The retired Carabineros sergeant who became involved in acts that transformed him into a throat-slitter, José Florentino Fuentes Castro, was convicted for acts committed during the dictatorship. The infamous "Degollados Case" (Case of the Slit Throats) features him as a primary protagonist in a story that CHV broadcast hours ago, featuring a controversial audio recording of his from that era.

In the aforementioned recording, he is heard in a conversation with another officer. The individual, who was released from Punta Peuco in 2016 after being granted parole, reviews his life as a former agent of the Carabineros Intelligence Service (Sicar).

Due to its relevance, the record of the man who turned out to be one of the perpetrators of the crimes against Manuel Parada, Santiago Nattino, and Manuel Guerrero was turned over to the justice system.

"We grabbed these assholes. We killed every asshole we caught. When the assholes were killed, the remorse started. So we would have a drink, but very little, to get drunk, to escape, to get high, whatever, any bullshit.

Yes, I don't feel remorse; I think what I did was just," Fuentes stated. Furthermore, he illustrated the participation of the Carabineros and highlighted that the then-Lieutenant Cádiz Stewart, who ended up as a general, was protected by instructions from his father, a general.

"But he doesn't know, I know him because of that. 'Lolo' had instructions from my general not to let him participate in bullshit. And later, with the assholes wounded, they have no reason to talk. So, it's ugly when you tell someone... damn, a wounded asshole and finishing him off. That shit is like cowardice, but the shit had to be done," he added to his remarks.

At the same time, he highlighted: "Where the flagpoles were, we had those assholes hanging there all night. And the assholes didn't want to talk. And there was the bald guy who was a major. That asshole ordered those assholes to be killed. Do you know where we took them? To the river mouth. At the School, we called Cárcamo 'the butcher truck'."

"We were in Sicar, we were the ones who took them there. With Manuel Alfaro Contreras," he asserted. In the audio, laughter can be heard, as if it were a daily situation, but it corresponds to a raw account of how the two bodies of the Ecuadorians were found riddled with bullets. "I know who was involved.

It was almost all the lackeys. The ones I'm telling you about. Arriagada, Prieto. We never wanted to talk. Never," concluded Fuentes.

Source: ilustrado.cl, September 1, 2020

The Third Chamber of the Supreme Court granted parole to José Fuentes Castro and Hernán Reinaldo Ovalle Hidalgo, who were implicated in the "Degollados Case."

The Supreme Court granted parole to two military personnel convicted of crimes against humanity; one is among those responsible for the kidnapping and death of the three teachers whose throats were slit during the dictatorship: José Manuel Parada, Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino; and the other is a military officer who participated in the murder of three workers from SUMAR, in the Vicuña Mackenna Industrial Belt.

They are José Fuentes Castro, an agent of the Carabineros Communications Directorate (DICOMCAR), and Colonel Hernán Reinaldo Ovalle Hidalgo, who was linked to the murder of three workers from the Sumar textile factory.

The latter case occurred on September 12, 1973, one day after the coup d'état, when the military was advancing through the Industrial Belts, detaining, torturing, and murdering workers. Ofelia Villarroel Latín, Donato Quispe Choque (Bolivian), and Adrián del Carmen Sepúlveda Farías died in that operation.

The other case is that of José Florentino Fuentes Castro, a second sergeant of the Carabineros who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the case of the murder of the three communist professionals, killed on May 30, 1985. This is not the only case with which he is linked, as there is also talk of his participation in the kidnapping of five other people.

These are scandalous rulings, which demonstrate once again that there is no justice, prison, or true punishment for human rights violators. Various human rights organizations have denounced and repudiated the fact that this is about granting impunity to those responsible for crimes against humanity.

It is not the first time that there have been rulings of this type, as in other cases, they have also been hours away from releasing human rights violators.

Lorena Pizarro, president of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, denounced the fact and pointed out the gravity of this as a precedent; the relatives of Manuel Guerrero pointed out something similar.

Today more than ever, it is necessary to continue fighting for prison and punishment for all human rights violators.

Source: La Izquierda Diario, June 9, 2016

PARDON: 9 SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PUNTA PEUCO WOULD NOT QUALIFY

They are sentenced for the murder of carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca, Operation Albania, and the "Degollados Case." Among them are Álvaro Corbalán Castilla and Carlos Herrera Jiménez. They would not meet the requirements for benefits for humanitarian reasons.

Nine former military personnel sentenced to life imprisonment are serving their sentences at the Punta Peuco prison, according to data from the Human Rights Observatory of the Diego Portales University (UDP). These prisoners cannot receive benefits before 20 years of their sentence and would not be eligible for a possible pardon for humanitarian reasons.

They are Álvaro Julio Corbalán Castilla, Carlos Herrera Jiménez, Armando Cabrera Aguilar, Hugo Iván Salas Wenzel, Miguel Arturo Estay Reino, José Florentino Fuentes Castro, Guillermo Washington González Betancourt, Alejandro Segundo Sáez Mardones, and Claudio Alberto Salazar Fuentes.

Army Major (Ret.) Álvaro Julio Corbalán Castilla does not require much introduction. In 2000, the former operations chief of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) in Santiago was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court for the qualified homicide of carpenter Juan Alberto Alegría Mundaca.

THEY "SUICIDED" HIM

In 1983, Alegría's corpse appeared in Valparaíso with his wrists cut, next to a "suicide note" in which he incriminated himself for the murder of union leader Tucapel Jiménez. However, the murderers made the mistake of cutting one hand so deeply that he would not have been able to handle a sharp weapon to cut the other.

Army Major (Ret.) Carlos Herrera Jiménez and Carabineros Sub-officer (Ret.) Armando Cabrera Aguilar, both attached to the CNI, were also sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Alegría Mundaca. The murderers thought that, as an alcoholic and having a criminal record, the carpenter would be the perfect scapegoat for the union leader's murder.

Herrera Jiménez is another who does not require an introduction. He was a fugitive in Argentina, from where he was extradited. Paradoxically, in 2004, Herrera Jiménez was sentenced by the Supreme Court to only 10 years in prison as the material author of the homicide of Tucapel Jiménez, former president of the National Association of Fiscal Employees (ANEF), a crime committed in 1982.

OPERATION ALBANIA

In 2007, the country's highest court upheld the life sentence against Army General (Ret.) Hugo Iván Salas Wenzel, former director of the CNI, as a co-author of five simple homicides and as a co-author of seven qualified homicides in the Albania case.

Operation Albania or the "Corpus Christi Massacre" took place between June 15 and 16, 1987, in Santiago. In it, twelve members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) were executed by CNI agents in various parts of the capital in alleged confrontations.

In this same case, Álvaro Corbalán was sentenced by the Supreme Court to 20 years in prison as a co-author of four simple homicides and as a co-author of eight qualified homicides.

DEGOLLADOS CASE

The other five sentenced to life imprisonment are former Carabineros who participated in one of the worst crimes of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship: the throat-slitting of communist professionals José Manuel Parada Maluenda, Manuel Leonidas Guerrero Ceballos, and Santiago Esteban Nattino Allende.

On March 28 and 29, 1985, the three were kidnapped by agents of the Carabineros Communications Directorate, Dicomcar. The next day, their bodies appeared with their throats slit and with signs of torture on a road in Quilicura. In August of that year, the case caused the departure of the General Director of Carabineros, César Mendoza, from the Military Government Junta.

In 1995, Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Guillermo Washington González Betancourt, former head of Dicomcar, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to life imprisonment as the author of the kidnappings followed by the homicides of Parada, Guerrero, and Nattino, and also as the author of the kidnappings of six other people.

Nattino and Guerrero belonged to the Association of Educators of Chile (Agech), an entity parallel to the then-officialist Teachers' College. The six kidnapped people who survived belonged to Agech. Sociologist José Manuel Parada was the son of actors Roberto Parada and a staff member of the Vicariate of Solidarity.

The other former Carabineros sentenced to life imprisonment for this crime are the former civil employee Miguel Arturo Estay Reino ("El Fanta"), Sergeant (Ret.) José Florentino Fuentes Castro, and Corporals (Ret.) Alejandro Segundo Sáez Mardones and Claudio Alberto Salazar Fuentes.

Source: La Nación, April 4, 2011

José Fuentes Castro has a lot of free time in Punta Peuco

The cop convicted for the "Degollados Case" who entertains himself by requesting information from the Council for Transparency.

José Fuentes Castro, a former Carabineros officer sentenced to life imprisonment for having slit the throats of a group of communist teachers in 1985, has plenty of time in the Punta Peuco prison. And he certainly uses it. Free time, they call it behind bars.

From the prison built especially for uniformed officers guilty of human rights violations, Castro has made no less than 19 submissions to the Council for Transparency (CPLT), requesting information. Some of the requirements are quite peculiar.

In 2009, the former man in green began asking for all the sanctions applied against him from 1989 onwards and the reason for them. This was his successful inauguration before the CPLT, which accepted the request in its entirety.

