The division that operated under the euphemistic name of the Directorate of Communications of Carabineros (DICOMCAR), first of all, was never a “communications directorate.” And, secondly, its headquarters, known as “La Firma,” was not a simple office, but an illegal detention center where a large number of people were tortured for their political thinking.

The DICOMCAR was, in reality, an “illicit terrorist association.” That categorical… Where do all these assertions come from? From the current ruling of the Chilean justice system on the Degollados Case, issued on March 31, 1994. Who signed it? The then-visiting minister, and current president of the Supreme Court of Chile, Milton Juica:

“THE JUDICIAL BACKGROUND THAT HAS BEEN SUMMARIZED PREVIOUSLY HAS ALSO SERVED TO CLASSIFY THE CRIME OF ILLICIT TERRORIST ASSOCIATION, SINCE FOR THE CONSUMMATION OF THE ILLICIT ACTS ALREADY DESCRIBED, THE EXISTENCE OF A GROUP OF PEOPLE HAS BEEN DETERMINED, WHO, DEPENDING ON A POLICE ORGANIZATION, EXCEEDED THEIR LEGAL FUNCTIONS, PROCEEDING UNDER THE SUBTERFUGE OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES TO DEPRIVE DIFFERENT PEOPLE OF A CERTAIN POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF THEIR LIBERTY, KEEP THEM IN CAPTIVITY, INTERROGATE THEM WITH ILLEGITIMATE COERCION REGARDING THEIR POLITICAL ACTIVITIES IN PLACES THAT WERE NOT PUBLIC DETENTION CENTERS, KILLED THREE OF THEM IN A MANNER THAT CAUSED PUBLIC COMMOTION, AND LATER, TO ELIMINATE THE EVIDENCE OF THE PUNISHABLE ACTS, DESTROYED BY MEANS OF EXPLOSIVES A VEHICLE THAT BELONGED TO ONE OF THE VICTIMS AND ALSO DESTROYED THE PROPERTY WHERE THE KIDNAPPED PERSONS WERE TAKEN.”

So reads the text, rescued in recent days by journalist Matías Fouillioux, of the Center for Journalistic Investigation and Information, CIPER.

A few weeks ago, no one in the government seemed to have this ruling in mind. Carabineros General (ret.) Iván Andrusco was assuming the position of national director of the Gendarmerie. Coincidentally, it was March 29, the day that marked exactly 25 years since the kidnapping and murder of Santiago Nattino, Manuel Guerrero, and José Manuel Parada—the “degollados” (throat-slitted)—killed at the hands of that “illicit terrorist association” called DICOMCAR.

But where was Andrusco working exactly 25 years ago? It was not an obvious question. In fact, formulated like that, out of nowhere, who could care? However, the answer, once disseminated by Deputy Hugo Gutiérrez, could not leave anyone indifferent…

AN EXEMPLARY CAREER?

It turned out that the person in charge of directing all the country’s legal detention centers worked for a long time in a center for illegal detention and torture. To him, from then on, judges were to entrust the people declared prisoners.

Andrusco, the person ultimately responsible for guarding the Supreme Court building itself, according to the ruling signed by the president of the highest court himself, had been a member of an “illicit terrorist association.”

The background of the Degollados Case, according to Milton Juica’s ruling, ended up not involving him directly in the murders of Nattino, Guerrero, and Parada, but everything else indicated, definitively, that after his appointment, something was not in its place.

The convictions for “illicit terrorist association,” at the time, fell piously only on the five top officers of the DICOMCAR, including General César Mendoza, under whose command-in-chief this criminal group depended, according to the irregular organizational chart.

Andrusco, like the rest of the subordinate officers, escaped the charge. But something could not be ignored: Andrusco had been part of “La Firma.”

So (despite El Mercurio asserting that he is an officer with an “exemplary career”), the stain on the record could prove difficult to forget. And it can be presumed that, if there is one person who would always have the stain in mind, it must be the president of the Supreme Court; that judge who had to investigate that organization, which went from being a police force to a terrorist one, and which, instead of protecting citizens, had illegally detained, tortured, and murdered them.

And one last detail. Regarding this “exemplary career,” El Mercurio itself reported on April 9, 2005, on versions that spoke of “an eventual discharge from the service of General Andrusco,” involved in an embarrassing incident as the Carabineros general in charge of the Bío Bío Region.

On that occasion, a group of twelve members of the institution signed a letter denouncing inhumane working conditions established under Andrusco’s command. The same note speaks of the “impact caused by the letter of complaint” on the high command, which is not characterized by accepting these types of missives from subordinates who criticize the actions of generals.

THE “THREATS”

Iván Andrusco ended up resigning from his position as national director of the Gendarmerie on Friday, April 16. On that occasion, he declared that he was doing so because death “threats,” in the plural, had been detected against him.

Finally, it turned out that it was a single threat: a comment posted by a troll on theclinic.cl using the name “Ciclista Maulino.” A troll, as all internet users know, is a person who enters, as a hobby, provocative comments on various websites as a way to kill time.

