Sentenced to 5 years and 110 days of effective imprisonment.

FUENTES CISCUTTI SENTENCED FOR FRAUD AND USURPATION OF FUNCTIONS

Francisco Abelardo Edison Fuentes Ciscutti was sentenced today to five years of effective imprisonment, with the accessory penalties of perpetual absolute disqualification from political rights and absolute disqualification from public offices and positions for the duration of the sentence, as well as the payment of a fine of 11 monthly tax units (UTM) and the payment of court costs, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crimes of repeated fraud.

The Oral Criminal Court of Punta Arenas also sentenced him to 110 days of deprivation of liberty, without the right to benefits, and the payment of a 6 UTM fine and court costs, for feigning the functions of a public official.

During the oral trial, which lasted three days, the Chief Prosecutor of Punta Arenas, Juan Agustín Meléndez, stated that the first crime occurred on August 23, 2006, when Fuentes Ciscutti appeared at the facilities of the company DISTAL S.A. in Punta Arenas, interviewing the company's Zonal Manager and other employees there, claiming to be an official from the Labor Inspectorate.

He told them his name was Marcos Hernández and that he had arrived at the location by virtue of his oversight powers, due to a complaint of workplace harassment filed by a worker at the same company. The second incident occurred in October 2006, when the accused appeared at a woman's home, indicating that he was an official of the Investigations Police of Chile, to demand that she withdraw a complaint for the crime of threats that she had filed with the Local Prosecutor's Office of Punta Arenas against her former partner.

On that occasion, the Prosecutor also managed to prove several deceptions carried out by the accused, including one he committed in mid-2006, when he made contact with two people, posing as an official of the Carabineros and the Army, assuring them that he had contacts and authority to arrange visas and jobs for them abroad.

The victims believed this, and each handed over approximately seven hundred thousand pesos. The representative of the Prosecutor's Office also indicated that in April 2006, the accused contacted a person offering to manage their entry into the Foreign Legion, claiming to have the necessary authority and relevant contacts, for which he repeatedly requested money from the victim, which was paid for a total of 1,500,000.

Between May and July 2007, Fuentes Ciscutti committed another fraud, this time against a woman from whom he requested 25,000 pesos to manage her entry into the Chilean Air Force. It should be noted that the young woman's father also gave him 50,000 pesos.

In June 2006, he requested that the family of a minor, for whom he was performing medical treatment to cure podiatric conditions, pay thirty-three thousand pesos to buy orthopedic insoles in Spain; however, he never delivered the product.

That same month, he approached a woman, calling himself Francisco Rojas, nicknamed "Paco," and indicated that he was a doctor of Spanish nationality, showing her an INTERPOL credential and offering to serve as an intermediary for Doctors Without Borders in order to have an ocular prosthesis implanted, causing the woman a loss of one hundred and fifty thousand pesos.

The last act for which he was sentenced occurred in July 2007, when the accused met a person he had known for years on a public street in Punta Arenas. Upon hearing the affected party's comment about his desire to live and work in Sweden, the fraudster assured him that he had the authority and contacts to obtain his residency there through the embassy and a stable job, for which he obtained 56,000 pesos from the victim, supposedly for paperwork expenses.

Source: Radiopolar.com 03-31-2008

The dark past of Fuentes Ciscutti

A dark history follows the Magallanes native Francisco Abelardo Edison Fuentes Ciscutti . "El Pancho," as he is known by those close to him, was born in Punta Arenas on June 7, 1955. His father was an Army official.

His affiliation record shows that he has been committing crimes since 1982, when he was reported in Puerto Montt for the illegal practice of a profession. Later, in Valdivia, he was accused of the fraudulent use of military seals.

In Santiago, he was arrested in 1986 for the improper use of a military badge and fraud. Subsequent to that, he was involved in the crimes of forgery, illegal practice of a profession, and usurpation of functions, also in the capital.

His name gained public notoriety at the beginning of the first democratic government, in the early nineties, when he provided voluntary testimony in countless cases of human rights violations, not only before Chilean courts but also, including, in Buenos Aires.

His Trajectory According to the statements of Fuentes Ciscutti himself (contained in one of the trials for human rights violations where he testified), during the time of the Unidad Popular, he was a member of the MAPU (Movement of Unitary Popular Action) at the Technical University of the State in Punta Arenas. "After the military pronouncement, I was recruited by the Army in the Cirma Department, dependent on the Fifth Division, where I witnessed the arrests of more than 50 people (…).

I also had to be at the Caupolicán Regiment, in Porvenir, Tierra del Fuego, for the checking and control of political prisoners (…). In '74, I entered the Army School in San Bernardo and in '75 I was assigned to the Army Non-Commissioned Officers School, in the Special Combatant course for Infantry Command and Special Forces, in the riflemen unit.

