ONE HUNDRED TWENTIETH: That Daniel Alberto Galaz Orellana, who was accused of the crimes established in considerations 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, and 31, maintained in his statements on pages 12,891, 15,690, 15,940, and 16,425 that he joined the DINA in November 1973, while serving as a student at the Carabineros de Chile Non-Commissioned Officers School.

After an intelligence course in Rocas de Santo Domingo, his first assignment within the DINA was the Londres N°38 barracks; the head of this facility was Army officer Marcelo Moren Brito, and he was assigned to the "Cóndor" group, which was under the command of a Carabineros officer named Ciro Torré.

Among the colleagues who performed duties in that unit, I remember Luis Soto Villalobos, Manuel Saldivia, Vallejos, Ampuero, Manuel Pérez Millaldeo, Carlos Correa Habed, Juan Araos Araos, and Gustavo Guerrero.

The duties he performed at the Londres N°38 barracks involved investigating, together with his colleague Manuel Saldivia, the investigation orders or "ocones" that were handed over by a Carabineros non-commissioned officer with the surname Torres, who performed the staff duties for the group.

These orders consisted of investigating abandoned residences and finding out the name of the owner of said property and the address of these individuals. At that time, he was not involved in raids or detaining people; he limited himself to performing investigative work.

He remembers that at the Londres N°38 barracks, there were detainees who were brought in by the unit's operational personnel, among whom he remembers Miguel Krassnoff with his team, which included "Guatón" Romo, "Troglo" Zapata, and Tulio Pereira.

The detainees remained in areas on the first floor and were guarded by Army personnel, who were mostly conscript soldiers. The detainees were blindfolded and seated on chairs in dark rooms, and since he had no contact with them, he does not know if they were in good or bad physical condition.

The detainees were interrogated by the same arresting team in a room located on the second floor of the barracks; I only heard from other agents that the detainees were subjected to electric shocks on a metal cot using a telephone magneto and were subjected to torture, but he never saw it himself, it was only rumored.

Closed three-quarter-ton trucks also arrived at the Londres N°38 barracks, some of which had "fishery" logos and others were completely white, which were used for the transport of detainees.

In July or August 1974, he was transferred along with part of the personnel to perform duties at the José Domingo Cañas barracks, which was under the charge of Captain Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and his operational group, which was "Halcón." In this barracks, special teams were formed to take statements from the detainees; these groups were under the command of Investigations sub-commissioner Hermon Alfaro Mundaca.

I remember that in this facility there were detainees who were brought into the unit by Miguel Krassnoff's operational groups, and at that time they were working only on the MIR; the operational groups had been separated to work on different parties or groups opposed to the Military Government.

His function in this facility was to transport the detainees from the cells or rooms to the area designated for interrogation. He received this order from Hermón Alfaro Mundaca, who was the person who interrogated the detainees under illegal duress based on a memo left by the arresting agents.

He can also indicate that the detainees' hands and legs were bandaged so that they would not suffer injuries when they were tied to the metal cot and the application of electricity proceeded. After this procedure, and when the detainee was already "softened" or began to cooperate, they proceeded to take a statement by typewriter, and this function was in charge of Carabineros non-commissioned officer Carlos Correa Habed; I assisted him in this work by questioning the detainees, and Correa proceeded to transcribe the statements of these people on the typewriter.

All the information provided by the detainees was copied in triplicate: one for the arresting personnel, another copy was sent to the General Headquarters through the staff, and the third was filed in the interrogators' team card index.

Subsequently, at the end of 1974, they were transferred to the Villa Grimaldi barracks; this barracks was located on José Arrieta street. Among the officers who performed duties in this facility, he remembers Marcelo Moren Brito as head of the barracks and the Caupolicán Brigade, Miguel Krassnoff, Rolf Wenderock Pozo, Ricardo Lawrence, Gerardo Godoy, Fernando Lauriani, Eugenio Fieldhouse, Daniel Cancino Varas, Luis Videla, and Juan Urbina Lobos.

In the Villa Grimaldi barracks, all the groups that were under the command of the Caupolicán Brigade operated, among which he remembers Halcón, Águila, Tucán, and Vampiro, which were under the command of officers Miguel Krassnoff, Ricardo Lawrence, Gerardo Godoy, and Fernando Lauriani.