The troll in question, like many of his peers, apparently writes, under various identities, messages of different tenor, in which he assumes different personalities and moods. With this, the troll seeks to annoy or achieve some reaction from his cybernetic interlocutors.

In dealing with trolls, there is only one maxim: “don’t feed the troll” (do not pay attention to him), a rule that in this case was not followed.

It was announced, at the time, with great fanfare, that a judicial investigation would be initiated to find the person who authored this momentous threat, which had managed to intimidate a veteran general, in command of thousands of armed men, to the point of making him resign from his position. But, to this day, no one has called this office.

Source: The Clinic, April 20, 2010

Under the cover of darkness, 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 before Sebastián Piñera closed 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 gave 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 Tribunals along with relatives, lawyers, and politicians after the Supreme Court confirmed the granting of the intra-prison benefit of Sunday release to two people convicted of 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 Directorate of Communications of Carabineros (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-throat bodies of Parada, Nattino, and Guerrero shook the country. As did the call from 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 is going to 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 seven months now, González and Fuentes no longer spend their days in Punta Peuco. The Sunday release obtained by both in September 2012 had been extended in January 2013 to the 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 important intra-prison benefit: daily release.

Thus, since June 24 of last year, the murderers of the communist militants were benefited with “controlled release to the free environment,” which—as the Regulation of Penitentiary Establishments points out—gives them the freedom to leave the penitentiary facility for up to 15 hours a day, with the purpose of “attending labor, training, labor justice, or educational establishments, to 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.

Consulted about the measure, the Gendarmerie points out 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, in compliance with what is established in the Regulation of Penitentiary Establishments, one year before completing the time to apply for Parole, inmates can apply for intra-prison benefits,” point out sources from the institution led by Colonel Marco Fuentes.

Thus, González could apply for benefits starting in February 2011 and Fuentes starting in May of that same year.

Until the publication of this note, 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 it is a crime against humanity and that a regulation designed for common prisoners is applied to them… 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 granted irregularly because their record is not clean and one of the requirements needed is that one must not have any type of violation of the 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 give them daily release as “unpresentable and repudiable. 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. In addition, 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 words of the lawyer, “it seems regrettable 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 this type of prison benefit 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 presented a complaint against Fuentes Castro to the Public Ministry for threatening another inmate with death,” assures Leal.

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 Court, the Gendarmerie 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 that the ruling was going to be accepted. But although in the ruling they left on record that, according to the background provided, it could be taken as 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.

That is to say, 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 thing was that the Supreme Court was validating benefits on the basis of a lie: the Gendarmerie and the Ministry of Justice said that they met requirements when they did not meet them. So I made a presentation to the Comptroller’s Office, asking it to initiate an administrative summary against the Gendarmerie and the Ministry.”

But the oversight body refrained from pronouncing on the matter.

After this, they made a complaint to the Public Ministry, which gave the Human Rights Brigade of the PDI an order to investigate.

10 days ago, Leal filed a criminal complaint for ideological falsification—which applies when a public official fails to tell the truth in substantial facts—representing a daughter of Guerrero who lives in Sweden, América Guerrero. It was declared admissible.

According to the lawyer, “we are asking that the former national director of the Gendarmerie, Luis Masferrer, the director’s chief of staff, Colonel Cristian Alveal, and also the official of the Ministry of Justice who informed the Court be summoned.”

Source: El Mostrador, February 3, 2014

Human Rights: 14 CONVICTED INDIVIDUALS RECEIVED BENEFITS FROM THE GENDARMERIE

The majority are on supervised release and others obtained Sunday release, 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 Gendarmerie granted the benefit of Sunday release to Carabineros Colonel (ret.) Guillermo González Betancourt and Sergeant (ret.) José Fuentes Castro, who are confined in Punta Peuco, serving simple life imprisonment 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 was known as the “Degollados Case.” The first-instance conviction 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 relatives of the victims, who, to try to reverse the measure, filed a protection appeal before the Court of Appeals of Santiago, indicating that it caused them profound moral damage and psychological disturbances.

The appeal was accepted for processing and the court requested that the Gendarmerie 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 different prison benefits (all sentences are final, that is, ratified by the Supreme Court):

• Hugo Enrique Alarcón Vergara, former civil 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 sub-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 was benefited with 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 sub-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 convictions 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 perpetrator 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 release.
• 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 leaders of the Agech. He just received the benefit of Sunday release.
• Guillermo Washington González Betancourt, Carabineros colonel (ret.), sentenced to simple life imprisonment in the same case as the previous one. Together with Fuentes, he just obtained Sunday release.
• Otto Silvio Trujillo Miranda, alias “Colmillo Blanco,” former civil employee of the Chilean Air Force and member of the Joint Command, sentenced in 2010 to 3 years and 1 day as an accomplice to the qualified kidnapping of Humberto Fuentes Rodríguez, detained by the Joint Command in November 1975. Trujillo, in addition, is prosecuted or accused in 5 other cases, as a perpetrator or accomplice to the disappearances of 11 militants of the Communist Party, detained by the Joint Command in the years 1975 and 1976. He was granted Sunday release.
• César Luis Palma Ramírez, alias “Fifo,” also a former civil employee of the Chilean Air Force and member of the Joint Command, 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 perpetrator of the homicide of Carlos Contreras Maluje, detained in November 1976. In addition, he is prosecuted or accused in 6 other cases, as the perpetrator of the disappearances of 13 militants of the Communist Party, detained by the Joint Command in the years 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 subject, stated that he fully supported the decisions of the Technical Council of the Gendarmerie, since although the beneficiaries may 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 internal law norms designed for common crimes to crimes that, due to their nature as crimes against humanity, are of the greatest gravity, according to norms actively recognized and ratified by the State of Chile itself.”

