The chief physician of the Military Hospital is among those charged as perpetrators of the homicide, as is the former President's driver. The cover-ups are physicians from the UC. A total of 6 people, including the head of the Comptroller's Department of the Military Hospital, Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín, were charged to varying degrees for the assassination of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva on January 22, 1982, at the Clínica Santa María. The investigating judge for the case, Alejandro Madrid, charged and ordered the arrest of Silva Garín, Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez as perpetrators of the homicide.

Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto was charged as an accomplice, while Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González were charged as cover-ups. According to a report issued this morning by the Judiciary's Communications Directorate, the first to officially confirm the case, those charged were detained in different facilities.

Dr. Silva Garín is a retired Army health colonel and currently serves as head of the Comptroller's Department of the Military Hospital. Becerra, meanwhile, was the former President's driver and trusted official, as well as an informant for the DINE to spy on Frei.

Lillo Gutiérrez, who is also accused of the crime against chemist Eugenio Berríos, was an agent of the DINA, the CNI, and the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE). He was the one who managed the contact with Becerra.

Valdivia Soto is a former DINA agent and a physician at the Clínica Santa María. Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González are the physicians from the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Hospital who performed the autopsy.

According to unofficial reports, the implicated individuals were transported by special personnel from the Investigative Police (PDI) to the courthouse on Avenida España, where they were notified by the magistrate.

On Saturday, November 28, Judge Madrid carried out the last two proceedings to reconstruct the moments before Frei Montalva's death and the mysterious autopsy performed in the same room where he died, which was hidden for 20 years in the anatomy archives of the UC Hospital.

Judge Madrid: “Toxic substances” in the Frei crime The investigating judge Alejandro Madrid detailed this afternoon that the assassination of Eduardo Frei Montalva, for which he issued 6 charges today, was caused by “toxic substances” that the perpetrators introduced to him at the Clínica Santa María. “The death was caused by the gradual introduction of unconventional toxic substances, by the application of unauthorized pharmacological products, and by the occurrence of anomalous situations that were concealed and that deteriorated his immune system,” the magistrate said in his first statement following the notification and arrest of the group. He specified that the type of substance that was injected into the former President and that caused his death on January 22, 1982, after being hospitalized for a hernia, had, until now, made “the intervention of third parties in his death imperceptible.” Regarding the presence of those close to him as perpetrators of the crime, such as Frei Montalva's driver, Luis Becerra, and his former Undersecretary of Health, the physician Patricio Silva Garín, he said that “precisely, closeness sometimes makes it the way in which one acts.” Regarding the roles of Becerra and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, he pointed out that they had “the role of surveillance, of having paid informants, of coordinating all telephone interceptions to keep the former president in a condition of absolute control.”

Source: Monday, December 7, 2009, La Nación

The Frei autopsy step by step

“Who is Patricio Rojas protecting?” asked Carmen Frei in August 2006, revealing her family's break with Frei Montalva's former minister. Her words take on a new magnitude today after Rojas was re-interrogated by Judge Alejandro Madrid, who is investigating the assassination of the former president.

The role of his brother-in-law, Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, in the second operation on Frei—the one that marked his path to death—and the secret in which the former president's autopsy was kept for more than 20 years, of which only he had knowledge within his inner circle, are milestones that he has yet to explain.

CIPER reconstructed that procedure step by step, unveiling a chilling sequence full of suggestive questions. The Frei family believes that what happened in those hours following the death could hold the key to the case, and for that reason, they will request a reconstruction of the scene.

The clock strikes 17:20. The exact time Eduardo Frei Montalva's heart stops. By his side are a nurse and Dr. Alejandro Goic. The second floor of the Clínica Santa María stirs like a beehive. Minutes later, the news breaks through the streets of Santiago, and the central hall of the clinic turns into an anthill.

People arrive running, hugging each other; sobs are heard. The commotion grows by the minute. After the removal of a hiatal hernia (on November 18, 1981), an operation that seemed simple, things became dramatically complicated until they reached a breaking point this January 22, 1982.

Now everyone anxiously awaits news from the fourth floor, where the widow, Maruja Ruiz Tagle, surrounded by her children and some grandchildren, begins the journey of loss. No one looks down, toward the basement, where in those same minutes a strange operation begins.

Two men wait impatiently in the underground parking lot. Before 6 in the evening, an ambulance appears. Three men in white coats descend. They carry a stepladder and some bundles. There are no handshakes.

Without wasting a minute, the men in white are led to the elevator. They descend to the second floor. The small group goes straight to the only access to the Intensive Care Unit of the Clinic and passes through the door without anyone stopping them.

No one pays attention to the fact that, unlike the rest of the medical staff, they do not wear any badge indicating which institution they belong to, nor their names. The civilian guiding them stops in front of a room.

The three men in white enter. The anteroom unfolds before the eyes of the newcomers. No more than five people whisper there. A brief exchange of words, and with the same speed, the trio passes through the door of the room prepared for a special patient.

Eduardo Frei Montalva lies on the bed. He is still covered by pajamas, and he retains an elastic bandage over his abdomen. The one acting as the leader of the visiting trio closes the door. None of the three men asks for the deceased's medical file, neither from the establishment's doctors nor from his private physicians.

Before 6 PM, the intervention begins. The first thing they remove is the abdominal bandage covering the infected surgical wound. Without respite, they proceed to hang the former president's body with the help of the stepladder.

One of them places needles in the arteries of the neck, arms, and legs and injects a liquid they have brought prepared for the occasion. Two hours later, 8 liters of formalin flood Frei Montalva's body, expelling the remains of blood and the last warmth of his body.

It is then that two of the three men, doctors Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González, execute a precise cut in the thorax and another in the abdomen. And the stripping begins: the kidney, the liver, the heart, the pancreas, the lungs, the spleen...

At that moment, the third man in the room notices that the spleen has a dressing attached to it. Two floors above, Mrs. Maruja Ruiz Tagle does not suspect what is happening at that precise moment in the special room where the head of the family has just died.

In the clinic's hall, among the mourners arriving in a growing procession, two agents of the special unit of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) move unnoticed; its members have followed step by step the movements of the man who, until that day, was the undisputed leader of the opposition to Pinochet.

Only a few minutes are enough to confirm the devastating impact caused by the news of his death. On the second floor, the trio continues its task. Each of the organs extracted by the two physicians is handed to the assistant Víctor Chávez, who places them in a plastic bag, which he then puts into a container or metal bucket.

When the stripping ends, the body—now empty—is filled with gauze. Everything is done precisely and quickly. They close the abdomen first, then the thorax, and finally, they proceed to apply makeup. Almost four hours have passed.

At approximately 10 PM, the three men leave as silently as they arrived. The arrival of Dr. Max Muller Vega, who takes a death mask of the former president's face, has been one of the few interruptions experienced by the trio.