The following year, the prisoner was annoyed while watching television. For some reason, he did not like that the reality TV personality, Claudio Valdivia, did an experiential piece in the prison service for the TVN program Calle 7.

In his submission to the CPLT, the former cop requested documentation regarding who authorized the entry of the celebrity dancer into the Gendarmerie School; why they taught him the techniques of raiding, and even more, why he wore the institutional uniform, a fact he described as "illegal practice of the profession."

Fuentes Castro has had behavior in the prison that has violated the rules on more than one occasion. On Christmas 2004, he got into a fight with Alejandro Sáez Maldonado, another member of the feared Dicomcar, convicted for the same "Degollados Case." That year, Fuentes Castro filed a protection appeal in the Santiago Court of Appeals.

On that occasion, he claimed that he had been threatened with death and that they treated him like a traitor.

More and more

Not content with the information received, in 2011 he complained of "violation of correspondence" and asked for all the criteria, documents, and powers of the authority to do so. Then a list of all the electrical appliances - his property - since his date of internment in Punta Peuco.

Last August, he also raised a hue and cry because his spouse, every time she visits him, must leave her personal data upon entering, as happens in all prisons in the world. So he asked the CPLT to force the Gendarmerie to reveal what it did with that information. The appeal, of course, was not accepted as inadmissible.

He also asked for data on why the gas cylinders had been removed from the prison facility. All within the framework of the new measures adopted by the Gendarmerie after the fire that occurred in the San Miguel prison. The CPLT accepted his request and the Gendarmerie had to respond.

Last December, Fuentes Castro sharpened his aim: he asked to know what activities were developed by the Gendarmerie "to remove, annul, or neutralize the factors that have influenced the criminal conduct of the inmates." It was accepted.

Religion

In September 2011, Fuentes Castro's sporting mood dropped, and he wanted to know everything about it. For this reason, he required documents related to the purchase of equipment, the methodology designed for their use, and why the inmates were not asked for their opinion before acquiring them.

His supervisory zeal also reached the measures of reintegration and training. And in order to delve into the matter, he returned in 2011 to ask for the type of courses, if the authority had thought about the labor field, and, again, why they were not consulted.

It is also noted that Fuentes Castro has an absolute distrust of public administration, as he requested information regarding the construction of a multipurpose room in Punta Peuco. If a tender was made, if it had a municipal permit, among other aspects.

And if it is about communication with God, Fuentes Castro also requested information. This time regarding the "promotional role" of the Gendarmerie on religious activities and, finally, how much money he could have kept in his cell.

Source: The Clinic, February 8, 2012

Punta Peuco is, like any prison, a dumping ground where society hides its problems and its waste. But even in those forgotten places, Chilean classism manages to establish its distinctions, and a military officer who has killed feels far superior to a criminal Carabineros officer.

And both consider themselves something very different from the prison guard who must watch over them. Tomorrow, Augusto Pinochet’s will shall be opened, and perhaps there will be clarity regarding the size of his fortune. In Punta Peuco lies the dictator's other legacy.

With his six-foot frame, José Florentino Fuentes Castro walks through the kitchen of the module he inhabits in Punta Peuco with a cloth on his shoulder. He wears a tracksuit and sneakers. When he was young, because of his thick build, they called him "The Ox." Although he uses hearing aids, he can barely hear. His wife asks us to speak loudly and "well-modulated so that he can read lips."

It is Sunday, December 18. On the door of his cell, Fuentes Castro hung an image of Santa Claus. After being locked up for more than 15 years, his cell is his true home. He is sentenced to life imprisonment and will likely, like Osvaldo "Guatón" Romo, also die in prison.

In 1985, when he was 35 years old and a non-commissioned officer of the Carabineros, he slit the throat of Santiago Nattino, a communist militant, publicist, and painter. Nattino was 61 years old at the time, one year younger than Fuentes Castro is today.

"I remember that Nattino didn't say anything, he was very weak; he was placed on the floor on his back. Sáez (the Carabineros officer Alejandro Sáez) grabbed him by the head and Pegazo (the Carabineros officer Claudio Salazar) grabbed his feet; Fanta (the civilian and former communist leader Miguel Estay) was also there.

I made a cut," Fuentes finally confessed to a judge nine years after the crime.

On that same terrible day of March 29, 1985, communist militants José Manuel Parada, then head of documentation for the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, and Manuel Guerrero, a teachers' union leader, were also murdered. The triple crime became known as the "Degollados" (Throat-Slitting) Case. Its brutality chilled the blood of those who opposed Pinochet, precisely what its intellectual authors sought.

The economic crisis starting in 1983 had provoked massive protests in Santiago and other cities in the country. By the beginning of the second half of 1984, people were taking to the streets and losing their fear.

It was necessary to make them find it again. To paralyze them with terror. Fuentes's superiors told him that Nattino, Parada, and Guerrero "were ideologically responsible for the deaths of several Carabineros and that, because the courts were inoperative, one had to seek one's own justice," Fuentes told Ciper.

Fuentes's wife added that her husband was pressured with another motive: "They told him he had to get his hands dirty and prove he wasn't like his dad." Fuentes's father was a merchant apparently linked to the Communist Party.

After stirring up the demons, others higher up the power scale were able to profit from the dread generated without staining their own hands. Fuentes says he only knew the officers immediately above him. They are also Carabineros and are imprisoned in Punta Peuco. Just like a group of military officers whom he detests so much.

-None of these assholes are heroes. They don't deserve privileges. They are all murderers. They think they are O’Higgins, but they are all criminals –says José Fuentes Castro regarding the military officers.

Fuentes's words do nothing but highlight one of the facts that is never mentioned when Punta Peuco is discussed: the profound rift between the military and the Carabineros, and between officers and non-commissioned officers. An invisible wall separates them, and the passage of time and the continuity of certain privileges have only reinforced it.

AIM AT MODULE 1

José Fuentes lives in Module 4 of the special prison. The highest-ranking Army officers are placed in Module 1. They are separated by only a few hundred meters. And although Punta Peuco is, like any prison, a dumping ground where society leaves its problems and its waste, different rules govern its interior.

Different codes that make a military officer who has killed feel superior to a Carabineros officer who is also a criminal. And both feel they are something very different from the prison guard who must watch over them.

Module 4 has a gate as an entrance and a glass booth from which an armed guard watches them. Stuck to the glass is the prison's book list: "Don Quixote," "Chilean Sweets," "Barrabas," "Late Have I Loved Thee," "Confidential Adagio," "History of Elections: Volume I," "The Fifth Mountain" by Paulo Coelho, "Mala Onda," and "Overdose" by Alberto Fuguet.

There is also a sheet signed by the warden asking "that swearing and shouting be avoided" during visiting hours. But this Sunday, at least, there is almost no noise, except for a radio playing from one of the cells.

José Fuentes's cell is an individual room. But he must share the shower, the kitchen, and a hall, which the inmates set up as a living-dining room. There is a large window that looks out onto a patio where a couple of trees, a row of red and yellow rosebushes, chili and chard crops, and a grotto where they installed a figure of the Virgin of Carmen can be seen.

Being there in that peaceful environment, with José Fuentes Castro, one of the most well-known criminals of the dictatorship, is like accompanying a retiree spending his last days in a nursing home. But the perception is a mistake, of course, because César Palma, a civilian and former member of the Comando Conjunto; Rubén Barría, a Carabineros officer convicted of the homicide of a group of minors in Puente Alto; and Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, former high command of the DINA and former head of the most secret group of the Army Intelligence Brigade (BIE), among others, walk freely through those rooms.

Suddenly, the outer gate of the module opens and a guard enters at a run, bringing a package. Behind him appears Basclay Zapata, "El Troglo." He is thin, and his small eyes and dark complexion make his gray hair more noticeable. He wears a soccer jersey and leans in to say to the guard: "Corporal, can I help you?"

Because of his physique, it would be difficult for Zapata to intimidate a class of eighth-grade children. But in the book "119 of Us," Viviana Tamblay tells how in the 70s, Zapata did indeed provoke terror when he was one of the most active operational agents of the DINA.

Viviana says that her sister Bárbara and her husband, Edwin van Yurik, were detained by the DINA and taken to Londres 38. Viviana did not hear from her relatives (both MIR militants) again until she managed to speak with Cristián—Edwin's brother—who survived after being detained and tortured:

-He told me that he will never forget the pain and helplessness he felt in those moments of entering hell. They took him to a room to watch the torture of his brother Edwin first. In the facility were Osvaldo Romo and Basclay Zapata. Then they brought Bárbara, and Zapata raped her. Edwin stood up, bloodied from the blows received, and spat on him with his own blood.

There are dozens of other testimonies that recount in detail the horrors to which Basclay Zapata subjected prisoners. Nothing of that is betrayed in the walk of the diminished man who now accompanies the guard to the kitchen. Fuentes watches him pass and says in a low voice: "This is the greatest murderer in history." Coming from one of the throat-slitters, the phrase sounds terrifying.