Source: La Nación, October 14, 2012

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 requirements for benefits for humanitarian reasons.

Nine former military personnel sentenced to life imprisonment are serving sentences in 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 able to opt for an eventual pardon for humanitarian reasons either.

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 the year 2000, the former operational chief of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) of 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 severing one hand so deeply that he would not have been able to handle a sharp weapon to cut the other.

For the crime of Alegría Mundaca, 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. The murderers thought that, in his condition as an alcoholic and for having a criminal record, the carpenter would be the perfect scapegoat for the union leader’s crime.

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 perpetrator 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 made final the life imprisonment sentence against Army General (ret.) Hugo Iván Salas Wenzel, former director of the CNI, as co-perpetrator of five simple homicides and as co-perpetrator 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 supposed confrontations.

In this same case, Álvaro Corbalán was sentenced by the Supreme Court to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrator of four simple homicides and as co-perpetrator 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 Directorate of Communications of Carabineros, 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 perpetrator of the kidnappings followed by homicides of Parada, Guerrero, and Nattino, and also as the perpetrator 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 the Agech. Sociologist José Manuel Parada was the son of actors Roberto Parada and an official of the Vicaría de la Solidaridad.

The other former Carabineros sentenced to life imprisonment for this crime are 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

Court denied freedom to colonel who led the murder of the three professionals slit-throated in 1985

The Supreme Court took only hours to reject the request for parole filed by retired Carabineros Colonel Guillermo González Betancourt, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of José Manuel Parada, Manuel Guerrero, and Santiago Nattino, who were slit-throated in March 1985.

The ruling refers to the Gendarmería’s psychological report on González: “he has not acquired an adequate awareness of the crime committed, of the damage and the harm caused…”. In his argument, lawyer Luciano Fouillioux stated that those convicted of crimes against humanity cannot be granted benefits that correspond to common crimes, and citing Fito Páez in Vengo a ofrecer mi corazón (I Come to Offer My Heart), he explained why the former officials of the Vicaría de la Solidaridad were present.

The corvo (curved knife) used to slit their throats weighed 410 grams and measured 19 centimeters long by 3.6 centimeters wide. It belonged to Miguel Estay Reyno, known as “El Fanta.”

It had been gifted to him the previous year by one of the most feared torturers of the dictatorship, Roberto Fuentes Morrison, known as “El Wally.” On that March 30, 1985, in Quilicura, the first to use the weapon was Second Sergeant José Fuentes, who grabbed Manuel Guerrero by the head from behind and plunged the knife into his neck.

The corvo then passed into the hands of Corporal Alejandro Sáez Mardones, who repeated the procedure with Santiago Nattino. Then, Corporal Claudio Salazar grabbed the weapon and made a deep cut in the abdomen of José Manuel Parada, who fell to the floor in pain seconds before another agent took the weapon again and slit his throat as well.

The person who commanded the throat-slitting of the three communist professionals—one of the bloodiest and most shocking operations of the dictatorship—was the then-Colonel Guillermo González Betancourt, operational chief of the Department of Internal and External Affairs of Dicomcar, the Directorate of Communications of Carabineros.

This Monday the 21st, the five ministers of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court—composed of Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and the acting lawyers Jean Pierre Matus and Jaime Rodríguez—unanimously rejected the amparo appeal with which González Betancourt sought to obtain parole and reverse the contrary decision of the Parole Commission of the Santiago Court of Appeals.

González Betancourt is serving a life sentence as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and homicide of Parada, Guerrero, and Nattino, as well as the kidnapping of Ramón Arriagada Escalante and the leaders of the Asociación Gremial de Educadores de Chile (Agech) Mónica Araya Flores, María Eliana Olivares Sepúlveda, Mario Toloza Jara, Alejandro Traverso Carvajal, and Eduardo Osorio Venegas.

Added to his sentence is another term of 5 years and one day as the perpetrator of illicit association, and another of 5 years and one day for the robbery with intimidation of the car belonging to Traverso, one of the surviving kidnap victims.

Furthermore, he was given the accessory penalties of absolute and perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights for his lifetime, and subjection to the surveillance of the authority for the maximum period established by the Penal Code.

In May 2012, González Betancourt completed 20 years of his sentence at the Punta Peuco prison, and in September he began to receive a series of controversial prison benefits. That month, the Gendarmería’s Technical Council granted him Sunday leave.

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.