With 25 days left until my graduation, I retired voluntarily, returning to Punta Arenas. I was arrested by the Intelligence Service; they asked me why I had retired, but since my father was a military man and head of Arms and Explosives Control of the General Headquarters of the Fifth Division of the Army, I was released on the fifth day (…).

I went to Buenos Aires for a few months (…). Upon returning to Chile, I studied my current profession in Santiago, Orthopedic Technician, aesthetic therapist expert with a mention in Thanatology, Legal Medicine. "In 1979, facing the border conflict with Argentina, I was called to active duty as an officer, being sent to the border zone of the Southern Patagonia.

In 1980, the Army offered me, through the CNI, to work at the CNI Clinic at Avenida República 517, which I did not accept, and I dedicated myself to working privately. In 1982, I entered the Tacna Regiment for a reserve course as a paramedic, where the repression courses that operate in the streets, neighborhoods, and universities were being prepared (…).

In 1983, the Military Intelligence Service requested that we form an Anti-Subversive Command whose name would be ' September Eleventh Command ' or ' September Eleventh Command ' (…)". Referring to his participation in this group, Fuentes Ciscutti adds: "Within the programming, we communicated with our liaisons at the San Bernardo Intelligence School .

Since regular military personnel could not appear in the ministry and the command would depend on the Ministry of the Interior, I was chosen as captain of the Command and head of Liaison Operations between the Ministry of the Interior and the Army (…).

The squadron's mission was the control of people, parishes, religious groups, university students, political leaders, and neighborhood residents. During the nights (the command) detained and kidnapped numerous people, transporting them to the Peldehue Paratrooper School Regiment (…). (It also) received the order to interrogate and psychologically torture the psychologist Andrea Hales (…)".

The Return After some time detained in Santiago for his participation in common crimes and living outside the country, Francisco Fuentes returned to Punta Arenas, although his freedom lasted very little, as he returned to committing misdeeds.

In September 1992, he was imprisoned for repeated crimes of fraud. One of the complaints affected Pedro Arentsen Sauer (R.I.P.), who handed over the sum of 2,271,000 pesos of the time to said subject. Fuentes Ciscutti arrived at his home to offer to edit a book about a disease that affects rabbits called myxomatosis, which Arentsen had written.

But that was not all. He would also arrange with municipal authorities to have some street or plaza in the city named after him. None of this materialized. It was just an invention. He Asks for Protection He was detained for two months due to the fraud accusations against him.

After regaining his freedom, Fuentes Ciscutti made news again. In January 1993, the Court of Appeals of Punta Arenas granted him police protection after he reported having been beaten by a supposed masked commando when he was arriving at his home in the Croata neighborhood, in an alleged kidnapping attempt.

According to his version, the military security apparatuses of the time sought to silence him in the face of his determined and permanent desire to denounce the activities carried out by military personnel in human rights cases before the Courts.

In an interview granted to La Prensa Austral at that time, he acknowledged having belonged to a Chilean military Intelligence Service in 1973 and that he testified in the "Degollados" case and in the homicide of the journalist José Carrasco Tapia .

On that occasion, he confided to our newspaper that he was the operational chief and responsible for the "September Eleventh" Command , an intelligence group formed with the far-right during the times of the military government.

However, he later became a collaborator with justice. " No one can accuse me as a torturer, which is certified and endorsed by the Rettig Report where I do not appear named ," he remarked in the interview.

Months later, he returned to prison to serve the sentence of 5 years and one day of effective jail time imposed by the Court for the repeated fraud. In September 1993, while imprisoned in the Punta Arenas jail, he asked to speak with a member of the Reparation and Reconciliation Commission that was established in the area with the aim of investigating reports of human rights violations.

During the interview held with the investigator, Fuentes Ciscutti provided information to clarify the death of the young woman Susana Obando . His testimony has served to support the thesis of homicide for political reasons, although the judge who investigated the case in the first instance attributed the death to suicide, after the young woman's body appeared on the shore of the beach, near Calle Bellavista, on the morning of July 26, 1988.

Fugitive Curiously, when he had not yet completed a year in prison (he had been sentenced to 5 years and one day), the Gendarmerie granted him the benefit of Sunday release. On August 7, 1994, he did not return to prison, so from then on, he acquired the status of a fugitive.

He entered Argentina clandestinely and in September of that year, he appeared testifying in the case of the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires, where he provided information on Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann (arrested Thursday in Viña del Mar) and Enrique Arancibia Clavel , two high-ranking Army officers linked to this case.

At the end of the nineties, he settled with his family in the city of León, Spain, where he also committed numerous crimes. Before being sentenced, the Spanish government ended up expelling him from that nation.

Francisco Fuentes returned clandestinely to Punta Arenas in January 2006, when almost 12 years of absence from the national territory had passed. In February of last year, the Court of Appeals approved the final dismissal regarding this subject, because the sentence of 5 years and one day had expired.

Source: Paginapolicial.blogspot.co.uk, August 4, 2007