Since 2007, Basclay Zapata and José Fuentes Castro have been module mates in Punta Peuco. The problem is that Fuentes cannot stand him. He says that as soon as Zapata arrived, he appropriated the carpentry workshop in the patio. He put up some pennants that say "COMMANDO" and two photos where Basclay Zapata appears posing next to Augusto Pinochet. That is how he marked the difference.

-Here in Punta Peuco, there are two prisons, and the military men run both –says Fuentes.

Fuentes recounts that during the February 2010 earthquake, the guards went to his module to see how the inmates were doing. "But then they left and locked the door, despite the fact that constant aftershocks were occurring at that time and there was an evident danger." One detail Fuentes does not forget: "The doors of Module 1, that of the Army officers, remained open."

CIPER consulted the Gendarmería about this incident. The Communications Department reported: "There is no record whatsoever indicating that the doors were not opened for the inmates of Module 4 while they were for those of Module 1. Those types of subjective details are not noted; only that there were no injuries in Punta Peuco and no one escaped."

General (ret.) Manuel Contreras, former director of the DINA, to whose imprisonment the creation of Punta Peuco is owed, was imprisoned in Module 1 between 1995 and 2001. In those years, the military prisoners did not even have visual contact with the Gendarmería.

The prison had been designed so that the military would be guarded by the military, and the guards remained outside the module. To the point that with their cameras, they could not even focus toward the interior of the facility.

More than surveillance circles, they seemed like two rings of protection for the prisoners. Contreras was allowed to celebrate his birthday as if he were at home, with toasts until late and visits outside of hours.

Starting in 2003, the Gendarmería was in charge of total custody. But the military officers who arrived at Module 1 never stopped feeling they deserved "VIP" treatment. Now its highest-ranking occupants are the former head of the DINA's Foreign Department, General (ret.) Raúl Iturriaga Neumann (who declared himself in rebellion in 2007, refusing to serve prison time in Punta Peuco after being sentenced to 5 years and one day as the author of the kidnapping of MIR militant Luis San Martín Vergara, who has been disappeared since 1974); and the former operational head of the CNI, Major (ret.) Álvaro Corbalán Castilla (who was also commander of the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño and the Anti-Subversive Division, and had a direct relationship with Augusto Pinochet). Both consider themselves "political prisoners."

In September 2010, for the Bicentennial of Independence, the prisoners of Punta Peuco organized a hunger strike. They sought for President Sebastián Piñera to include them in the "Bicentennial Pardon" proposal presented by the Catholic Church, after the President said in a press conference at La Moneda in July that those convicted of especially serious crimes, "such as crimes against humanity," would be excluded from these benefits.

Iturriaga, Colonel Juan Morales Salgado, Brigadiers Fernando Polanco, José Zara, and Christoph Willike, Lieutenant Colonel Emilio Neira, Major Carlos Herrera Jiménez, and Lieutenants Jorge Vargas Bories and Sergio Rivera (the latter a former Navy officer) participated.

They called themselves the "Group of Imprisoned Military Personnel" and sent a statement to the newspaper La Nación explaining that with the strike, they sought the freedom of all imprisoned non-commissioned officers and civilians (who were agents in the dictatorship's intelligence groups); and a single, maximum sentence of 10 years for cases where the sentence was equal to or greater than that amount, including life imprisonment. "In the same way as was done in the governments of former presidents Aylwin and Lagos to release 282 political prisoners for subversive activities," the statement added.

The strike lasted less than an hour.

-And that day, this fool Basclay Zapata was shouting: the strike, the strike! -remembers José Florentino Fuentes Castro.

The next day, Jorge Balacada, Raúl Iturriaga's lawyer, informed the newspaper La Nación that the nine military officers had declined the strike after the commander of the Army Garrison of the Metropolitan Zone, General Marcos López, asked "the former uniformed personnel not to tarnish the activities programmed by the Armed Forces to commemorate the Bicentennial."

José Fuentes Castro provides a very different version. He asserts that the military simply did not dare to go through with it.

It is not strange that Fuentes is accused by his peers of being a "conflictive" inmate.

On December 6, 2009—according to a Gendarmería document—José Fuentes was punished with four days of solitary confinement for threatening another Carabineros officer, Colonel (ret.) Iván Quiroz, former high command of the CNI and right-hand man to Álvaro Corbalán.

Fuentes told Quiroz "that he would kill him since he had nothing to lose, pointing out as the motivation for his threat that Quiroz Ruiz's wife had allegedly driven her private car into his wife's," the document states.

The dispute with Quiroz Ruiz was reckless. This Carabineros colonel has a reputation for being tough, cruel, and ruthless. He is imprisoned for the 12 murders of Operation Albania, and a new sentence awaits him for the kidnapping, torture, and death of the last five disappeared persons in Chile, in September 1987.

For that very reason, Quiroz resisted arriving at Punta Peuco until the end. In 2008, he remained a fugitive for more than four months until he was apprehended in San Pedro de la Paz, near Concepción. There, he had entrenched himself in a circle of protection that remains loyal to him to this day.

None of that mattered to José Fuentes. He attacked anyway. And he did the same on May 12, 2010, when he was sanctioned again for having spat on the dinner of Carabineros officer Blas Barraza, convicted of the homicide of priest Gerardo Poblete (on October 21, 1973), "who punched Fuentes in the dorsal area, producing a reaction from Fuentes, who threatened him with a knife."

Fuentes says it was a plan hatched against him between the Gendarmería and other inmates so that he would end his complaints against the warden at the time, Eduardo Muñoz, who appears in the documents seized from Álvaro Corbalán as one of the guards of full confidence.

-I have no enemies, but I do not deny that some of them have me as their enemy. Some of them prejudge me, even going so far as to speak about me without ever having exchanged a single word with me. Many times I am surprised myself that I am treated as an individual prone to violence and not as a defender of my rights against the exaggerated oppression of themselves –said José Fuentes to CIPER.

This former Carabineros non-commissioned officer states that all these years of confinement have allowed him to resume with more strength the "ideals I had in my youth." Ideals that, according to him, he inherited from his father, Florentino Fuentes, a merchant from the town of El Sauce who was sympathetic to the Communist Party and who had already passed away by the days of 1985 when Fuentes killed Santiago Nattino.

THE JUDGE'S EXPLANATION

The minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Joaquín Billard, who investigated the murder of the Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete, among many other crimes committed during the 17 years of dictatorship, has a controversial explanation for those brutalities and for the type of men who are locked up in Punta Peuco:

-After the Coup d'État, the citizenry was left in the hands of low-level people. When a patrol arrived at a house, it wasn't a patrol of generals: it was conscripts. And what is a conscript? A guy from the La Bandera shantytown who is handed a rifle and let loose.

Is he distinguished? Is he a relative of the Duke of York? No. He is a piece of trash. The citizenry was left in the hands of those people. And this is not a conclusion I reached alone. Everyone who has investigated these cases reaches it.

I tell you more: if there were another Coup d'État, who do you think they would send? Those same people. And what would they do? The same thing. That is why we must take care of democracy –maintains Judge Billard.

What the judge says is one of the interpretations most used to explain the wide range of ways of killing and torturing that the dictatorship resorted to. In high Chilean social circles, which admired Pinochet for having extirpated "the communist cancer," the violence of those years is still referred to as "excesses" of a few who disobeyed the orders of the command.

That discriminatory explanation distorts reality. On one hand, it presumes the good behavior of the officers (evidently, there is no evidence that violence or psychopathic behaviors are associated with a certain level of income or education).

But furthermore, by attributing the brutalities to the poor young men who did military service—which was mandatory at the time—or who served like Fuentes Castro as non-commissioned officers, the military structure to which they were subjected is left free of all responsibility.

It ignores the orders that emanated from "generals" and the power they had to order the killing of the disobedient "low-life" if he did not behave like the "piece of trash" they needed for their ends.

An Army officer who became one of the most ferocious operational agents of the CNI and the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) puts things in a different perspective. This is Carlos Herrera Jiménez, author of the homicide of union leader Tucapel Jiménez, among other serious crimes that have him confined in Punta Peuco, sentenced to life imprisonment.

Herrera Jiménez is one of the few officers who has publicly repented for his crimes and has developed a reflection on the matter in which he criticizes precisely the fact that the officers have not assumed that behind each of the horrors there was an order and a superior.

The figures from the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior support this. As of September 2011, there were only 40 generals prosecuted or convicted from all military branches, versus 82 colonels, 42 majors, and 338 non-commissioned officers.

-There are more non-commissioned officers than officers in prison. It would seem that no one commanded the fight against subversion, which, certainly, existed in Chile. The vast majority of officers, at the moment of testifying judicially, were either analysts or served as administrative officials, or they were just handing out rations –said Herrera Jiménez to Cambio 21 magazine.

The DINE officer made those statements to criticize the tribute that the mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, organized for Brigadier (ret.) Miguel Krassnoff, who was high command of the DINA and is sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for crimes he has never acknowledged.