Now, González Betancourt was seeking parole, but the ministers of the high court who denied him the benefit based their decision on the latest psychological report provided by the Gendarmería, which notes that the retired Carabineros officer “has not acquired an adequate awareness of the crime committed, of the damage and the harm caused by it, and has not demonstrated a real disposition for change.”

The ruling considers that, according to Chilean law, parole must be “a means of proof” of the convict’s rehabilitation, which in this case would not be met.

The resolution of the Second Chamber includes a caveat from Minister Lamberto Cisternas, who estimated that González Betancourt did not meet the requirements to qualify for parole because his accumulation of sentences would require him to serve 25 years in prison, not 20.

Furthermore, Cisternas pointed out that the convict’s defense did not refute the accusation that his prison conduct cannot be considered irreproachable, as would be recorded in his Gendarmería file.

“VENGO A OFRECER MI CORAZÓN”

Lawyer Luciano Fouillioux was the one who took on the argument representing one of the victims of the commando unit led by González Betancourt. Upon beginning his remarks, he described him as a “criminal who also has human rights,” which will never be denied to them in a Rule of Law, but from a different legal standing than the one proposed by his defense.

He substantiated his statements by saying that by rejecting his parole, there is no violation of the guarantee of personal liberty and individual security of the kind that allows for the invocation of an amparo appeal (Article 21 of the Constitution); and that his appeal was poorly founded insofar as it invokes constitutional rights as being violated that cannot be remedied through an amparo appeal.

The state of confusion of his defense is such, he stated, that it led “the appellant to confuse a protection appeal with an amparo appeal.”

Next, Fouillioux recalled the enormous shock caused in March 1985 by the murder of the three professionals, which even caused the fall of the then-chief of Carabineros and member of the Military Junta, General César Mendoza Durán. He also made mention of the obstacles that the judges in charge of the investigation into the triple homicide had to face, from Cánovas Robles to Milton Juica.

In front of the victims’ relatives and numerous former colleagues of José Manuel Parada at the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, lawyer Fouillioux drew a profile of the sociologist, recounting his characteristics as a father, husband, and a sensitive and committed young man who, when he saw in 1974—citing Fito Páez’s song “Vengo a ofrecer mi corazón”—“how much blood the river carried, he ran and enrolled in the Comité Pro-Paz and then continued his work at the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, the place where he worked until he was detained and had his throat slit, while for more than a decade he protected, sheltered, and accompanied the persecuted.”

Regarding the underlying criminal issue, Fouillioux posed to the ministers of the Second Chamber that what was under discussion was of “singular relevance, since the matter is whether or not a person sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, who shows no repentance, as stated in the Gendarmería’s own reports, and who even so asks for a benefit to be applied to him as a perpetrator of a common crime, has the right to prison benefits.”

Fouillioux also stated that the amparo appeal was poorly formulated both in form and substance: it was inadmissible due to the subject matter it concerned, as well as the undoubted improper search for a forcing or invention of a procedure to reach the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, which hears criminal matters.

If the appeal is accepted—he stated—it seeks to generate a path for future releases for those convicted of crimes against humanity, bringing all jurisdictional progress in these matters to almost zero.

-And that is something no one can tolerate, neither the victims nor the Armed Forces themselves, and even less so the Judiciary, which has been adjusting its actions since the deficiencies of the past.

Therefore, the Supreme Court cannot be asked to erase with its elbow everything it has written with its hand, since no one would understand that having repeatedly convicted for crimes against humanity, understanding the imprescriptibility of criminal and now civil liability—as with the recent ruling on the political prisoners of Isla Dawson—one could also grant prison benefits for crimes that are claimed as “common” by the appellant—added the lawyer.

Upon finishing, Luciano Fouillioux demanded consistency in the Supreme Court’s rulings and said before the Court’s ministers that regarding this type of crime, everything had already been said and known:

“That is how they planned the crime, that is how they kidnapped them, that is how they murdered them, that is how after due process they convicted them, that is how after 23 years of the conviction and 30 years since the events, he shows no repentance...

We are facing an unalterable situation, which joins two ends of the same bond, the man who offers his heart, just as Fito Páez sang, and which generated the enlistment of those of us who have wanted to protect the integrity of the victims and their families.

This forced a group of former colleagues of José Manuel Parada at the Vicaría de la Solidaridad (and he read a long list headed by María Luisa Sepúlveda and Roberto Garretón) to become a party to this appeal to defend the position of the companion whose throat was slit by these assassins of evil.

With things closed in this way and the time elapsed and acted upon, they make us say: honorable ministers, you may have seen us cry many times but never on our knees, that is why we are here to invoke our position.”

THE CRIMES

Other convicts in the Caso Degollados (Slit-Throat Case) have had better luck than González Betancourt. On August 12 of this year, the Supreme Court ratified the ruling of the Court of Appeals that a month earlier approved the parole of Alejandro Sáez Mardones.

That time, the judicial efforts of the victims’ families and the government’s decision to become a party to the appeal through the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior were of no use. Sáez Mardones is now walking free on the streets (see box).