They barely felt the nurse who entered and left on tiptoe. Nor do they stop their work when the deceased's daughter, Carmen Frei, appears. But no one challenges them. Dr. Goic, who is still in shock from the death of the man he respects and loves, cannot forget the very instant he had to confirm his death.

With a trembling hand, he signed the respective certificate. And among the family and the crowd that comes to express their feelings, the doctor sees two people in the room where Frei has just died, preparing to perform “an embalming.” That was what they said.

He is not worried. Someone in the family must have asked for it... The former president's body is handed over to his children around 11 PM. At that same hour, Dr. Rosenberg, already back at the Clinical Hospital of the Pontificia Universidad Católica where he works, has everything prepared to begin the electronic microscopic examination of the samples.

They are introduced into transparent bags, which Rosenberg proceeds to seal without labeling. He stores other samples in small cubes of solid paraffin. And most importantly: to this day, no one knows what he did with the viscera.

Secrets without answers When Eduardo Frei's family receives his body, his face shows no signs of any intervention. It is the same face, now with closed eyes, that has accompanied them throughout his intense family life.

And this is because the only thing Dr. Rosenberg's team left intact was the brain. Everyone is unaware that Frei's heart, as well as his liver and other organs, are already in tubes with formalin. Dr. Rosenberg will rigorously keep the secret of what he did that hot afternoon of January 22, 1982, which kept him busy until the dawn of the following day.

The same goes for Dr. González. Ten years pass, and no one asks anything. That is the time it takes for Rosenberg to decide to transcribe the results of the procedure. And another ten years must pass before someone decides to reveal the existence of the document.

Because two decades after Frei Montalva's death, the message is received that there is an autopsy performed on the former president minutes after his death in the same room where he died. Carmen Frei, the former president's daughter and former senator, the woman who began the investigation into his possible assassination in 2000 under the skeptical gaze of everyone, immediately picks up the thread.

She knows it is a key piece of the process. She has the full conviction that no one in her family authorized an autopsy. The first thing will be to redo every minute starting from the father's death. And she does it.

Finally, they reach the Clinical Hospital of the Pontificia Universidad Católica, the hospital establishment to which the pathologists who performed the autopsy would belong. Two years pass between the first indication of the report—until that moment unknown—and its confirmation.

In the first written document that speaks of an autopsy, the signature of the doctor who directed the intervention appears: Helmar Rosenberg. In addition, the family receives a piece of information that will leave them breathless: the name of the man who requested it: the pediatrician Patricio Rojas, the former Minister of the Interior for Frei Montalva until the day he handed the baton of command to Salvador Allende in 1970.

The loyal collaborator of Patricio Aylwin between 1990 and 1994. The man who, in those dramatic days, acted as a liaison between the medical team and the Frei family. The indignation in the Frei family grows.

How was it possible that an autopsy was performed on the former president at the clinic and no one asked them for authorization, an indispensable condition for its materialization? But more importantly: why perform the intervention in the room where Frei died?

Why not take him to a place equipped with a marble or metal table and running water so that the autopsy could be done with a minimum of health guarantees? Why the speed, the secrecy, the violation of several medical and legal regulations?

There is no answer. One of the first tasks that then arises is to identify the doctor at the Clínica Santa María who, between 5 PM and 11 PM on that January 22, 1982, was in charge of the hallway where the room where Frei died was located.

Because that physician had the responsibility of safeguarding the former president's body. And he is the only one who should have prevented or at least challenged any stranger who wanted to access his corpse.

Eight pages that accuse From that moment on, a carousel of contradictions begins. Dr. Rosenberg says that he performed “the embalming,” and not an autopsy, by order of Dr. Roberto Barahona, whom he identifies as the then-director of the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the School of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica.

And he adds that almost three months later, in April, also by order of Barahona, he informed the results to the doctors he identifies as Frei's treating physicians: Patricio Rojas, Patricio Silva, and a third whose name everyone strangely forgot.

He is mistaken, because Rojas, as he himself has repeated, never acted as Frei's doctor. But at the beginning of the investigation, this is of no importance. And this is because doctors Rojas and Silva deny any relationship with the autopsy.

They also do not remember the April meeting. Dr. Barahona can say nothing. At the time of Frei's death, he was sick at home. He died seven months after the former president. Who was then directing the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the School of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica at the time of Frei's death?

Another mystery to solve. Rosenberg's statements are once again torn apart when a complete copy of the “embalming” he performed on Frei finally reaches the hands of the family. Because on the first page of that document, it reads: AUTOPSY No. 9/82.

NAME: EDUARDO FREI MONTALVA. PATHOLOGIST: Dr. H. Rosenberg. RESIDENT: Dr. S. González. DATE AND TIME: 18:00 hours. It is the first proof that there was indeed an autopsy. So much so that it was filed in the same books in which all the autopsy reports performed there are carefully bound—one hundred at a time.

That document also marks the beginning of other discoveries. Because when it is examined, and almost at a glance, it is perceived that it has characteristics totally different from the other reports that that binding contains.

Rosenberg explains. He says he kept his notes and the recording of the analyses for approximately ten years. And it was then that he decided to transcribe the results, a task he entrusted to Carmen, the secretary of the Department of Pathological Anatomy and daughter of the late Dr.

Barahona. That is the explanation of the surgeon and pathologist Helmar Rosenberg Gómez, 74 years old, as to why the “Autopsy Report No. 9/82” on Eduardo Frei Montalva, which spans 8 pages, does not have the same type of font as the others bound in the same volume.

And that it is evident that it was pasted in out of sequence. More curious is the annexation of the histological examination, which was done at a totally different time. The electronic microscopy photographs also disappeared.

A small mess due to a change of headquarters—he claims—is at the origin. And there is no attached medical file. For that irregularity, there is no answer. There is also no explanation for the non-existence of a clinical diagnosis. Where, then, are the results that he claims to have reported in April 1982 to doctors Patricio Rojas and Patricio Silva?

THE ROSENBERG-GONZALEZ PARTNERSHIP

If Frei's autopsy took 20 years to be discovered, the mysteries surrounding it have been less resistant. Because Rosenberg's version had a brutal counterpart. And this is because Carmen Barahona did not recognize the filed autopsy report.

And there was another important memory: her father was indeed sick at the time of Frei's death, so he was not the director of the department. The head was Dr. Benedicto Chuaqui. A problem: Chuaqui never saw the report of the autopsy performed on Eduardo Frei.

He stated this in a very early investigation. Worse: the doctor will not be able to say what he managed to discover when he wanted to know why they had hidden Frei's report from him. He died in 2003. A mystery that remains unresolved is how it is explained that the medical team led by Rosenberg arrived at the Clínica Santa María only minutes after Frei's death (17:20).