At the tribute organized by Labbé at the Club Providencia—which was questioned by the Comptroller's Office—the fourth edition of the book "Miguel Krassnoff: Prisoner for Serving Chile," by Gisela Silva Encina, was launched.

-It is not credible that the Judiciary has been wrong on more than 20 occasions when issuing a conviction against the brigadier –affirmed Herrera.

And although he criticized Labbé for the tribute, he pointed out: "Krassnoff has been more wrong by insisting stubbornly on his innocence."

For Herrera Jiménez, along with the debt not assumed by the Chilean officer corps, there is also another absent responsibility: "Certainly we were the armed wing of the economic right. What doubt is there... Perhaps that is why they despise us now. Atavistically, this political sector has made use of the military. History is generous in pointing out the facts that indicate as much," he said.

In a more intimate vein, Herrera had already spoken of that utilization in an interview granted to Mónica González in 2001.

-Have you talked about all this with your wife? Do you need her forgiveness?

No, I do it because that way I know that everything I lived through is true. While it is true that I was in all the things we have talked about, I also live with my family! With children who are critical.

Look... it is not... easy for me! I still haven't overcome the fact that as soon as I arrived in Chile from Argentina, they gave me that terrible label of murderer. In front of my children, it is a quite difficult situation.

Because one still has to instill values in one's children, the need to comply with the minimum norms of social coexistence... And they could perfectly well have said to me: "And with what moral authority are you telling me this!" That block, perhaps, I still have...

Julia often reproaches me for not being as severe as I should be with them. Maybe I hold myself back, because I think my children are going to say: "With what moral authority is this old man speaking to me!" Yes... it is true, I must have many blocks...

And when I think that I did all that at the age my oldest son is now... I look at him, and he is a child! I must have blocks, many blocks. Look, I am not legitimizing what I lived through, nor what I did. I legitimized it at that time, but I never enjoyed it. "YES, I FEEL USED!"

In Punta Peuco, at odds with the other military officers, Herrera Jiménez dedicated time to making recordings of readings for an institute for the blind, as a note in The Clinic reported. Among the books he recorded is The Divine Comedy. It is striking to hear him declaim Dante's verses, particularly the inscription that is on the door of Hell and that welcomes the sinful souls:

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

For the families of many of the men who today serve sentences in Punta Peuco, there is no more exact phrase.

Source: Ciperchile.cl April 24, 2012

HUMAN RIGHTS: 14 CONVICTED INDIVIDUALS RECEIVED BENEFITS FROM THE GENDARMERÍA

The majority are on supervised release, and others obtained Sunday leave, such as the two convicted for the kidnappings and throat-slittings of José Manuel Parada, Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino. The Human Rights Observatory of the Diego Portales University questions these benefits.

On August 3, it was reported that the Technical Council of the Gendarmería granted the benefit of Sunday leave to Carabineros Colonel (ret.) Guillermo González Betancourt and Sergeant (ret.) José Fuentes Castro, who are confined in Punta Peuco, serving simple life sentences for the murders of José Manuel Parada, Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino, as well as the kidnapping of 6 other people in March 1985, a situation that became known as the "Degollados Case." The first-instance sentence was issued by Minister Milton Juica in March 1994 and became final in October 1995.

The news impacted the world of human rights and particularly the families of the victims, who, to try to reverse the measure, filed an amparo (protection) appeal before the Santiago Court of Appeals, indicating that it caused them profound moral damage and psychological disturbances.

The appeal was accepted for processing, and the court requested that the Gendarmería report the background information that was taken into account to adopt the resolution.

It was under these circumstances that it became known that other convicted individuals had also received prison benefits. In total, there are 14 inmates serving sentences in Punta Peuco and the Cordillera Prison in Peñalolén.

The Human Rights Observatory of the Diego Portales University reported that the following individuals convicted of human rights violations enjoy various penitentiary benefits (all sentences are final, that is, ratified by the Supreme Court):

• Hugo Enrique Alarcón Vergara, former civilian employee of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), sentenced in 2006 to 5 years and 1 day as an accomplice to the qualified homicide of carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca (Tucapel Jiménez case). He received a commutation of 8 months and is currently on parole.
• Primitivo Castro Campos, Carabineros non-commissioned officer (ret.), sentenced in 2007 to 5 years and 1 day for the homicide of Carlos Fuentealba Herrera. 17 months were commuted, and he is on parole.
• Luis Fernando Romo Morales, Carabineros Major (ret.), sentenced in 2007 to 5 years and 1 day for the qualified kidnappings of José Lorenzo Cofré Obadilla and Carlos Montecinos Urra. He benefited from a sentence reduction of 8 months, the commutation of another 3, and is on parole.
• Juan de Dios Caniulaf Hualme, civilian, sentenced in 2007 to 3 years as a cover-up for the simple homicide of José Matías Ñanco. He received the benefits of controlled release, and his sentence was reduced by 5 months. He is free.
• Alejandro Molina Cisternas, Carabineros non-commissioned officer (ret.), sentenced in 2007 to 5 years and 1 day for the qualified kidnappings of Mario Edrulfo Carrasco Díaz and Víctor Olea Alegría. His sentence was reduced by 8 months, and he is free.
• Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, Army Major (ret.), sentenced in 2007 to 5 years and 1 day for the qualified kidnappings of Mario Edrulfo Carrasco Díaz and Víctor Olea Alegría. In addition, he is accused in 3 other cases and prosecuted in 21 others. His sentence was reduced by 8 months, and he is free.
• Patricio Zamora Rodríguez, Carabineros Captain (ret.), sentenced in 1995 to 15 years and 1 day for the kidnappings of José Manuel Parada, Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino, and as an accomplice to the homicides of the three, and for the kidnappings of five other people in the same case. He also has three other sentences of 5 years and 1 day for unnecessary violence resulting in death of Percy Arana; 541 days for illicit association; and 541 days for injuries. His sentence was reduced by 13 months, and he is free.
• Emilio Enrique Neira Donoso, former CNI agent and Army Lieutenant Colonel (ret.), sentenced to a single penalty of 8 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as the author of the qualified homicides of José Valenzuela Levi and Recaredo Valenzuela Pohorecky, which occurred in June 1987 in the framework of "Operation Albania," whose sentence became final in August 2007. He was granted the benefit of Sunday leave.
• Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Army Colonel (ret.), convicted on 7 occasions between 2007 and 2011 for various qualified kidnappings (disappearances). He received a sentence reduction of 7 months. In some cases, he was already on supervised release. He is currently free.
• José Florentino Fuentes Castro, Carabineros Sergeant (ret.), sentenced in 1995 to simple life imprisonment (minimum of 20 years) and 541 days for the homicides of Parada, Nattino, and Guerrero, and for the kidnappings of 6 Agech leaders. He has just received the benefit of Sunday leave.
• Guillermo Washington González Betancourt, Carabineros Colonel (ret.), sentenced to simple life imprisonment in the same case as the previous one. Along with Fuentes, he has just obtained Sunday leave.
• Otto Silvio Trujillo Miranda, alias "Colmillo Blanco," former civilian employee of the Chilean Air Force and member of the Comando Conjunto, sentenced in 2010 to 3 years and 1 day as an accomplice to the qualified kidnapping of Humberto Fuentes Rodríguez, detained by the Comando Conjunto in November 1975. Trujillo is also prosecuted or accused in 5 other cases as an author or accomplice to the disappearances of 11 Communist Party militants detained by the Comando Conjunto in 1975 and 1976. He was granted Sunday leave.
• César Luis Palma Ramírez, alias "Fifo," also a former civilian employee of the Chilean Air Force and member of the Comando Conjunto, who was also sentenced in 2010 to 5 years and 1 day for the qualified kidnapping of Humberto Fuentes Rodríguez. He was also sentenced in 2007 to 3 years and 1 day, with the benefit of supervised release, as the author of the homicide of Carlos Contreras Maluje, detained in November 1976. In addition, he is prosecuted or accused in 6 other cases as the author of the disappearances of 13 Communist Party militants detained by the Comando Conjunto in 1975 and 1976. He was granted night confinement.
• Odlanier Rafael Mena Salinas, Army General (ret.), former director of the CNI, sentenced in 2008 to 6 years for three qualified kidnappings (Caravan of Death case, Arica episode).

The Minister of Justice, Teodoro Ribera, when consulted about the matter, stated that he fully supported the decisions of the Gendarmería's Technical Council, since although those who benefited might have committed "reprehensible crimes, they also have human rights." However, in the opinion of the Human Rights Observatory, "there are very well-founded reasons to question the applicability of domestic law norms designed for common crimes to crimes that, due to their nature as crimes against humanity, carry the greatest gravity, according to norms actively recognized and ratified by the State of Chile itself."

Source: La Nación October 14, 2012

THROAT-SLITTING CASE: APPEAL AGAINST BENEFITS FOR CONVICTED INDIVIDUALS REJECTED.