Guillermo Washington González Betancourt, also known as “Bototo,” was born in Curicó in 1943. At 20 years old, he entered the Carabineros School as an officer candidate. His rise was rapid: the following year he was already a sub-lieutenant at the Seventh Precinct of the Santiago North Prefecture, and in 1966 he was promoted to lieutenant in Graneros.

In 1968 he returned to Santiago, to the Sixth Precinct, and in 1970 he joined the Mobile Group at the First Special Services Precinct. After the Military Coup, he moved to the Department of Order and Security of the General Directorate of Carabineros and was promoted to captain.

Between 1974 and 1979, he was part of the Special Forces in several precincts in Santiago, until in March 1980 he was promoted to major. In August of that year, in an obscure episode, he suffered an accident with explosives that caused the traumatic amputation of his right hand.

The episode did not inhibit him from continuing to carry out operations with explosives to hide his crimes. In 1985, after the kidnapping of the Agech teacher Alejandro Traverso, they hid his Fiat 600 in the courtyard of the Dicomcar barracks on Calle Dieciocho, in the very same place where the newspaper Clarín operated until September 1973.

In his statement before Juica, Sub-officer Luis Huaiquimilla said that some time after the murders and kidnappings, González Betancourt ordered Traverso’s car to be destroyed. González himself drove his red Chevette with a load of explosives on the passenger seat on the way to Quinta Normal.

He was followed by the Fiat 600, driven by another agent. When they reached a lonely area, they loaded the explosives into Traverso’s car and blew it up.

González uses a prosthesis and was sent on several occasions on official duty to Germany to receive medical treatment at the Military Hospital in Hamburg. He was there replacing his prosthesis a few days before ordering the murder of the three communist professionals, which allowed him to personally drive the Chevy Chevette—along with “El Fanta” and another Dicomcar agent—to the site in Quilicura where their throats were slit.

The events that triggered the murder of Guerrero, Parada, and Nattino began to take shape in 1984. In August of that year, anguished by guilt, the former member of the Comando Conjunto (Joint Command) Andrés Valenzuela, alias “Papudo,” deserted.

The Comando Conjunto was one of the most sinister and secret organizations of the dictatorship, in which the intelligence services of the Air Force, Navy, and Carabineros participated (initially the Army also participated).

The group competed in the hunting of political dissidents with the DINA, led by Manuel Contreras, going so far as to fight over prisoners even in the streets. Some civilians from the former Patria y Libertad (such as the group that murdered Salvador Allende’s naval aide, Arturo Araya Peters, in July 1973) and later former prisoners who, after being brutally tortured, became agents, also joined the Comando Conjunto.

Among the latter is Miguel Estay Reyno, “El Fanta,” a former communist militant who became a collaborator and years later a murderer of his own former comrades. Guillermo González Betancourt also participated in the activities of the Comando Conjunto, acting under the orders of Captain Germán Esquivel, head of Counterintelligence of Carabineros.

The existence of the Comando Conjunto was kept in absolute secrecy until August 1984, when Andrés Valenzuela approached the offices of the magazine Cauce to tell the crimes he had witnessed to journalist Mónica González, now director of CIPER. He later testified before officials of the Vicaría de la Solidaridad and was taken out of the country.

As narrated in “Los Casos de la Vicaría,” the accounts of the dictatorship’s crimes compiled by Andrea Insunza and Javier Ortega that inspired the series “Los Archivos del Cardenal,” two months after Valenzuela’s desertion, dictatorship intelligence agents raided the headquarters of the Movimiento Democrático Popular (MDP).

Among other documents, they took a notebook with notes and phone numbers that belonged to the architect Ramón Arriagada Escalante, a communist militant nicknamed “Vincenzo.” That notebook contained information on meetings of several militants and leaders, including the three murdered professionals.

In February 1985, Arriagada was kidnapped under the orders of González Betancourt, and in the following weeks, several Agech teachers were also kidnapped. Under torture, Arriagada was interrogated about the activities of Manuel Guerrero and José Manuel Parada, who in recent months had been working to confirm the data provided by Valenzuela about the Comando Conjunto.

The whole story is detailed in the book “Los Secretos del Comando Conjunto,” by Mónica González and Héctor Contreras, published in 1991 by Ediciones del Ornitorrinco.

CONVICTED

It did not take long for Judge José Cánovas Robles, appointed as a visiting minister to investigate the murders of Guerrero, Parada, and Nattino, to reach the conclusion that the crime had been ordered from the Department of External and Internal Affairs of Dicomcar, in charge of Guillermo González Betancourt, whom he declared a defendant.

But the judge’s decision was quickly annulled by the Court of Appeals, at that time subject to the orders emanating from the regime’s Ministry of the Interior. Judge Cánovas discovered that González Betancourt had left his place of detention without permission and that he had also housed “El Fanta” in his house on the coast to help him evade justice.

Despite the public commotion caused by the triple murder and the thorough investigation carried out by the then-minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Carlos Cerda (today a Supreme Court minister), who was ordered to close the process regarding the Comando Conjunto and was punished for ordering the detention of some of its members, the trial ended there.

