, and he was issued an automatic rifle and 600 rounds of ammunition with orders to go to his home and monitor the population. About 20 days later, it became very common for shots to be fired at them from a vehicle.

Because of this, he and his partner managed to identify who was shooting at them and established that the driver of said vehicle was Captain Volante, who berated them violently.

He explains that at the base, he observed many detainees, who were sometimes left lying in the guardhouse cells and others in the hallways with their hands up and blindfolded. He also saw people who were taken to the back of the administrative building, at the water tower, where they were tortured.

This was evident from the screams that could be heard and how they were left in the same hallways and cells after the torture.

Regarding his own detention, he notes that on one occasion he observed 15 people in the guardhouse cell showing signs of torture. Due to his position, he decided to feed them, taking them outside for two hours, but asking them not to speak about it for their own safety.

The fact is that the next day he was summoned by the second-in-command, Benjamín Fernández. He made him wait for six hours, and upon entering his office, he confronted him about what had happened with the detainees, stating that they should contribute to the fatherland, labeling him a leftist militant, pointing his weapon at him at all times, and further indicating that the command had withdrawn its trust in him.

The truth is that on January 4, while he was vacationing in the town of Quintero, a lieutenant and a conscript arrived at his home with the mission of taking him to see a radio sent by the command. Upon arriving at the base, he was notified by a lieutenant that he was under arrest by order of the command.

They handcuffed him, blindfolded him, placed a hood over his head, and he was transported by plane to the Second Carabineros Precinct of Temuco. He remained blindfolded for 11 days, with his torture beginning at that location.

During the day, he was transferred to the Tucapel Regiment, where he was tortured by his peers in a room by Lieutenant Jorge Freygang, 2nd Corporal Enrique Rebolledo, Corporal Pereira, 2nd Corporal Valdebenito, 2nd Corporal Marín, 2nd Corporal Ubilla, 2nd Corporal Charnay, 2nd Corporal Solís, 2nd Corporal Soto Pinto, 2nd Corporal Soto Herrera, 2nd Corporal Yañez (Pato), and 2nd Sergeant Orlando Garrido, with Pereira being the most savage.

After several transfers, he was tried for failure to perform military duties in a court-martial, serving a 300-day sentence and being released in January 1975. He adds that the personnel who participated in the detentions were those mentioned above, under the command of Captain Leonardo Reyes and reserve officers Cantarutti and Carotti.

However, he indicates that, according to comments from his subordinates, Cantarutti had detained, tortured, and murdered people during raids. Regarding the other detainees at the air base, based on information obtained, the bodies of those murdered were thrown into the Cautín River in the sector known as La Isla.

Regarding the victims of these events, Hernán Henríquez Aravena and Alejandro Flores Rivera, he does not remember having known them, nor does he remember them as detainees at the base, but he does know that at the time, three doctors whom he does not know were being held.

Source: Judiciary, January 2, 2020

According to Deputy Hugo Gutiérrez, the brother of the current Minister was implicated in the case of the murder of three communist militants and one MIR militant during the years of the dictatorship at the Maquehue Air Base in Temuco, IX Region.

They are Hernán Henríquez, Eduardo González Galeno, Alejandro Flores, and Nelson Curiñir. Eduardo González was the Director of the Cunco Hospital; he was detained on September 14, 1973, along with his wife, Natacha María Carrión Osorio, a doctor who was in the third month of pregnancy with their second child.

To this day, he is a forcibly disappeared person. Meanwhile, 22-year-old Nelson Curiñir was detained in Temuco, tortured, and murdered.

According to Communist Party parliamentarian Hugo Gutiérrez:

"We want to make it clear that Ángel Hernán Campos Quiroga, brother of the Minister of Justice, Jaime Campos Quiroga, was a member of the No. 3 Group of the Maquehue Air Base in Temuco, with the rank of FACh Lieutenant, who was involved in the murder of three Communist Party militants and one from the MIR."