The Second Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals rejected the protection appeal filed by the relatives of the three communist professionals murdered on March 29, 1985, in the so-called "Degollados" (Throat-Slitting) case, against the Gendarmerie for granting Sunday release benefits to two of those convicted for this brutal crime.

The ministers, Miguel Vázquez and Omar Astudillo Contreras, along with the presiding lawyer Carmen Domínguez, did not uphold the constitutional action presented by the widows and children of Manuel Guerrero, José Manuel Parada, and Santiago Nattino, all of whom were killed by having their throats slit in a vacant lot in the commune of Quilicura by agents of the Carabineros' Directorate of Police Intelligence, DIPOLCAR.

The Technical Committee of the Punta Peuco prison and the warden of the facility, Luis Meneses Vásquez, granted the Sunday release benefit to former Carabineros Guillermo González Betancourt and José Fuentes Castro, both of whom were sentenced to simple life imprisonment by Minister Milton Juica in April and May 1992 for the three murders, as well as the kidnapping of 6 other people in March 1985.

According to the judges in this filing, "it has not been demonstrated by the appellants how the fact that those who benefited from the Sunday release received it, unlike others, affects, disturbs, or threatens the principle of equality of those in whose favor the appeal was filed.

In this sense, no impairment of the principle of equality is perceived for those in whose favor the appeal was filed, as they are not in the same situation as those to whom the benefit against which the complaint is made has been granted.

Lacking that similar baseline reality, the invoked guarantee of equality could in no way have been affected, as that is the essential condition that must exist to begin judging an eventual impairment of the principle of equality.

Therefore, the evidence provided by the parties, duly assessed, leads this Court to conclude that there is no evidence whatsoever of the deprivation, disturbance, or threat to the constitutional guarantees alleged by the appellants, nor of any other guarantee," the ruling states.

However, in the ruling, the judges do warn that "it would appear that the requirements for granting the benefit provided to the aforementioned convicts would not be fully met. In this sense, regarding Mr.

Guillermo González Betancourt, there are records that would reveal that his conduct prior to the granting of the Sunday release benefit has not been irreproachable, as he was reportedly sanctioned for initiating a hunger strike with the goal of obtaining prison benefits.

Regarding Mr. José Florentino Fuentes Castro, he was reportedly sanctioned by prison authorities for getting into fights inside the Punta Peuco prison. It must be emphasized that, although these records do not appear in the case files nor have they been reported by the prison authority or any of the administrative authorities that have reported on this case, having been categorically affirmed by the lawyer for the appellants in his argument and without them being denied by the opposing party in the relevant hearing, they allow this Court to acquire well-founded doubt regarding the legality and arbitrariness of the resolution adopted by the prison authority, which, although it has the discretionary power to grant prison benefits, especially the one granted for Sunday release, must always do so in strict adherence to the requirements that current regulations impose for such purposes," the sentence says.

For this reason, the lawyer for the relatives of the three communist professionals, Fernando Leal, announced that they will appeal to the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court.

Source: Terra.cl, February 5, 2013

Under the radar: those sentenced to life imprisonment for the "Degollados" case obtain daily release from Punta Peuco

In mid-2013, shortly before the 40th anniversary of the Military Coup and Sebastián Piñera's closure of the Cordillera prison, relatives and politicians protested outside the Supreme Court after it confirmed the Sunday release of two of the murderers of communist militants Manuel Guerrero, José Manuel Parada, and Santiago Nattino.

Only four days later, the Gendarmerie granted them the greatest of intra-prison benefits, authorizing them to leave Punta Peuco every day—a benefit about which the victims' relatives had not been informed until now.

On Thursday, June 20 of last year, Javiera Parada Ortiz and Manuel Guerrero Antequera protested in front of the Palace of Justice alongside relatives, lawyers, and politicians after the Supreme Court confirmed the granting of the intra-prison benefit of Sunday release to two men convicted for the kidnapping and murder of Manuel Guerrero, José Manuel Parada, and Santiago Nattino.

Known as the "Degollados" case, their children watched with impotence as Carabineros Colonel Guillermo González Betancourt and Sergeant José Fuentes Castro, both retired, would maintain the prison benefit authorized by the warden of Punta Peuco, Luis Meneses.

González and Fuentes are former Carabineros and agents of the Carabineros' Directorate of Communications (Dicomcar), and were two of the six involved in the homicide perpetrated on March 29, 1985, against communist militants José Manuel Parada—then head of documentation for the Vicaría de la Solidaridad—the painter and publicist Santiago Nattino, and the teachers' union leader Manuel Guerrero.

Their murders were a clear message from the dictatorship to instill terror in the population, which—following the severe economic crisis—had taken to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

The three slit-throated bodies of Parada, Nattino, and Guerrero shook the country. As did the plea of José Manuel Parada's widow outside the Legal Medical Service after being notified that her husband had been identified.

"Eight years ago they arrested my father, who is disappeared. Today they killed my husband. They leave me with four children. With Javiera, with Camilo who is 8 years old, and Antonio who is 1 year and 8 months old.

They took my father and they have killed my husband. Know well that each one of them will pay for each one of these crimes, have no doubt... until the last drop of blood remains in me, I will avenge them.

I do not want more people to suffer what I have suffered. This is too terrible. We have to change this country once and for all! How long will they continue to dialogue with the murderers! (...) Please, please, let us demand justice once and for all!"

Justice arrived. In 1995, five of the six involved were sentenced to life imprisonment for the crimes of kidnapping with homicide, robbery with intimidation, and illicit association.

But today, and for the last seven months, González and Fuentes no longer spend their days in Punta Peuco. The Sunday release obtained by both in September 2012 was expanded in January 2013 to the entire weekend, which the relatives of the murdered communist militants were unaware of when they protested.

Not only that: four days after the demonstration in front of the courts, Sergeant (ret.) José Fuentes Castro and Colonel (ret.) Guillermo González Betancourt accessed the most significant intra-prison benefit: daily release.

Thus, since June 24 of last year, the murderers of the communist militants have been granted "controlled release to the open environment," which—as the Regulations for Penitentiary Establishments indicate—gives them the freedom to leave the prison facility for up to 15 hours a day, for the purpose of "attending workplaces, training, labor justice or educational facilities, or social rehabilitation or personal guidance institutions, in order to seek or perform work."

All this in the same year that marked 40 years since the Military Coup and in which President Sebastián Piñera closed the Cordillera Prison.

When asked about the measure, the Gendarmerie stated that "in accordance with current legal regulations, having completed 20 years of imprisonment, the inmate has the right to apply for Parole."

In the case of the two former Carabineros, that time was completed in May 2012.

"In accordance with the above, pursuant to the provisions of the Regulations for Penitentiary Establishments, one year before completing the time to apply for Parole, inmates may apply for intra-prison benefits," the institution led by Colonel Marco Fuentes stated. Thus, González could apply for benefits starting in February 2011, and Fuentes starting in May of that same year.

Until the publication of this article, the relatives had no news of the new benefit obtained by the executioners of the communist militants.

INDIGNATION

For Manuel Guerrero Jr., "this situation is extremely violent. Knowing that this is a crime against humanity and that they are being applied regulations intended for common prisoners... there is no comparison, for people who attacked life and were also confined in a special prison, that they obtain more benefits than common prisoners."

He adds that "with Javiera, we demonstrated to the Minister of Justice, together with the lawyer from the Government's Human Rights area, with whom we met, that the benefits were delivered irregularly because their record is not clean, and one of the requirements needed is that one must not have any type of violation of internal regulations (...) it is shameful and very painful.

We are indignant to know that they are practically free and constitute a danger to society."

Lawyer Fernando Leal, who filed the protection appeal that attempted to prevent the Sunday release of the former Carabineros, considers the decision to grant them daily release as "unpresentable and reprehensible. One more sign that in Chile there are some who enjoy privileges that not everyone has (...) This speaks very poorly of the Piñera government and the justice sector."

Leal explains that, after the Supreme Court ruling, they met with the director of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), Lorena Fries. Furthermore, he details, "Javiera Parada and Manuel Guerrero met with the Minister of Justice (Patricia Pérez), who offered to promote a project so that benefits are no longer given to people who have committed crimes against Human Rights, which has not materialized."

In the lawyer's words, "it seems lamentable to me that the minister met with the children of the victims while the service dependent on her portfolio continued to give more benefits to these same murderers."

LEGAL ACTIONS

One of the requirements for inmates to obtain these types of prison benefits is that they must have had conduct without sanctions.

"During the arguments, I presented press articles that showed they had had terrible prison conduct. Even that the Gendarmerie filed a complaint against Fuentes Castro with the Public Prosecutor's Office for threatening another inmate with death," Leal asserts.

That situation cost him a sanction of four days of confinement in a solitary cell. "González Betancourt was also sanctioned for participating in a hunger strike to obtain benefits."