There would be no justice. Until in 1992, a new visiting minister, Milton Juica, declared González Betancourt and 15 other Carabineros defendants as perpetrators of illicit association.

Six months before being prosecuted, González Betancourt experienced a family drama. On October 3, 1991, his daughter Estrella González Jepsen was shot to death by her partner, Carabineros Lieutenant Félix Sazo.

They were parents of a child who at that time was 9 months old. According to police reports of the time, that day the 24-year-old young woman was at her job at the Hotel Crowne Plaza, in downtown Santiago.

Around 10 in the morning, Sazo arrived at the office dressed in his uniform and Estrella went out with him to talk outside, in front of the Monument to the Martyrs of Carabineros, where they argued violently.

Estrella returned to her office very nervous. Minutes later, the officer entered again, approached the counter, shouted his girlfriend’s name, and fired four shots: two in the chest, one in the head, and another in the back. Seconds later, the uniformed officer fired two shots into his own temple.

DISTANCING FROM “EL FANTA”

As narrated in the book “Los Secretos del Comando Conjunto,” Miguel Estay Reyno had joined the Communist Youth in 1969, while a student at the Liceo Gabriela Mistral. He became known among the youth of the “Jota” as a member of the Ramona Parra Brigades and was nicknamed Fanta, after “Fantomas,” a character from the comic magazine La Chiva, which circulated at that time.

When he was detained by members of the Comando Conjunto, they threatened to murder his brother Jaime and his brother’s girlfriend (who later became his wife), and “El Fanta” opened up to collaborate. This is how he explained his decision to Minister Carlos Cerda, the judge who investigated the Comando Conjunto:

-I offered in exchange for the freedom of both to compile a complete curriculum of my activity in the youth and in the PC’s intelligence apparatus, in which I would provide all the background information on the communist militants I have known. I compiled that document in my cell.

“El Fanta” not only turned in his comrades but became an active collaborator in the crimes of the dictatorship. “I made a choice, and the truth is that I have paid dearly for my decision,” Estay said in an interview with CIPER in 2007. And he added:

-Along the way, I started meeting other people, with other ideas, and I began to assume them. The truth is that, like an important part of Chileans, I believed in the stamp that the military government managed to impose, fundamentally in economic terms.

And since I also had a certain degree of specialization in the intelligence area, a relatively natural link was formed with people from the services, due to the interest they might have in that knowledge. I must admit that already in 1984 or 1985, when I got into this section (Dicomcar), I had a significant degree of affinity with the vision of the military government.

“El Fanta” was a trusted man of González Betancourt. They shared an office at the Dicomcar barracks on Calle Dieciocho, the same one they adorned with the corvo with which they would slit the throats of Guerrero, Parada, and Nattino.

But the relationship between them was never the same after Estay accused his boss of being responsible for the kidnappings and murders. González took revenge on Estay Reyno by declaring that the decision to kill had been his, saying that he had claimed more power than he really had within the organization.

Disappointed in the man who had been his trusted agent, González Betancourt said: “If he was capable of betraying his communist comrades, why couldn’t he do it to me now,” as narrated in the book “La Noche de los Corvos,” by Nelson Caucoto and Héctor Salazar.

González Betancourt, imperturbable, did not acknowledge any of his crimes, accusing his subordinates of operating without his knowledge. Before Juica, he declared:

“The fact is that the next day, the most surprised ones were (Patricio) Zamora and I when we learned of the death of these detainees.”

By then, Minister Juica had already proven his role in the triple homicide, and the conviction was inevitable.

Source: ciper.cl, September 21, 2015

Rejection Provoked by Parole Granted to Convict in Caso Degollados

The Supreme Court ratified the benefit for retired Carabineros Colonel Guillermo González Betancourt. The President of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, Alicia Lira, criticized the measure.

The president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, Alicia Lira, described the Supreme Court’s decision to grant parole to retired Carabineros Colonel Guillermo González Betancourt, sentenced to life imprisonment in the context of the Caso Degollados, as violent.

The leader indicated that the determination violates international law regarding human rights, as these are crimes against humanity that cannot receive prison benefits.

“Because we are not talking only about one crime. We must remember that González Betancourt has to do with several crimes. But when we talk about crimes against humanity, we are talking about the process in which these benefits are given that contravene international conventions; we are talking about the fact that they kidnapped three people, tortured them, and then dumped them like trash while alive and slit their throats,” the leader recalled.

Alicia Lira maintained that this policy was encouraged after the statements of the president of the Supreme Court, Hugo Dolmetsch, who showed himself open to precisely granting benefits to those who committed serious crimes against human rights during the regime headed by Augusto Pinochet.

For the leader, the magistrate’s statements were the opening to release these convicts. “This that the president of the Supreme Court did leaves the door open by endorsing that—the criminals—do not need repentance but rather that they have human rights.

We have never denied their human rights; we have only demanded that they fulfill their sentences, even though the sentences have nothing to do with the severity of the crimes committed, and even so, they are given prison benefits,” criticized the president of the AFEP.