In this barracks, he performed the same duties he carried out at the José Domingo Cañas barracks, but in addition, more groups were formed dedicated to the interrogation of detainees.

Source: Judiciary, May 30, 2017

Supreme Court sends 59 former DINA agents to prison for Operation Colombo

Operation Colombo was a major intelligence operation and a media fabrication by the DINA that attempted to make 119 people kidnapped in Chile appear as if they had been killed abroad.

The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court revoked the sentence that had acquitted more than 60 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and convicted them as responsible for the disappearance of 16 left-wing militants, mostly from the MIR, in the process known as Operation Colombo, which in this case was perpetrated between June 17, 1974, and January 6, 1975, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The ruling was issued by ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, María Teresa Letelier, and Diego Simpertigue. They revoked the sentence handed down by the Court of Appeals and sentenced former DINA chiefs and officers César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff, and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann to 15 years and one day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of the victims.

Likewise, the court sentenced 53 former agents to an effective penalty of 10 years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree as authors of the same crime, who had previously been acquitted by the capital's appellate court, despite having been convicted in the first instance as accomplices and authors.

Furthermore, this time all must enter prison, with some of them already in prison for other crimes against humanity.

These are former DINA agents Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Manuel Andrés Carevic, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Jose Abel Aravena Ruiz, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Manuel Heriberto Avendaño Gonzalez, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Alejandro Francisco Astudillo Adonis, Daniel Alberto Galaz Orellana, Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, Leoncio Enrique Velásquez Guala, José Enrique Fuentes Torres, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Pedro René Alfaro Fernández, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Luis René Torres Méndez, Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Hugo Del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Manuel Rivas Diaz, Daniel Valentín Cancino Varas, Juan Evangelista Duarte Gallegos, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Leónidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Pedro Ariel Aravena Aravena, Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza, Juan Carlos Villanueva Alvear, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Rafael De Jesús Riveros Frost, Silvio Antonio Concha González, Luis Fernando Espinace Contreras, Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, Osvaldo Pulgar Gallardo, José Avelino Yévenes Vergara, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Werner Zanghellini, and Hector Flores Vergara.

Jaime Alfonso Fernández Garrido received a sentence of 5 years and one day of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as the author of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Ida Vera Almarza. Meanwhile, Samuel Fuenzalida Devia was sentenced to 541 days and one day for the same crime, but he will not serve time in prison.

This is an extensive process that had its first instance sentence in 2017 at the hands of minister Hernán Crisosto Greisse. In the course of the investigation, some agents have died, such as Basclay Zapata, Ciro Torré, Manzo Duran, and Ricardo Lawrence, among others.

For Nelson Caucoto, the plaintiff lawyer representing 13 of the 16 victims, this is "a transcendent ruling in Chilean judicial history, since the Supreme Court has restored the sense of justice for crimes of this nature, which had been left literally in a situation of unacceptable impunity.

The highest court has once again rejected the statute of limitations and the defense's appeals, and has accepted the plaintiffs' appeals," he noted.

Caucoto adds that "it is a modern ruling based on international law and domestic legislation. There is no doubt that justice operates in this case as a healing process for so many relatives of victims who still survive, and it is a pity that others did not live to see this end."

Operation Colombo was a major intelligence operation and a media fabrication by the DINA, which attempted to make 119 people kidnapped in Chile by the DINA appear as if they had been killed abroad, claiming they had perished after fighting among themselves.

This process investigated the fate of 16 of those 119 victims. They are Francisco Aedo Carrasco, Jorge Elías Andrónicos Antequera, Juan Carlos Andrónicos Antequera, Jaime Buzio Lorca, Mario Calderón Tapia, Cecilia Castro Salvadores, Rodolfo Espejo Gómez, Agustín Fioraso Chau, Gregorio Gaete Farías, Mauricio Jorquera Encina, Isidro Pizarro Meniconi, Marcos Quiñones Lembach, Sergio Reyes Navarrete, Ida Vera Almarza, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Araya, and Jilberto Urbina Pizarro.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, March 3, 2023