But "when I finished my argument in the Court, the Gendarmerie's lawyer began to argue and said that they had complied with everything. In the end, and because the judge demanded it, he acknowledged that they had sanctions.

So I thought the ruling would be in our favor. But although in the ruling they noted that, according to the evidence provided, it could be established that the Gendarmerie had granted benefits without adhering to the regulations, it was not taken into account because we had not proven how that had damaged the physical integrity of those affected.

In other words, they wanted me to bring a psychiatrist who would say that it affects the children that their parents' murderers are walking free."

In his opinion, "the delicate matter was that the Supreme Court was validating benefits based on a lie: the Gendarmerie and the Ministry of Justice said they met the requirements when they did not. So I made a filing to the Comptroller's Office, asking it to initiate an administrative inquiry against the Gendarmerie and the Ministry."

But the oversight body refrained from ruling on the matter.

Following this, they filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office, which ordered the PDI Human Rights Brigade to investigate.

Ten days ago, Leal filed a criminal complaint for ideological falsification—which applies when a public official misrepresents the truth in substantial facts—on behalf of one of Guerrero's daughters who lives in Sweden, América Guerrero. It was declared admissible.

According to the lawyer, "we are requesting that the former national director of the Gendarmerie, Luis Masferrer, the director's chief of staff, Colonel Cristian Alveal, and also the official from the Ministry of Justice who reported to the Court be summoned."

Source: El Mostrador, February 3, 2014

1973 Coup d'État: the brutal murder of two young Ecuadorian and evangelical men

Amid the orgy of crimes and violence unleashed following the military coup of September 1973, young Ecuadorians Felipe Campos Carrillo and Jimmy Torres Villalba met their deaths on Chilean soil. They were Baptist evangelicals with no political affiliation.

The former was studying Engineering and the latter Kinesiology, both at the Universidad de Concepción. They were 19 and 23 years old, respectively.

Chilevisión and CNN Chile provided new information regarding their murders after revealing confessions from José Florentino Fuentes Castro, a retired Carabineros sergeant convicted in the "Caso Degollados" (Slit Throats Case), in a conversation with another former officer.

Fuentes Castro participated in the detention of the two students. He stated: “Where the flagpoles were, we had those bastards hanging there all night. And the bastards didn't want to talk. And there was the bald guy who was a major.

That bastard ordered those bastards to be killed. And do you know where we took them, where we took them? To the river mouth.” The dialogue specifies that they are talking about Alejandro Cárcamo: “At the School, we called Cárcamo the butcher truck.”

The young men were taken in a caravan to the river mouth, where they were put to death. “We were in the Sicar (Carabineros Intelligence Service), we were the ones who took them there. With Manuel Alfaro Contreras.” In the judicial investigation, the only person convicted so far has been the head of the Sicar, Colonel Sergio Arévalos Cid, but this evidence identifies other individuals involved and confirms the order to execute the detainees.

In the audio, laughter can be heard amidst the account of how the bodies of the riddled students were found. Fuentes commented: “Some fishermen found them the next day and they were tied up like that, instead of handcuffed, they were tied with some Carabineros shirt sleeves and the bastards had a money receipt in their wallets.” He added: “I know who was there.

It was almost all the lackeys. The ones I’m telling you about. Arriagada, Prieto. We never wanted to talk. Never.”

In 1997, I learned of the case of the two students while collaborating with an initiative by human rights organizations in Chile and Ecuador to file a criminal complaint before the Supreme Court of that country against Augusto Pinochet, who was traveling there to participate in a meeting of Army chiefs of the Americas. The former dictator was still serving as Commander-in-Chief.

The action was presented by a group of 21 prominent figures from Ecuador, such as former Vice President of the Republic León Roldós Aguilera and painter Oswaldo Guayasamín. The lawsuit, based on four cases, included the executions of Torres and Campos. The purpose was to achieve Pinochet's arrest. On that occasion, he managed to escape.

In Quito, the general told the press that the young men “possibly were into something, I don’t know (…) Unfortunately, in these cases, the innocent suffer for the guilty”…

He concluded: “What explanation do you want me to give? That I ask for forgiveness, as some say?”

THE COVER-UP OF THE DOUBLE CRIME

The context was the persecution unleashed against foreigners who were in Chile, under the accusation that a “Marxist guerrilla army” existed, composed of thousands of people from different parts of Latin America.

For example, an editorial in “El Mercurio” maintained on September 28, 1973: “Throughout the last three years, extremist and terrorist elements of the continent found refuge, protection, and help in this country for their activities,” which included “militancy in national Marxist parties and the consequent interference in internal politics” and “the organization and support of clandestine organizations in their countries of origin.” It maintained: “Nearly 13,000 Latin American extremists remained in Chile during the last months.”

During the early hours of Friday, September 21, according to the edition of “La Tercera” the following day, “two extremists riddled with bullets” were found in the Concepción area. They were foreigners.

The note indicated that “the mysterious discovery of two corpses riddled with bullets has the local police on edge (sic). The discovery was made by Carabineros personnel (…) when they were carrying out a patrol in the vicinity of the mouth of the Bío Bío River (sic).

The subjects, until now unknown, are young.” Their bodies showed “several bullet impacts in different parts” of their bodies. But, it clarified, “according to the police, in no way would these be holes produced by military projectiles.” Furthermore, “an official Carabineros spokesperson did not rule out that it could be a vendetta by left-wing extremists, due to the way the murder was allegedly carried out.” It concluded: “The uniformed police are working arduously” on the clarification of “this singular case.”

One detail: the date and circumstances provided by the newspaper regarding the discovery of the bodies were inaccurate: fisherman Gabriel Gaete found the bodies on September 20.

A little later, the morning paper was forced to rectify. “The case (…) changed its nature radically,” it noted on September 28. The riddled young men were no longer “extremists,” but students of Ecuadorian origin who lacked any connection to Chilean internal politics: Felipe Porfirio Campos Carrillo and Jimmy Freddy Torres Villalva.

The newspaper clarified that “none of these students was a militant of the MIR or any other extremist group (…) It is clear that they were not extremists.”

However, the newspaper insisted on the existence of a connection with extremists, pointing out that the young men lived with some of those “elements” at the University and, therefore, they could have executed them “upon knowing that they were not addicted to their ideas, and fearing that they had heard more than was convenient.” Thus, the note was titled: “Police search for murderers of two Ecuadorian students.

They were allegedly executed by extremists.”

The reason for the “rectification” was evident in the same note: “The guardians of both were elements persecuted by the UP parties.” They were Mario Olavarría and Joel Salamanca, who “endorsed what had already been said before by the doctor of the Legal Medical Institute, Dr. Behm.” They were referring to the forensic doctor Francisco Behn Kun, an academic at the Universidad de Concepción.

Olavarría and Salamanca told “La Tercera” that both young men “went on September 11 to present themselves at their country’s consulate, where the representative recommended they go to the Carabineros, advice that was heard by the students, which earned them the congratulations of the police (…) Later, they only saw them lying on the cold slab of the Morgue.”

Indeed, a key fact to disprove that they were left-wing extremists was the anti-socialist political affiliation of the young men’s guardians. Engineer Mario Olavarría Aranguren, for example, was then the director of the School of Engineering and the Area of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the Universidad de Concepción, and was a member of the National Party.

After the military coup, he was appointed Academic Vice-Rector by the delegate rector (appointed by the dictatorship), Navy Captain (ret.) Guillermo González Bastidas. His son, Mario Olavarría Rodríguez, is today the Mayor of Colina representing the UDI, a position he has held uninterruptedly since the year 2000, following a prosperous political career that began at the Jaime Guzmán Foundation.

The wake for the young men in Concepción was held on October 27, 1973, amidst the obvious shock of their classmates. The local newspaper “Crónica” described: “Two coffins, one black and one brown, with three girls and as many young men standing honor guard, contain the remains of Felipe and Jimmy.

Students who arrived from Ecuador in search of a destiny, which was tragically cut short by authors who remain in anonymity.”

After adding that the authors of the double homicide still remained in impunity, the tabloid asked: “Will the case be clarified? When? These are questions that, at least for now, remain unanswered.”

They were waked at the Temple of the First Baptist Church of Concepción, where Campos worshipped, occasionally accompanied by his friend and compatriot Torres. Pastor Luis Mussiett Canales, now deceased, received threats not to perform the services at the temple, but he did not desist.

Campos also participated in the University Bible Group, which issued a statement repudiating the crime, as recalled by Josué Fonseca, today Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Concepción, who was the last to see the young man alive and later worked intensely on the cause of justice and reparation in the case.

On October 6, the General Director of Carabineros, César Mendoza Durán, visited the area, appearing “very satisfied with the calm situation it is experiencing.” He noted: “From what the institution has informed me and from what I was able to observe, I am really very happy with the situation of tranquility that this province is living.” However, he warned that “there is a latent danger of revenge, since there were more than 13,000 foreign extremists and a large quantity of weapons in Chile” (“La Tercera,” October 7, 1973).