Because what Rosenberg and his team confirm is that they left from the Clinical Hospital of the UC to the Clínica Santa María around 17:00 on that January 22. And the autopsy report records the start time: 18:00 hours.

Important support has been provided to Rosenberg by Dr. Sergio González Bombardiere. The memories of this 55-year-old pathologist, head of the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the School of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica since 2000, and who assisted him in the autopsy performed on Frei, are almost identical to those of Rosenberg.

What does not fit is that Rosenberg, with 33 years in the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the School of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica, and González, with 27 years in the same, insist that there is nothing strange about the embalming performed on Frei.

First, it was an autopsy. Incomplete, but an autopsy. Second, the certain data from that medical center indicate that there is no record that a similar intervention to Frei's has ever been performed in another hospital establishment, and even less so in the patient's room.

Why the exception and the urgency? There is no answer. The solidarity between the two could be explained because they are not only coworkers since 1981, three years after González graduated, but also partners since 1993.

The latest joint company is named “Profesionales e Inversiones Médicos Patólogos Asociados.” Regarding Patricio Rojas, Carmen Barahona's memories have been damning. Because without hesitation, she stated that, at the time of Frei's death, her father was at home sick, and that Patricio Rojas called him to request the autopsy on the former president's body.

In his 2003 judicial statement, published by La Tercera, Patricio Rojas acknowledges the fact he kept quiet about for two decades: “Indeed, an autopsy protocol was made, performed by a doctor from the Clinical Hospital of the Pontificia Universidad Católica; we took care to perform the anatomopathological examination, and we had the reports of this examination.

As I was not the treating physician, it was not I who recommended to the family that the autopsy be performed, but when they consulted me, I did not oppose it; it could have been Dr. Goic or Dr. Silva.

Also, I commented on the need to have thanatological examinations to be certain of the cause of his death, but I do not know if they were done or not, and if so, I did not have access to the results.” The official information that Rojas also received from the doctors at the Pontificia Universidad Católica was that the cause of the former president's death was uncontrolled septicemia.

But the document that certifies it does not appear; only the anatomopathological report is known. Given the growing doubt that he could have been contaminated by chemical agents deliberately, his body was exhumed in 2005 and the samples sent to the FBI, without obtaining positive results.

But later, other important analyses have been performed. And only Judge Alejandro Madrid knows their results, who has decreed since then that none of the parties has access to the summary. Patricio Rojas has defended himself against the doubts about his role in the procedures that took place in the hours following the former president's death.

And he has dismissed the evidence of a possible intervention by third parties, saying they are only “conjectures.” The harshest reply Rojas has had has been from Carmen Frei. On August 31, 2006, in an interview with Radio Cooperativa, she stated: “Conjectures?

Please! More than evidence: I saw the ladder in the room, and they took me out of it because they were performing an autopsy on my dad.” And she concluded by reiterating a phrase that still echoes: “Who is Patricio Rojas protecting?” Two and a half years later, none of Patricio Rojas's statements have convinced the Frei children, who do not understand how one of the men of maximum trust of the family hid from them for more than 20 years that an autopsy had been performed, the procedure of which is full of irregularities.

For this reason, the next step the Frei family will request will be the judicial step-by-step reconstruction of the autopsy. A proceeding that could surely clear up mysteries and join the few pieces that are still missing for the trial to be labeled as “assassination.”

Source: Ciperchile.cl, March 6, 2009

A secret CIA document reveals impressive background information on the assassination of former president Frei

The shocking revelations in the attached document are part of the archive maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the United States Embassy in Santiago.

The reasons and circumstances under which this documentation is in our possession will be disclosed first to the respective courts investigating the matters and cases concerned, as a matter of an elemental imperative of civic duty.

For the moment, we can say that this is a set of approximately forty documents, totaling more than two hundred pages, which illuminate with disturbing flashes and contribute to understanding the particular configuration of the Chilean transition, the actions of the political class within it, and the original accumulation of certain business groups in the country, in a way that the attached document is merely a preview.

Without prejudice to the above, and since knowledge of this background constitutes not only a citizen's right, but also a dark area of our history that deserves to be unveiled, we are in a position to announce that the entirety of the information will be published in the form of a book that will appear as soon as our own investigation, cross-referencing, and verification of the same are completed.

In the meantime, the original documents, and a legalized copy of each of them, will remain in custody in two different notary offices, from where a mechanism to make them public immediately will be activated in the event of any contingency.

Nomenclature

The report with which we inaugurate the publication of the Secret CIA Documents in Chile corresponds to the translation of a compilation of information regarding Operation Coihueco, the code name for the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez; Operation Valkyrie, the code name for the assassination of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva; and Operation Condor 2, the code name for the assassination of the chemist Eugenio Berríos, which records entries for the years 1984, 1986, and 1999.

The original in English was sent to Washington DC under the classification Secret-3290, while the notation "Eyes Only" implies that it is a read-only document, indicative of its high confidentiality.

As far as we know, WSA is the agency in charge of monitoring and intervening in the main media outlets. AMCO, American Communications, is the embassy's communications department. APO is a section dependent on the CIA in any given country, which establishes that documentation with the "APO" designation can only be handled and compiled by "authorized personnel," who, only once checked, send it to the other agencies.

Once APO compiles it, ARA enters the documentation into a registry archive at the local CIA station, based on information provided by operational teams. Specifically, in the case of the attached document, that provided by the G12 and G14 groups, in charge of the infiltration of political and union areas, which, moreover, remain in full activity.

The veracity of the information contained in the document "Copy of Action 9091 to 9097" is for the competent courts to determine, as they have the powers, authority, and means to do so.

For our part, the decision to publish said document is due both to the background information it can provide to the Visiting Minister, Alejandro Madrid—who, not by chance, is handling the investigation of the Frei and Berríos cases—and to the results of our own cross-referencing of the information, which, sufficiently for the standards, ethics, and journalistic method, points to the authenticity of the data.

Judicial Merit

The breakdown of the information in section 9091, regarding the Operational Designation Coihueco—that is, the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro, which occurred on February 25, 1982—does not offer substantive differences regarding the investigation of Visiting Minister Sergio Muñoz, but it does provide some previously unknown background.

For starters, the participation, in varying degrees, of Generals Arturo Alvarez Sgolia, Hernán Ramírez Rurange, Humberto Gordon, and Fernando Torres Silva, of Major Carlos Herrera Jiménez, of Colonel Arturo Silva Valdés, and of non-commissioned officers Miguel Letelier Verdugo and Manuel Contreras Donaire, appears proven to the point of the conviction of most of them.