Alicia Lira estimated that the Supreme Court’s decision affects the country’s image, since it overrides international law by setting free one of the main individuals involved in the crimes against the three communist professionals, an event that occurred in March 1985.

“Unfortunately, Chile is left looking very bad because we must remember 2006, when the Chilean State was condemned for denial of justice, for maintaining the amnesty decree-law, a law that is shameful in a democratic State; it is unacceptable for the Judiciary, the same Judiciary that for 17 years was an accomplice to the crimes of State terrorism” implemented by the military dictatorship.

The president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions finally called on the courts not to continue on the path of granting benefits to human rights violators, a situation that on one hand violates the bereaved of thousands of murdered people, but also leaves the State in a bad position before the international community.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, November 23, 2016

Right-wing Civilians and the Caso Degollados Crime

Ricardo García served as Minister of the Interior in 1985 and wanted to establish that the murder of José Manuel Parada, Santiago Nattino, and Manuel Guerrero was a common crime. Francisco Javier Cuadra, Minister Secretary General of Government at that time, acknowledged having information that the crime had been committed by Carabineros, but he did not carry out any judicial diligence and dedicated himself to defending the Military Junta, especially the dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Hugo Rosende, the military’s Minister of Justice, stepped aside, validated Pinochet’s versions, and did not initiate any action regarding the dramatic case of human rights violations. Andrés Allamand and Alberto Espina, former ministers of the recently concluded Government of Sebastián Piñera, led the National Union Movement and remained silent in the face of the horrendous crime against opponents of the military regime.

Years later, Piñera wanted to appoint a former member of Dicomcar, the group of the uniformed police that killed the three Chileans, to an important position.

As in many other episodes of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, right-wing civilians committed to the civic-military dictatorship acted as political accomplices and even cover-ups for the criminal acts committed by State agents, bet on protecting the dictator Augusto Pinochet, or simply remained silent.

The case of the throat-slitting of the communist professionals José Manuel Parada, Santiago Nattino, and Manuel Guerrero, which occurred in March 1985, 37 years ago, was no exception. Along with the criminal actions of officers, sub-officers, and Carabineros officials, in the operations during those days by the high command of the dictatorship, there were telling actions by civilian officials.

In March 1985, civilians were placed by the military in charge of key ministries. Ricardo García in the Interior, Francisco Javier Cuadra in the General Secretariat of Government (Segegob), Hugo Rosende in Justice, Alberto Cardemil as Undersecretary of the Interior, José Miguel Armendáriz as director of Dinacos (National Directorate of Communications), and Carlos Krumm Rojas, Undersecretary of Segegob.

Faced with the kidnapping, torture, and throat-slitting of Parada, Nattino, and Guerrero, those officials were part of the political and communicational operations intended to distort the facts, lie, and protect the Military Junta. They even initially protected the General Director of Carabineros, César Mendoza, responsible for the organization that had executed the crimes.

Certainly, the first to establish lying and sinister statements were the members of the dictatorial command, in those years supported by current leaders and parliamentarians of the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), Renovación Nacional (RN), and the Republican Party.

Admiral José Toribio Merino, head of the Navy, maintained that the throat-slitting of the three citizens was “a crime by the Communist Party” in a settling of scores due to internal conflicts. The Minister of Defense and Admiral Patricio Carvajal told the press that year that those responsible for the crime were “communism directed from Moscow.” The most shameless and lying was Mendoza, who upon leaving a meeting of the Military Junta where the Caso Degollados was analyzed, declared: “One has to think about several things.

First, who is interested in a problem like this occurring? Another question: who promotes crime, terrorism, explosives as a means of achieving their purposes? Well, and with that, why discuss more? You know that these were high-level leaders and the failure of the strikes, of the protests, and all that, communism does not forgive this.

It will never forgive it. So they have a double objective: one, to punish those they consider guilty, and another, to dump it on the Government.”

In the first hours and first days, those statements were endorsed and defended by García, Cuadra, Rosende, Cardemil, and Armendáriz. The then-Minister of the Interior, Ricardo García, stated that the events had “characteristics typical of a police case.” Francisco Javier Cuadra, who also acted as the dictatorship’s spokesperson and gave orders to Dinacos, instructed the thesis of a common crime and to clear up any link with the Armed Forces (FFAA), Carabineros, Investigations, and security agencies.

Hugo Rosende removed the Ministry of Justice from any investigative activity and understood that the Military Junta would handle it.

There were particular situations, such as the behavior of the National Union Movement (MUN), which had among its leaders the former ministers of Sebastián Piñera’s government, Andrés Allamand (recently elected Ibero-American Secretary General, endorsed by European governments) and Alberto Espina, who remained silent in the face of the kidnapping, torture, and throat-slitting of the three Chilean professionals, and did not join any activity, not even a request for clarification of the facts.

From that group, along with Pinochetista sectors, the UDI and RN later emerged.