Almost immediately after, on October 9, “La Tercera” reported that the case had been clarified, following the capture of the “regional secretary of the MIR, lawyer Pedro Henríquez Barra,” who had allegedly hidden in a large house in the sector called Manquimávida, on the banks of the Bío Bío River, “to evade the police action aimed at locating him, since his capture was ordered to all units in the country.” The detention was achieved as a result of a neighbor’s denunciation.

It added that the arrest allowed for the capture of five other MIR members, “who were involved in the sinister plans that were going to be developed throughout the country on September 17.” It was referring to “Plan Zeta,” a crude invention of the emerging dictatorship to try to justify the overthrow of the constitutional government, which maintained that the left was preparing a self-coup through the assassination of all its opponents.

“La Tercera” pointed out that this “extremist” group had the mission of “directing the actions aimed at finishing off numerous people in the Villa San Pedro sector.”

The note “revealed” that “the six individuals confessed their participation in the murder of the Ecuadorian students Freddy Torres and Felipe Campos (…) Even one of them, José Pérez, admitted to having fired a .22 caliber Súper Batán machine gun, which took the lives of the young men.” The crime, it specified, “was carried out in revenge for the dead of the left.”

Certainly, it was all a lie. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission accredited in 1990 that the students were held in the Fourth Carabineros Precinct of Concepción and that they “were executed by State agents.”

The judicial investigation managed to prove that between September 16 and 19, 1973, Felipe Porfirio Campos Carrillo and Freddy Jimmy Torres Villalba were detained, “without a competent judicial or administrative order,” by Carabineros officials who took them to the facilities of the Fourth Precinct of Concepción.

From there, they were taken out on the night of September 19 by a large police caravan that left from the guard post on Salas Street, and transported to the southern mouth of the Bío Bío River, to be executed with multiple bullet impacts. The bodies were found in Boca Sur, cut in half and bloodless, which showed that the homicide had been perpetrated elsewhere.

Why did they murder them? They were university students, they were foreigners, and they even looked Cuban. That is why they were detained, tortured in the precinct, and then at the river mouth, where they kept them hanging all night.

Then they riddled them with bullets. The murderers were satisfied: they had won a new battle against “atheistic communism.” They also thought that the waters would hide their crime, but their bodies were found.

Jimmy’s brother, Kenny Torres, recounted on the “Memoria Viva” portal that the young man arrived in Chile at the end of March 1973, after obtaining the “Professor Salvador Gálvez Rojas Scholarship,” granted by the Universidad de Concepción to the best student in Latin America.

He had achieved recognition as the best graduate of the Adolfo María Astudillo School in Babahoyo. At the time of leaving for Chile, he was in his first year in the Faculty of Engineering at the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral. “For Mario Olavarría, Jimmy’s guardian, his pupil, of modest origin, was an introspective and very studious boy (…) He only dedicated himself to studying, as he fervently wished to finish his degree,” he commented.

Regarding his compatriot, Felipe Campos, also without militancy, he recalled that “he was a graduate of the Eloy Alfaro School in the city of Guayaquil. His parents, Felipe Campos Robles and Ruth Carrillo, came from modest homes.” He added that “he was admitted by ‘special merit’ of his brother José Campos, a brilliant fourth-year medical student.

Dr. Behm gave him this opportunity.” His guardian was the Superintendent of the company Armco S.A., Joel Salamanca. He also had outstanding work as a student.

The young men lived in a university residence, but – he stressed – “they never intervened in any activity that was not strictly student-related (…) completely alien to the political issues that were shaking the Republic of Chile.”

Specifying details already known in 1973, he pointed out that Salamanca told him that the young men went to the Ecuadorian Consulate to ask about their situation as foreigners. “The consul was not there and his wife recommended they present themselves to the Carabineros.

They did so.” Later, the executive read a news item about the discovery of two bodies floating in the Bío Bío River, in which their clothes were described: “Salamanca shuddered: his pupil and Jimmy were wearing the same clothing.” At the morgue, Dr.

Behm confirmed that the corpses “presented identical wounds: bullet perforations, multiple trauma in different parts of the body, signs of torture with cigarette butts. In addition, they showed traces of torment with electric shocks.”

But the cruelty knew no limits. On October 6, the remains of the young men arrived in Ecuador. The relatives then learned that they would only be able to recover their ashes. “The executioners of my brother were not only satisfied with detaining him, torturing him, and killing him, but they incinerated him,” he denounced.

The tyranny, in effect, did not allow their bodies to be repatriated, so they had to be incinerated for their restitution.

“They fell under the treacherous bullets of rifles (…) drunk on the blood of innocent victims,” he sentenced.

By Víctor Osorio. The author is a journalist and executive director of the Progresa Foundation.

Source: cronicadigital.cl September 11, 2020

The macabre audio of a former Carabineros officer that revealed unpublished details of human rights violations committed during the dictatorship

Former Carabineros sergeant José Florentino Fuentes Castro recounted without remorse his past as a Sicar agent and the crimes he committed in the town of Netulme in the 80s and in the "Ecuadorian Case" in Concepción in 1973.

A revealing audio was released during the last day regarding human rights violations committed during the dictatorship. The recording corresponds to former Carabineros sergeant José Florentino Fuentes Castro, convicted in the so-called "Caso Degollados."

In the audio, which was revealed by Chilevisión Noticias, Fuentes is heard talking to another retired Carabineros officer, telling him macabre details of his past as an agent of the Carabineros Intelligence Service (Sicar), and revealing unpublished information about crimes he committed in the town of Netulme in the 80s and in the Ecuadorian Case in Concepción in 1973.

Regarding the first of these, Fuentes relates that at that time “we grabbed those bastards. We killed every bastard we caught. When the bastards were killed, the remorse starts. So we would have a drink, but I very little, to get drunk, to evade, to get high, whatever, any bullshit.”

Next, regarding these massacres carried out, he reflects with coldness that “it doesn’t give me remorse, I think what I did was fair,” adding that “being wounded, the bastards don’t have to talk. So, it’s ugly when one tells you… damn, a wounded bastard and finishing him off. That shit is like cowardice, but the shit had to be done.”

Likewise, the former Carabineros officer gave details of the operation that ended the lives of Felipe Campos Carrillo (19) and Jimmy Torres Villalba (23), two students from the Universidad de Concepción of Ecuadorian origin who were murdered on September 17, 1973.

“Where the flagpoles were, we had those bastards hanging there all night. And the bastards didn’t want to talk. And there was the bald guy who was a major. That bastard ordered those bastards to be killed. And do you know where we took them, we took them? To the river mouth (of the Bío Bío River),” Fuentes relates about this case.

The former officer also mentions other Sicar personnel, such as Manuel Alfaro Contreras, who would be involved in this crime for which only the former colonel, Sergio Arévalos Cid, is convicted, according to the cited media.

Finally, José Florentino Fuentes says that the two students, already dead, were found by “some fishermen the next day and they were tied up like that, instead of handcuffed, they were tied with some Carabineros shirt sleeves and the bastards, in their wallets, had a money receipt.”

“We never wanted to talk. Never,” he concludes.

Source: theclinic.cl, September 1, 2020

36 years after the "Caso Degollados": the three crimes that shook Chile, a murder that led to the resignation of the Director of Carabineros

Professionals Santiago Esteban Nattino Allende, a painter and member of the Association of Educators of Chile (AGECH), Manuel Leonidas Guerrero Ceballos, a teacher and leader of the AGECH, and José Manuel Parada Maluenda, a sociologist and official of the Vicariate of Solidarity of the Catholic Church, were kidnapped at the end of March 1985 by agents of the Carabineros Communications Directorate (DICOMCAR).

And on March 30, the three were murdered by a group of Carabineros, one of the cruelest and most chilling crimes committed by agents of the dictatorship.

Nattino was approached on March 28, at the corner of Apoquindo and Badajoz streets, in Las Condes, while Guerrero and Parada were kidnapped on the 29th from the doors of the Latin American School, at the intersection of Los Leones Avenue and El Vergel in Providencia, while they were dropping off their children. The criminal kidnapping operation even had the support of a Carabineros helicopter.

They slit their throats in Quilicura: The chilling crime

After their kidnapping, the three professionals were taken to a secret barracks on Dieciocho Street, next to where the newspaper El Clarín was located, in the center of Santiago, the same one that the Joint Command used in the mid-70s and which was known as "La Firma." The three were handcuffed, blindfolded, and tortured throughout the day on March 29.

It was established that between the night of Friday the 29th and the early hours of Saturday the 30th, the three kidnapped men were loaded into a Chevrolet Opala, two lying in the trunk and one in the back seat.

At the wheel was Corporal Claudio Salazar, as co-pilot Corporal 1st Class Alejandro Sáez, and in the back Sergeant 2nd Class José Fuentes. A second car, a Chevy Chevette, was driven by Colonel Guillermo González Betancourt, pictured below, known as "Bototo" among the Carabineros officers and who led the group of criminals who used the tools and weapons that we Chileans gave them to murder other Chileans.