On the other hand, the ruling does not establish the intervention of the UAT, the Special Military Intelligence Unit according to the CIA document, a little-known direct intervention unit that answered directly to Pinochet, above the hierarchical command of the formal intelligence services, and which appears directly implicated in the homicides of Tucapel Jiménez, Eduardo Frei, Eugenio Berríos, and Gerardo Huber Olivares, with the motive of "neutralizing" potential threats to the dictatorship in the first two cases, and of preventing possible leaks of those operations to the courts in the latter two.

Nor is there anything new regarding the participation of the CNI's Union Brigade and the General Secretariat of the Guilds in the prior intelligence and subsequent cover-up work. The names of Misael Galleguillos, Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, Miguel Hernández, Francisco Ferrer Lima, Valericio Orrego, and Eduardo Arriagada Rehren appear profusely mentioned in the proceedings, as does Jovino Novoa Vásquez, current President of the Senate.

But the CIA report implicates the Minister of the Interior at the time, Sergio Fernández Larraín, and adds two names that do not appear in the investigation: Nelson Hernández Franco, whom the same document later identifies as a liaison with Agustín Edwards, and Luis Becerra, who for nearly twenty years served as the driver for Eduardo Frei Montalva.

A disturbing sequel emerges from cross-referencing the dates recorded in the document—1984, 1986, and 1999—given that while Minister Sergio Valenzuela Patiño knew of it, the case was virtually paralyzed, and it was only in the last two years prior to the ruling, registered on August 5, 2005, that Minister Sergio Muñoz managed to unravel the plot.

This means, neither more nor less, that since 1984, and in any case by 1999, the CIA, and therefore the U.S. government, had full knowledge of the conspiracy to assassinate Tucapel Jiménez, attributed to Pinochet in person, and of those involved in it. It is easy to deduce the bargaining power that the possession of information of such caliber confers.

Operation Valkyrie

The second chapter begins with information unknown until today.

In operational code, the assassination of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva was called Operation Valkyrie, the same name used by the conspirators who attempted to end the life of Adolf Hitler through an explosive attack on July 20, 1944.

Many of the names of those involved are repeated because, according to the CIA report, "two parallel fronts of action were created for the development of these two objectives, Valkyrie and Coihueco." Furthermore, it specifies that "through the Special Military Intelligence Unit, UAT, which depends directly on the Commander-in-Chief General Augusto Pinochet, the operational unit Valkyrie, DC, is developed.

Its main objective was to neutralize and eliminate Eduardo Frei Montalva."

Still according to the document, the economic and logistical aspects were handled by the company Elissalde y Poblete, one of the fronts used by the DINA to finance its operations. Names such as Luis González Sepúlveda, Juan Jara Quintana, Alicia Uribe, Alejandro Campos, Fernando Arancibia Reyes, and Fernando Suau Baquedano appear frequently mentioned both in judicial proceedings and in investigative journalism pages.

In the operational aspects, according to the document, the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), the Counterintelligence Unit (CIE), the Tactical Support Command (CAT), the Foreign Department of the National Information Center (CNI), and the Army Chemical Complex (IST) intervened.

Among the names are agents who also appear mentioned in the assassinations of Eugenio Berríos and/or Tucapel Jiménez, cases of Fernando Torres Silva, Hernán Ramírez Rurange, Eugenio Covarrubias Valenzuela, Arturo Silva Valdés, and Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, all of whom are under prosecution by Minister Alejandro Madrid in the Berríos case.

In the words of the CIA report, the assassination of former President Frei was produced by the inoculation, in each of the four surgical operations, of substances such as mustard gas and the Clostridium botulinum bacillus, brought in by DINE agents infiltrated into the Chilean Foreign Ministry.

The document reports direct or indirect actions by doctors Patricio Silva Garín, Augusto Larraín Orrego, Eduardo Wainstein, Rodrigo Vélez Fuenzalida, Sergio Virgilio Bocaz, Pedro Samuel Soto, Helmar Rosenberg, Eduardo Arriagada Rehren, Sergio Rosende Oyarzún, Alejandro Goic, and Enzo Fujide.

In the task of embalming the body and blocking the signs of the toxins, doctors Patricio Rojas Saavedra, Patricio Silva Garín, Hernán Barahona, Helmar Rosenberg, and Sergio González Bombardiere are mentioned, as well as the assistant Humberto Gallardo.

For the undersigned, none of this information constitutes a novelty, since it conforms with millimetric precision to the lines of investigation being carried out by Minister Alejandro Madrid, as we recorded in editions 1447 and 1437. But it is possible that the Minister may be interested in questioning Juan Renán Quintana, María Eugenia Valenzuela, and Julio Lobos Romero.

It is presumed that Minister Alejandro Madrid will issue his first resolutions in the course of this year. Therefore, it is highly striking that the CIA has handled this information since at least 1999.

Berríos Package

Many of the names, such as Ramírez Rurange, Covarrubias Valenzuela, Silva Valdés, Lillo Gutiérrez, and Herrera Jiménez, reappear in the operation of "extraction" from the country and subsequent assassination of the chemist Eugenio Berríos, because, according to the CIA document, it was also an operation carried out by the UAT.

To make a long story short, all the names that appear in sections 4, Berríos Package; 5, Extraction from Chile; and 6, Execution of Berríos Package, are under prosecution by Minister Alejandro Madrid for their participation in varying degrees in the assassination of the chemist, which occurred between January and March 1993 in Uruguay.

The greatest novelty provided by the document relates to the fact that it was a denunciation by the CIA station in Buenos Aires that allowed for the arrest of Herrera Jiménez; a not insignificant piece of data, since upon his return to Chile, he was one of the first to break the chain of loyalty, as he began to provide classified information that would lead to the clarification of the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez.

Edwards and Co.

In the parts where the document reaches its climax in terms of impact and novelty are titles 7, Special Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operations; 8, Intelligence Objectives and Criminal Operations; and 9, Money Laundering and Operational Financing.

For starters, in the planning, development of logistical means, and companies used for the cover-up of actions of the Army Intelligence School (EIE), the Army National Intelligence Directorate (DINE), the Special Military Intelligence Unit (UAT), and the National Information Center (CNI), the document implicates Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Agustín Edwards Eastman, owner of the company El Mercurio S.A.P., and his firstborn, Agustín Edwards del Río.

The report adds that Pinochet personally entrusted the planning, development, and execution of operations Valkyrie and Coihueco to the then-Major Arturo Silva Valdés. Furthermore, it maintains that in both operations, active and retired Army personnel were used, who were transferred, in the words of the document, to the private security service of Agustín Edwards Eastman and Agustín Edwards del Río, "collaborators and informants of this agency since 1968." It adds that Arturo Silva Valdés, Nelson Hernández Franco, Marcelo Sandoval, Nelson Román, Erika Silva, and Eduardo Martínez Wogner were used as liaisons.