Faced with the crisis unleashed starting on March 25, 1985, by the murder of the three opponents of the military regime, the Military Junta received the public and private support of figures such as Jovino Novoa (senator and former president of the UDI, now deceased), Juan Antonio Coloma (current UDI senator), José Antonio Kast (far-right presidential candidate), and Sergio Onofre Jarpa (former leader of RN and former Minister of the Interior of the dictatorship).

The conflictive points of the case appeared in the judicial processes, although the dictatorship’s civilian officials were able to save them, even by omission. However, according to information published a few years ago by the newspaper La Nación, Francisco Javier Cuadra found himself in a difficult, cumbersome scenario.

Interrogated by a judge, he acknowledged that General Humberto Gordon, head of the repressive Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), told him in the days of the murders that “it had been the work of Carabineros.” That is to say, he had the information regarding the authors of the criminal action.

Then, lawyer Héctor Salazar pointed out that “Cuadra got his fingers caught in the Caso Degollados because he said he had knowledge of those crimes, and he, as a public official, was obligated to report them and did not do so.” The jurist maintained that Cuadra should respond criminally “as an accessory” to those murders.

The Exit Sought by the Military Junta and the Role of Stange

A couple of years later, it was proven that in a meeting of the Military Junta held at La Moneda, it was established that the kidnappings, tortures, and throat-slittings had been executed by officers, sub-officers, and civilian officials of the Directorate of Communications of Carabineros (Dicomcar).

There, it was analyzed that the event had caused national and international “public alarm.” It was instructed to remove any responsibility from the Military Junta and especially Augusto Pinochet, General Mendoza was questioned for lack of thoroughness and command, and Ricardo García was instructed to give instructions to appoint a Visiting Minister from the Judiciary for the inquiries and to lower the levels of the political crisis.

That is to say, García was aware of all the information and participated in the dictatorship’s operation to get rid of the case.

In the midst of everything, the General Director of Carabineros, César Mendoza, was forced to resign and, continuing with an arrogant tone and distancing himself from the horrible crime, told reporters that he was resigning “because I felt like it, that’s all.” He added that “the corn is being shelled” (se está desgranando el choclo), in reference to the departure of generals from the Military Junta.

Then they made him shut up, in a communicational operation directed by Francisco Javier Cuadra.

Later, García was part of the plan to appoint General Rodolfo Stange as head of Carabineros and to generate an entire framework of protection for that institution and the officers and sub-officers of Dicomcar. In strict terms, Stange committed crimes and protected criminals, something that was common among the high commands of the Armed Forces and Carabineros.

For this reason, in 1994 he was accused of “failure to perform military duties and obstruction of justice,” for which he never gave an account and took advantage of conditions in his capacity as head of Carabineros to evade justice.

So much so that former President Eduardo Frei-Ruíz Tagle wanted to remove him from office, but he refused and continued as head of the uniformed police, in one of the most shameful episodes of the Chilean transition.

As if that were not enough, the police chief who hid information and protected murderers in the Caso Degollados was a senator for the Pinochetista Unión Demócrata Independiente.

Deaf Ears of Piñera

Everything indicates that for former President Sebastián Piñera, the murder of the three professionals and the actions of Dicomcar were something secondary, forgettable, and salvageable. Thus, in his first government, he appointed retired Carabineros General Iván Andrusco as director of the Gendarmería.

The then-president defended him, extolling his professional qualities as a policeman and his profile to be at the head of the State institution related to prisons and prisoners in the country.

Of course, Andrusco was an officer and agent of Dicomcar, an organization that Milton Juica, president of the Supreme Court of Justice, described at the time as a group for “terrorist illicit association.” He was a lieutenant in that organization when the kidnapping and murder of Parada, Nattino, and Guerrero occurred.

Furthermore, in press reports, it was established that the officer Piñera promoted was involved in investigations into a death by torture in the Police Investigation Section (SIP), of which Andrusco was the operational chief.

The police investigation could never establish that Iván Andrusco had participation in the kidnapping, torture, and throat-slitting of the communist militants, but it did establish that he was a Carabineros Intelligence Lieutenant and that he was part of Dicomcar in 1985 when the criminal events occurred.

Names of Murderers and Criminals

There were years of investigation and work by judges and lawyers, testimonies, and collection of background information, and the judicial prosecution led to the conclusion that the murders were ordered by Guillermo González Betancourt, head of the Department of External and Internal Affairs of Dicomcar, executed by corporals Alejandro Segundo Sáez Mardones and Claudio Alberto Salazar Fuentes and Sergeant José Florentino Fuentes Castro.

In the vehicle that transported the victims to Quilicura (where the professionals were murdered and abandoned on a plot of land) were also González Betancourt, Captain Patricio Zamora Rodríguez, and Miguel Estay Reyno, known as “El Fanta.”

Also at the time, the two alleged pilots of the police helicopter that had flown over the scene of the kidnapping of Parada and Guerrero in the Providencia commune were charged as defendants, and Colonel Luis Fontaine Manríquez, head of Dicomcar, Colonel Julio Luis Michea Muñoz, head of Internal and External Affairs of the organization, and Lieutenant Colonel Iván González Jorquera, head of GOPE, were prosecuted.

Source: elsiglo.cl, March 28, 2022