According to the Communist Party parliamentarian, more than 30 victims of torture identified the brother of the head of the Justice Ministry as their torturer. This information was investigated alongside lawyers Magdalena Garcés and Cristián Cruz, together with Herman Carrasco Paul, vice president of the Center for Research and Promotion of Human Rights (CINPROD).

The name of the Minister's brother appears in the following judicial investigation (http://www.araucaniacuenta.cl/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Auto-Acusatorio-113969.pdf), which states: “The 'Hernán Henríquez Aravena and 8 Others' episode of September 11 was enabled for the stated purposes, and on some occasions, they were also moved to a hangar located inside the base.

Many of these detainees remained held at the Maquehue base for a period of no less than a week, during which time they were interrogated and tortured by the officers and non-commissioned officers indicated above who formed part of the intelligence group specially formed for such purposes, among whom are Second-in-Command Benjamín Fernández Hernández (R.I.P.), Lieutenants Ángel Campos Quiroga (R.I.P.), Jorge Freygang Campaña (R.I.P.), Captain Leonardo Reyes Herrera, Sergeant Orlando Garrido Riquelme (R.I.P.), non-commissioned officers Luis Arturo Soto Pinto, Heriberto Pereira Rojas, Luis Osmán Yáñez Silva, Jorge Aliro Valdebenito Isler, Jorge Eduardo Soto Herrera, and Enrique Alberto Rebolledo Sotelo; and the civilian employee Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco.”

Source: laizquierdadiario.com, December 26, 2016

Deputy Gutiérrez reveals that brother of Minister of Justice was involved in the death of three PC militants and one from the MIR

"He was a murderer, a torturer; he was part of commands that raided houses, detained people, and subsequently tortured them, murdered them, and made them disappear," the parliamentarian maintained.

"We want to make it clear that Ángel Hernán Campos Quiroga, brother of the Minister of Justice, Jaime Campos Quiroga, was a member of the No. 3 Group of the Maquehue Air Base in Temuco, with the rank of FACh Lieutenant, who was involved in the murder of three Communist Party militants and one from the MIR."

These are parts of the information provided by PC Deputy Hugo Gutiérrez, along with lawyers Magdalena Garcés and Cristián Cruz, plus the vice president of the Center for Research and Promotion of Human Rights (CINPROD), Herman Carrasco Paul.

According to Gutiérrez, more than 30 victims of torture identified the brother of the head of the Justice Ministry as their torturer, who died in May 2001.

The revelation of this data comes after the controversial statements of Minister Campos, who expressed support for granting prison benefits to convicts with terminal illnesses, including criminals from the dictatorship.

In this regard, the communist deputy indicated that the Secretary of State should have omitted his comments and called on President Michelle Bachelet to remove him from his post.

“We urge the President of the Republic, with all this information that has been gathered, [to consider] that the brother of the Minister of Justice was a murderer, a torturer; he was part of commands that raided houses, detained people, and subsequently tortured them, murdered them, and made them disappear.

I believe he was aware of all these circumstances; he should have refrained from making a statement in favor of those who, like his brother, violated Human Rights," he declared.

Human Rights lawyer Magdalena Garcés, who handles cases in Temuco, noted that "in many cases, a series of lieutenants who actively participated in raids and interrogations are mentioned; among those lieutenants who are repeatedly mentioned is Lieutenant Ángel Campos Quiroga.

This FACh officer has been explicitly mentioned as a member of the group dedicated to political persecution and as an interrogator and torturer."

On November 30, an indictment order was released which indicates in one of its paragraphs: “Many of these detainees remained held at the Maquehue base for a period of no less than a week, during which time they were interrogated and tortured by the officers and non-commissioned officers who formed part of the intelligence group specially formed for such purposes, among whom is Second-in-Command Benjamín Fernández Hernández and Lieutenant Ángel Campos Quiroga (brother of the Minister of Justice).”

Source: elmostrador.cl, December 26, 2016