This background corroborates the chronicle published by the defunct newspaper Siete + 7 on August 1, 2003, titled "I Loved an Assassin," signed by journalists Verónica Foxley and Mónica González, which, regarding the retirement of Arturo Silva Valdés from the Army, recounted:

"He materialized his plans in 1994. Vanward was born. And in September 1994, they sent him on a service commission to work for the personal security of Agustín Edwards, the owner of El Mercurio. In that mission, Nelson Hernández Franco, also a member of the DINE secret unit and who served in the CNI under the alias 'Marcos de la Fuente,' prosecuted for the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez; Marcelo Sandoval; and Nelson Román joined Valdés.

There was also a woman: Erika Silva. The entire team would later be headed by Major Eduardo Martínez Wogner, who was an aide to CNI director Humberto Gordon."

Therefore, it is possible that said information is already established in the case being heard by Minister Alejandro Madrid. But it also falls within the probabilities that he is unaware of the information regarding money laundering for the financing of operational actions, for which a network of front companies was created, such as Serprotec S.A.; Consultsistem Chile S.A.; Inversiones Canelo Seis; Compañía de Inversiones Nacionales; Inmobiliaria Santa Raquel; Ecogas; Focus Investment; and a company that is not identified, which would be linked to Jovino Novoa Vásquez, then news editor of the newspaper El Mercurio.

Our own investigation yielded surprising results, and in many cases consistent with the information in the CIA document.

Serprotec S.A. is a company incorporated by a deed published in the Official Gazette on August 18, 1992, and whose partners are Inversiones Canelo Seis y Cía, with a contribution of 4,900,000 pesos, and Juan Luis Armando Herrera Villena, who contributed the sum of 10,000 pesos.

Consultsistem Chile S.A. is a company incorporated by a deed published in the Official Gazette on October 15, 1996, which records a subscribed and paid-in capital of 6,000,000 pesos, contributed in equal parts by partners Arturo Rodrigo Silva Valdés and Eugenio Augusto Covarrubias Benavides.

Canelo Seis is an investment company incorporated on September 3, 1986, by Agustín Edwards Eastman and the Compañía de Inversiones Samotracia, composed of Javier Duarte García de la Huerta and Jorge Eyzaguirre Correa, formed with the purpose of triangulating and liquidating the substantial debt that the company El Mercurio S.A.P. was accumulating at the time, amounting to 5.2 million Unidades de Fomento, equivalent today to 109.111 billion pesos, or just over 190 million dollars.

The El Mercurio bailout operation concluded on March 8, 1990, that is, the business day immediately prior to the dictatorship formally abandoning power, with substantial loans granted by the Banco del Estado, among many other maneuvers, while it was presided over by Alvaro Bardón Muñoz.

The lawsuit filed by Andrés Sanfuentes, President of the Banco del Estado in 1990, established that the direct patrimonial loss of the Bank with the aforementioned operations amounted to at least 25 million dollars, equivalent to 70% of the Bank's profit in the 1989 balance sheet, and to 8% of its total capital and reserves.

The first reference to Inversiones Nacionales S.A. in the National Registry of Partners and Companies of the National Chamber of Commerce dates back to June 6, 1989, when Mauricio Andrés Parot Medina and Mikel Ugarte Larrazábal appear as partners.

The next entry of interest appears in the Official Gazette of February 28, 1992, with Inversiones Nacionales S.A. already converted into the parent company of the business holding of Francisco Javier Errázuriz, with its subsidiaries Comercial e Industrial Unimarc; Hipermarc Internacional; Inversiones Salmones Unimarc; Compañía Minera Nacional; and Ingeniería e Informática Nacional, among others that appear in the deed.

No less surprising is the corporate link that the tracking of the deeds allows to be established between Comercial Canelo S.A. and Inversiones Nacionales S.A., of Francisco Javier Errázuriz.

In the extract of notary Iván Torrealba, published on June 10, 1994, in the Official Gazette, it reads:

"On May 18, 1994, the minutes of the Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting of Comercial Canelo S.A. were reduced to a public deed before me, in which the shareholders Agustín Edwards Eastman, Inversiones Nacionales S.A., and Agustín Edwards del Río agreed to the division of Canelo S.A. into two companies, distributing the assets, liabilities, and equity between them, in the form and terms agreed upon in the Meeting," establishing a capital amounting to $4,835,928,564, divided into 1,450,000,000 nominative shares without nominal value.

The links between Inversiones Canelo Seis and Inversiones Nacionales are reproduced in the Sociedad de Inversiones Rahue S.A., incorporated on December 20, 2008, and in the Sociedad de Inversiones Pozo Almonte, published in the Official Gazette on October 4, 2008.

New revelations from the Secret CIA Documents will be made known as the verification and cross-referencing of background information yields convincing and verifiable results.

Source: El Siglo, June 10, 2009

Minister notifies those involved this morning

Doctors prosecuted for the death of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva

These are Pedro Valdivia and Patricio Silva, who participated in the operation on the former president, and doctors Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González, related to the autopsy. Former CNI agent Raúl Lillo and the man who was the driver for the late Head of State, Luis Becerra, were also indicted.

Minister Alejandro Madrid prosecuted six people who appear linked in different ways to the death of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, who died at the Clínica Santa María in January 1982.

After little more than five years of investigation, Madrid indicted Dr. Pedro Samuel Valdivia Soto as an accomplice to the crime, while Patricio Silva Garín was indicted as a perpetrator. Both physicians participated in the operation on the former president.

He did the same with doctors Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere, former doctors at the Clinical Hospital of the Catholic University, who appear related to the autopsy performed on the body of the former president, which was lost for more than 20 years in the archives of that medical center. These two physicians are being prosecuted as accessories to the crime.

Meanwhile, the magistrate indicted former CNI agent Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez and Frei's former driver, Luis Alberto Becerra Arancibia, who appear as perpetrators of the death of the former Head of State.

The magistrate is prosecuting these people for being involved in the homicide of Eduardo Frei Montalva.

The former President died in January 1982 at the Clínica Santa María after a severe infection, following surgery for a hiatal hernia in November 1981. However, the thesis that the family has maintained is that only an external and highly toxic agent can explain the rapid deterioration his health suffered and the ineffectiveness of the latest-generation antibiotics that were applied to him.

In August 2006, surgeon Augusto Larraín, who was in charge of the President's first operation, said that his death could be due to an "external chemical agent," even though he had never before endorsed that theory. This version revived suspicions about poisoning within the family and the closest circle of Frei Montalva.

In addition, two reports by the distinguished academics and researchers of the Department of Legal Medicine of the University of Chile and experts Carmen Cerda and Laura Börgel establish the presence of more than one toxin in the remains of Frei Montalva, which are mustard gas and thallium.