As co-pilot was Miguel Estay, "El Fanta," a civilian who had been on the left and who switched to the side of the criminals, while one of the back seats was occupied by Captain Patricio Zamora.

All were members of Carabineros

The cars moved to an area of Quilicura near the airport. They parked on the shoulder, in the vicinity of the El Retiro estate. "El Fanta," Zamora, and González Betancourt stayed in their vehicle.

Guerrero was the first to be taken down. On his knees, handcuffed and blindfolded in a kind of hollow next to the road, Sergeant Fuentes ("El Pegaso") grabbed his head from behind and cut his throat with a corvo (a curved knife).

The vehicle moved about 30 meters to the north. They took down Nattino, also handcuffed and blindfolded. Using the same weapon, Corporal Sáez repeated the execution. The car moved forward a few more meters, where Parada was taken down.

Lying on his back, handcuffed and blindfolded, Corporal Salazar took the corvo and gave him a deep cut in the abdomen. The victim resisted and screamed in pain, which terrified his executioner. A third agent got out of the car and slit his throat.

The blindfolds and handcuffs were removed from the three bodies. Once the crimes were committed, the group of Carabineros went to their barracks on Dieciocho Street. There they drank whiskey, ate, and laughed.

Exemplary judge discovers the criminals

The brutal triple homicide, which came to be known as the "Caso Degollados," evoked widespread indignation throughout the country and forced the Supreme Court to appoint an elderly judge, on the verge of retirement, José Cánovas Robles, as a visiting minister to investigate the crime.

This judge began to unveil the criminal actions of the security agents, which remained as an example for other judges, many of whom had acted with absolute benevolence, so they could imprison other criminals.

Only four months later, the investigation carried out by Judge Cánovas led to the arrest of two colonels, one commander, two captains, and two Carabineros officers. On August 2, 1985, the case caused the resignation of General César Mendoza, General Director of Carabineros and Member of the Government Junta since the military coup of September 11, 1973, as well as the dissolution of DICOMCAR.

The dictatorship, especially its then-spokesman and minister Francisco Javier Cuadra (in democracy he became a member of the RN), denied that the crime was committed by Government agents, but the struggles between Carabineros and Army military personnel of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Pinochet’s political police, determined the discovery of the murderers who belonged to the uniformed police.

The CNI gave the names of the murderers to the justice system and the media, in revenge against those Carabineros who had blamed them for other crimes. A revenge between a group of delinquents and criminals.

Finally, six members of the uniformed police were prosecuted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders. Three of them still remain in the Punta Peuco prison.

One of the criminals, Claudio Salazar Fuentes, alias "El Pegaso," was released and lives in the La Florida commune.

The crimes, sentences, and benefits of those involved in the "Caso Degollados"

Guillermo Washington González Betancourt, Carabineros colonel (ret.), was sentenced to life imprisonment as the author of the kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante, Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas; and of the kidnapping and homicide of José Manuel Parada Maluenda, Santiago Nattino Allende, and Manuel Guerrero Ceballos; and to 5 years and one day as the author of illicit association and to 5 years and one day for the robbery with intimidation of Alejandro Traverso’s car.

In May 2012, González Betancourt completed 20 years of his sentence in Punta Peuco and, in September of the same year, obtained the benefit of Sunday release. Later, in January 2013, he managed to leave the prison for the entire weekend and on June 24 of the same year, he obtained the benefit of “free controlled release,” thanks to which he could leave Punta Peuco every day for up to 15 hours a day.

Miguel Arturo Estay Reyno ("El Fanta"), former PC militant, later turned informant and torturer, was sentenced to life imprisonment as the author of the crimes of kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante, Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas; and of the kidnapping and homicide of Santiago Nattino Allende, José Manuel Parada, and Manuel Guerrero Ceballos.

He was also sentenced in the same case to 5 years and one day as the author of illicit association and to two sentences of 541 days as the author of the repeated crimes of usurpation of name and malicious use of a false passport. He is currently incarcerated in Punta Peuco.

José Florentino Fuentes Castro, Carabineros sergeant first class (ret.), was sentenced to life imprisonment as the author of the kidnappings of Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas; and of the kidnapping and homicide of José Manuel Parada Maluenda, Santiago Nattino Allende, and Manuel Guerrero Ceballos.

He was also sentenced to 541 days as the author of illicit association. In May 2012, Fuentes Castro completed 20 years of his sentence in Punta Peuco and, in September of the same year, obtained the benefit of Sunday release.

Later, in January 2013, he managed to leave the prison for the entire weekend and on June 24 of the same year, he obtained the benefit of “free controlled release,” thanks to which he could leave Punta Peuco every day for up to 15 hours a day.

Alejandro Segundo Sáez Mardones, Carabineros corporal first class (ret.), was sentenced to life imprisonment as the author of the kidnappings of Ramón Arriagada Escalante, Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas, and of the kidnapping and murder of José Manuel Parada Maluenda, Santiago Nattino Allende, and Manuel Guerrero Ceballos.

He was also sentenced to 541 days as the author of illicit association, and to 3 years and one day as the author of the homicide of Carlos Contreras Maluje in 1976. He completed his sentence in Punta Peuco and was granted the benefit of parole.

Claudio Alberto Salazar Fuentes, Carabineros corporal (ret.), sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante, Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas, and for the kidnapping and murder of José Manuel Parada Maluenda, Santiago Nattino Allende, and Manuel Guerrero Ceballos.

Sentenced in the same case to 541 days as the author of the crime of illicit association. He is serving his sentence in Punta Peuco.

Patricio Augusto Zamora Rodríguez, Carabineros captain (ret.), was sentenced to 15 years and one day for the kidnapping of Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, Mario Toloza Jara, Eduardo Osorio Venegas, Manuel Guerrero Ceballos, Santiago Nattino Allende, and José Manuel Parada Maluenda, and as an accomplice to the murder of the latter three.

He also has three other sentences of 5 years and one day for unnecessary violence resulting in death of Percy Arana; 541 days for illicit association and 541 days for injuries. In 2012, his sentence was reduced by 13 months and he is free.

Luis Alfredo Canto Arriagada, Carabineros sergeant second class (ret.), was sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accomplice to the kidnapping of five members of the AGECh and for the homicides of Parada, Guerrero, and Nattino. He is free.

Juan Luis Huaiquimilla Coñoepan, Carabineros sub-officer (ret.), was sentenced to 5 years and one day as the author of the crimes of kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante, Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas; as the author of the crime of terrorist illicit association, for the crime of damage to the property of Alejandro Traverso, and as an accomplice to the kidnapping of Santiago Nattino Allende.

He completed his sentence and is free today.

Julio Enzo Hurtado Lazcano, Carabineros corporal (ret.), was sentenced to 41 days in prison as an accomplice to the kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante. He completed his sentence, he is free today. He worked intermittently between 2011 and 2013 as an administrative assistant at the General Cemetery.

Luis Ernesto Jofré Herrera, Carabineros corporal (ret.), was sentenced to 5 years and one day as the author of the kidnapping of Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, Eduardo Osorio Venegas, Santiago Nattino Allende, José Manuel Parada, and Manuel Guerrero Ceballos, and as the author of illicit association.

In addition, he was sentenced to 541 days in prison as the author of the crime of injuries committed against Leopoldo Muñoz de la Parra. He has already completed his sentence and is free today.

Julio Luis Omar Michea Muñoz, Carabineros colonel (ret.), was sentenced to 5 years and one day as the author of the kidnapping of Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas, and terrorist illicit association. He completed his sentence and is free today.

Manuel Agustín Muñoz Gamboa, Carabineros major (ret.), was sentenced to 5 years and one day as the author of the crime of terrorist illicit association. In 2014, he was sentenced to 5 years and one day for the qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Salinas Vásquez, José Sagredo Pacheco, and Juan Gianelli Company, in addition to illicit association. He is serving his sentence in Punta Peuco.

Santiago Segundo San Martín Riquelme, in May 1992, was the first to confess before Milton Juica. The retired corporal was later sentenced to 61 days in prison as the author of the kidnapping of Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas. He is free today.

Sergio Enrique Saravia Henríquez, Carabineros colonel (ret.), was sentenced to two sentences of 41 days in prison each as an accomplice in the kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante, Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, Mario Toloza Jara, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas.

In 2002, it became known that after completing his sentence, he remained active and at that time was serving as sub-prefect of the eastern area of Santiago. He retired after his status in active service was made public.

Óscar Ramón Valdebenito Valdebenito, sergeant second class (ret.), was sentenced to 41 days in prison as an accomplice to the kidnapping of Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, Mario Toloza Jara, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas. He completed his sentence and is free today.

Ramón Eduardo Valenzuela Cuevas, sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accomplice to the robbery with intimidation and kidnapping of Alejandro Traverso Carvajal. He completed his sentence and is free.

Source: cambio21.cl, March 30, 2021