The first is a dangerous chemical weapon that was used in the Iran-Iraq war and, the second, a poison present in rodenticides. Both cause, among other serious effects on the body, serious damage to the digestive system.

This indictment of those involved in the death of Frei Montalva occurs six days before the presidential elections are held, in which the son of the late former Head of State, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, is participating.

Source: El Mostrador, December 7, 2009

Death of Frei Montalva: IT WAS A HOMICIDE

The ruling states that the death of the former president was caused "by the gradual introduction of unconventional toxic substances, by the application of an unauthorized pharmacological product, called Transfer Factor, and by the occurrence of anomalous situations, which could have been disguised as inadvertencies or negligence, which gradually deteriorated his immune system and facilitated the appearance of opportunistic bacteria, such as those called Proteus vulgaris and Candida albicans, which turned out to be the final cause of his death."

After a prolonged investigation, Minister Alejandro Madrid's conclusion was devastating: there exists "a set of judicial presumptions that, appreciated in accordance with the law, allow (...) to have it sufficiently proven" that the death of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva was a homicide.

In a ruling issued on December 7, the judge pointed out that the death of the former president was caused "by the gradual introduction of unconventional toxic substances, by the application of an unauthorized pharmacological product, called Transfer Factor, and by the occurrence of anomalous situations, which could have been disguised as inadvertencies or negligence, which gradually deteriorated his immune system and facilitated the appearance of opportunistic bacteria, such as those called Proteus vulgaris and Candida albicans, which turned out to be the final cause of his death."

Thus, the minister prosecuted Frei's former driver, Luis Becerra Arancibia; the CNI agent, Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez; and the former Undersecretary of Health, Dr. Patricio Silva Garín, as perpetrators of the homicide of Frei; the doctor and former security services official, Pedro Valdivia Soto, as an accomplice; and doctors Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere as accessories.

As is known, as a result of a gastroesophageal hernia, Frei decided to undergo surgery at the Clínica Santa María on November 18, 1981. A first operation was performed by surgeon Augusto Larraín, which was successful. In fact, he was discharged to his home.

Then, he began to suffer discomfort that made it necessary for him to be transferred back to the Clinic on December 4, and just two days later he was subjected to a new surgical intervention, now in charge of Dr. Patricio Silva.

Source: Ercilla, No. 3,387 from December 16 to 27, 2009

Sergio González, teacher and academic, director of the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the UC Hospital: Catholic University doctor accused of being an accessory to

He asserts that he and Helmar Rosenberg went to perform a "preservation" procedure on Frei, not an autopsy, and that they were acting under orders. The judge indicted him after questioning him briefly—once in 2003 and again this year. He never suspected he was being accused.

PILAR MOLINA A. He says that he agreed to accompany Dr. Helmar Rosenberg to perform a preservation procedure on the body of former President Frei Montalva as a favor, and that he has been living a nightmare since 2003.

He is 56 years old, having dedicated his entire career to teaching and research at the UC Faculty of Medicine. He is a tenured professor, and 25 generations of doctors have passed through his hands. Since 2002, he has been the director of the Department of Pathological Anatomy.

Furthermore, he is the vice president of the Chilean Society of Pathological Anatomy, which today published an advertisement in his support.

But now he is accused of something greater, just like Rosenberg (an honorary professor at the UC, retired and with medical complications): being an accessory to the assassination of a former President.

"I am not a criminal; I have never had ties to the Army, to any intelligence service, nor have I been a member of a political party," laments Sergio González Bombardiere, who arrived in Santiago from Tocopilla and has been married for 35 years to Angélica, a social worker at the UC who comforts him after the interview.

He states that Judge Alejandro Madrid only questioned him twice, in 2003 and this year: "They were short, there was never a cross-examination, and I thought I was in the position of a witness."

They received orders

In his indictment, the magistrate describes a series of "irregular acts" that would make the two doctors accomplices to the assassination by participating in an unauthorized autopsy and removing organs from Frei's body to hide the poisoning.

Madrid maintains that the doctor who, according to Rosenberg, gave him the order to proceed with Frei—Roberto Barahona—was retired, ill, and died shortly after Frei.

González refutes this: "I know for a fact that the order was given by Barahona, because Dr. Rosenberg asked me to accompany him when he was in a hallway next to him." He adds that at that time (January 1982), Barahona was retired but active; he fell ill in March and died six months later.

The judge also considers it irregular that Rosenberg argued he had removed the organs because Barahona had asked him to investigate whether the tuberculosis Frei suffered in his youth had influenced the outcome, as this examination was being performed in parallel by the Public Health Institute.

González has no knowledge of the TB tests, nor did he have any participation in the subsequent microscopic study of the samples, the preparation and writing of the protocol, or how it was handled. But he staunchly defends the extraction of the former President's organs: "There are various post-mortem preservation procedures; preservative injection or embalming.

The decision to perform the injection with organ extraction was made because it was summer (30 degrees) and it was the body of a patient with a very serious chronic infection."

-Judge Alejandro Madrid asserts that a preservative injection would have been sufficient.

"If someone dies of a heart attack or a stroke, extraction is not necessary, but if it is due to an infection and the abdomen is open, with all the viscera exposed, adhesions, and exudate, then the prosector (the person in charge) may consider that the most reasonable course is extraction to give the body dignity, because it will be handed over to the family.

In my experience, it would be the recommended procedure in a similar situation."

-But he also accuses them of having performed the embalming poorly, because in 2004 he verified that they had left organs behind, and the body was not in a good state of preservation.

"Embalming consists of a procedure that uses various liquids, and it is an overnight process, and it is quite complex. In these extraordinary circumstances, in a strict sense, there was no classic embalming; rather, this injection was performed with the extraction of organs sufficient for the body to be preserved without problems.

But these procedures do not ensure the preservation of organs for decades."

-Why did they hang him from a ladder?

"That is not so. No post-mortem procedure requires draining the body's fluids using that procedure," he responds, describing that the injected fluids flow out through natural orifices or wounds.

Why at the clinic?

He also defends himself against another irregularity the judge accuses them of: performing the procedure at the Clínica Santa María, which did not have a conditioned room.

"It was an exceptional situation. It was a former President, and the circumstances in which he died and the condition of the body made it very difficult to move him to another facility."

-What conditions?

"He had a contained laparostomy, an opening that practically covered the entire surface of the stomach, with the intestine exposed (he describes it as a large circle, where doctors pull the skin toward the perimeter to facilitate healing). So large that Rosenberg pointed out in the only interview he gave, to "La Segunda" in 2006, that he had never seen such a large separation."

-In those conditions, was thallium or mustard gas necessary to poison him?

"No, it would have been enough for a fly to land on him."

-Did you also not know if it is true (which the judge also denies) that Rosenberg reported the results to the attending physicians, Patricio Silva and Patricio Rojas?

"I know for a fact that there was a meeting with the attending team, in which I did not participate, and I know that he must have reported it there."

"Did they hang him from a ladder?" "That is not so. No post-mortem procedure requires draining the body's fluids using that procedure."

"Searching for toxins is not part of our specialty" -Is the judge's accusation that Frei was assassinated well-founded, or could natural causes explain his death?

"What I saw was the body of a person in the final phase of a systemic infection related to a surgical procedure. I saw nothing and had no suspicion that there was a toxicological problem."

-The doctor who first operated on him (Larraín Orrego) said that during the reoperation he had observed a lesion that could correspond to contamination with a chemical or toxic agent, probably on a compress. Did you see that?

"When you observe viscera with exudate, adhesions, and effects of the inflammatory process, it is very difficult to distinguish."

-If there had been thallium or mustard gas, would you have noticed anything strange?

"Within all of that, it would be impossible."

Regarding Madrid's characterization of it as an "abnormal situation" that they kept the samples and discarded Frei Montalva's organs, he responds:

"Samples are kept for a defined period. Sometimes, for sanitary reasons, it is necessary to discard infected organs and only the fragment is kept."

-Are Frei's still kept?

"No, according to protocols and for reasons of physical space, they are eliminated every 10 or 20 years. There are hundreds of thousands of them."

-If you understood that you were going to perform a preservation procedure, why did you take the organs and not throw them away?

"It was the decision of the person directing the procedure."

-Did you never understand or know that there was going to be a subsequent examination to look for TB or toxins in the samples?

"No. I found out later that the study for TB and the infection that caused his septicemia had been done. But searching for toxins is not part of our specialty; that is for forensic medicine. Our specialty, pathological anatomy, is in charge of the study of medical diseases. It has nothing to do with toxicology or the actions of third parties."

Source: El Mercurio, December 12, 2009

UC doctors acknowledge the Hospital's ties to the creator of poisons for Colonia Dignidad

Helmar Rosenberg and Sergio González, pathologists indicted as accessories in the case of Frei's homicide and who performed the autopsy that remained hidden for more than 20 years, spoke in German with the former second-in-command of Villa Baviera.

The lawyer for the medical dean's office and Canal 13, who also represents the doctors before the courts, is Pedro Doren, a historical sponsor of the enclave's leaders. Among them is Hopp, who was indicted for the disappearance of people during the military dictatorship.

One day in October 2000, one of the many military sources I interviewed for my first book, Crimen Imperfecto, historia del Químico de la DINA Eugenio Berríos y la Muerte de Frei Montalva (LOM 2002), commented to me that the Clinical Hospital of the Pontificia Universidad Católica had maintained close ties with Colonia Dignidad. It was a passing comment that I was never able to verify.

Six years later, Minister Alejandro Madrid, granting an interrogation requested by lawyer Fabiola Letelier, sister of Orlando, the former foreign minister assassinated by the DINA in Washington in 1976, took a statement from the second-in-command of Villa Baviera, Dr.

Hartmut Hopp, within the framework of the case for the homicide of Berríos, executed in Uruguay by agents of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) in 1993.

In Colonia Dignidad, Hopp had duties such as testing poisons and psychotropic substances to control the colonists.

On that occasion, Hopp told the minister, on page 7,049 of volume 19 of the file, that he carried out his studies first in the United States and subsequently at the Faculty of Medicine of the Pontificia Universidad Católica (UC). There, he was a classmate of Sergio González, with whom he maintained a relationship over time that lasted beyond the military dictatorship until around 2000.

Madrid, after listening to Hopp and having him sign the statement, took the pages and added them to the case he is investigating for the homicide of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, assassinated with thallium and mustard gas, according to the magistrate's findings, at the Clínica Santa María in January 1982.

Hopp's words opened an unknown area for the judge, because Rosenberg and González were the pathologists of the UC Faculty of Medicine who performed the autopsy on Frei's body hours after his death, the conclusions of which remained virtually hidden in the university's archive for 20 years without the family knowing.

In a proceeding carried out in 2003, Madrid raided those facilities and seized the documents, verifying months later that they had been modified on purpose. That was the first time he learned who Rosenberg and González were.

Up to that point, the only person who had admitted to having any kind of relationship with the UC doctors was Hopp.

For history

Madrid continued investigating and conducting expert reports; he exhumed Frei in 2004 and ordered experts Laura Borgel and Carmen Cerda to analyze the remains.

However, it would not be until March and April 2009 that the link between Rosenberg and González and two other doctors from the UC Department of Pathological Anatomy with Colonia Dignidad would be captured in the Frei Montalva homicide file as part of the dark side of national history.

The revelation is recorded on page 7,042 of the case and was provided by Rosenberg himself on April 1, 2009—which El Mostrador publishes in full—along with González's, on page 7,044 (see related documents).

Rosenberg acknowledged having been Hopp's classmate at the UC, as well as that two doctors from the Faculty—the prominent radiologist Fernán Díaz (now deceased) and another whom he did not identify—went to the former Villa Baviera, since a doctor of Chilean nationality was needed at the care center that was set up inside the enclave.

Hopp was still a student, but it was these professionals who recommended him to fill the position.

"In this way, the link between the Department of Pathological Anatomy of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Clinical Hospital and Colonia Dignidad emerged," declared Rosenberg.

Days earlier, González had also been questioned by the Investigative Police.

González confirmed that he, Hopp, and Rosenberg were classmates, but added several details. The second-in-command of Colonia Dignidad and Paul Schäfer's right-hand man visited the Department of Pathological Anatomy regularly to have the laboratory analyze biopsies he brought from the Villa Baviera hospital.

His wife, the nurse Dorothea Witthahn, who sometimes wore the required uniform, also performed this same task.

The exams that Hopp requested were never charged for by the UC, according to González, because they were for poor people, almost always with Chilean surnames, since the university had its own resources for this "social" work.

However, another fact caught the investigators' attention: "Dr. Chuaqui (also deceased), Dr. Rosenberg, and I speak German, and indeed on some occasions we spoke with Dr. Hopp in German," declared González, explaining that he had completed a fellowship in the Bavarian country where he learned the language.

In any case, both professionals assured that they never visited Villa Baviera and that their relations with Hopp were only formal and nothing more.

The gem

Hartmut Hopp was not just any doctor during the military dictatorship, nor in democracy. On the contrary, he had very specific duties within the organization.

One of them was to test poisons and psychotropic substances to control the colonists. To do this, he would go to the former Bacteriological Institute, today the Public Health Institute (ISP), to pick up rabbits for his experiments, according to a document in the case file held by Madrid, published in 2002 by this outlet. In it, the ISP veterinarian Sergio Romero acknowledges the fact.

Dr. Hopp was also in charge of coordinating and operating the money laundering network that Colonia Dignidad set up to hide Schäfer in Argentina in the mid-90s, a fact he acknowledged in a statement given to Minister Jorge Zepeda and included by Madrid in the Berríos case.

Likewise, he was one of the people who covered up for Schäfer after the constant indecent abuses he committed against the minors living on the property inside the Seventh Region were discovered, a fact for which both were convicted.

The intersections in this sense create a necessary context to understand the links between the people and the connection to the death of Frei Montalva.

First, because the ISP is the entity that bought botulinum toxin in Brazil, a substance that was sent to the Army's Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory in June 1981, which operated at Carmen 339, today the seat of the Judicial Archive.

In December of the same year, four MIR members imprisoned in the defunct Public Jail were poisoned with botulism, a fact that Minister Madrid is also investigating and which is the prelude to the poisoning of Frei with mustard gas and thallium, as established by experts Borgel and Cerda.

Rosenberg and González appointed lawyer Pedro Doren to represent them. Doren works as an external consultant for the UC Faculty of Medicine.

Rosenberg and González were indicted on December 7 by the magistrate as accessories to the crime, given that they performed the autopsy and did not provide coherent answers, leading the minister to the conviction that they had participated in the events, as they kept the necropsy hidden for more than 20 years.

Along with them, as authors, are the former CNI agent Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, the informant and Frei's driver, Luis Becerra, and the doctor who operated on Frei for the second time in 1982. And as an accomplice, the former DINA doctor, Pedro Valdivia, is indicted.

Multi-man

Before the courts, Rosenberg and González appointed lawyer Pedro Doren to represent them. This professional works as an external consultant for the UC Faculty of Medicine, as well as for Canal 13. In fact, he was in charge of conducting the legal analysis when, in 2003, the Frei family, thanks to the revelation of a confidential informant, learned that the autopsy was in the university's archive.

Dr. Helmar Rosenberg.

Doren, in turn, has been one of the historical lawyers for Colonia Dignidad. In fact, he represented it in several tax lawsuits in the mid-90s, after Villa Baviera lost its legal status during the Aylwin government and carried out illegal maneuvers to prevent the assets of the companies they had created—"Tierra Negra," among many others—from being seized by the treasury.

It was these firms that allowed money to be triangulated to off-shore havens that helped Paul Schäfer hide in Argentina from the late 90s to evade the action of justice, although he was arrested in March 2005 on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

It was that same year that Doren returned to the spotlight. This time in a case related to human rights violations, when he sponsored Hopp in the case for the disappearance of the MAPU militant, Juan Maino Canales.

And if it is a matter of applying poisons inside Colonia Dignidad, the case led by Judge Zepeda for the death of Miguel Ángel Becerra Hidalgo, a militant of Patria y Libertad, clearly reveals the way of operating that existed inside Villa Baviera. The above was captured in the sentence of November 27, 2008 (see related documents).

Fallen from grace

If all of the above is added to how the UC Faculty of Medicine has hindered Judge Madrid's investigation, the scenario ends up coinciding.

In 2003, when the minister raided the hospital and found the autopsy, the Faculty of Medicine assured that everything that existed had been handed over.

However, last year, the same informant who told the plaintiff lawyer Álvaro Varela about the existence of this last document informed him that there were still pieces of evidence that the university had not handed over to the courts.

Dr. Enrique Paris assured that part of the viscera extracted from Frei in 1982 were in the dean's vault.

Madrid raided again and found an autopsy book, where only the initials EFM could be read to designate the procedure on the former President. The document gains relevance, since Rosenberg and González have denied on different occasions that it was a necropsy.

The obstruction work had a second stage after the magistrate indicted the doctors. From then on, Dr. Enrique Paris, head of Toxicology, launched into two interviews granted to the newspaper El Mercurio against the results obtained by experts Borgel and Cerda, which indicated that Frei had been poisoned with thallium and mustard gas.

At the same time, he assured that part of the viscera extracted from Frei in 1982 were in the dean's vault, that is, in the office of his direct boss, Ignacio Sánchez.

The Frei family was furious and questioned the medical ethics of Paris, who had to retract his statements in the media, losing credibility. Especially when Rosenberg himself, in an interview granted in 2006 to the newspaper La Segunda, assured that those samples had been destroyed.

Paris had the support of Dean Sánchez to publicly question Madrid's investigation. This was a strategy to appear as a defender of the university's interests, in the context that he appears as part of the shortlist to assume the rectorship of the UC.

However, after the appearance of a report published this Wednesday, the Frei family asked the courts to verify if Paris's words are true. And that implies, although it depends on the judge, a new raid on the faculty that Sánchez directs. In other words, a new questioning of the willingness to collaborate that they assured they had in a public statement issued this Tuesday.

Source: El Mostrador, January 15, 2010

Frei Case: Judge sentenced those responsible for the assassination of the former President in 1982 to 10, 7, and 5 years

The investigation by magistrate Alejandro Madrid lasted 16 years.

Patricio Silva Garín was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime against the former President. The death of Eduardo Frei Montalva was a homicide, the judicial investigation concluded. Visiting Minister Alejandro Madrid sentenced Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín to 10 years of presidio mayor in its minimum degree , as the author of the homicide of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva. In a first-instance sentence, the judge also sentenced the former President's driver and informant for the Pinochet police, Luis Becerra Arancibia, and the CNI civilian agent, Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, to an effective sentence of seven years of presidio mayor in its minimum degree.

Doctor Pedro Valdivia Soto was also sentenced to an effective penalty of five years of presidio menor in its maximum degree for being an accomplice to the crime. See also Finally, the pathologists Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere were sentenced to three years of presidio menor in its medium degree, as accessories, which they may serve through conditional remission.

The ruling also questions the role of the current Undersecretary of Healthcare Networks, Luis Castillo, who, when he served as medical director of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Clinical Hospital, knew that the remains of the former President were in that health facility; however, he did not notify the family of this and only ordered them to wait for them to request the remains officially or judicially.

Lawyer Luciano Fouillioux, a plaintiff in the Frei case, explained to Cooperativa that although they have only "digested" the conclusions of the sentence, due to its length exceeding 800 pages, "it is an extraordinarily important ruling for Justice and for democracy." The professional added that the subsequent cover-up of this magnicide was necessary, "because the magnitude of the event was not measured on its merits, just as it was not measured in the case of General Prats, Foreign Minister Letelier, or the attack on Bernardo Leighton, etc.

It was a culture of doing things, of self-defense." Furthermore, he highlighted that this case constitutes the first magnicide in Chile. "It constitutes an unprecedented event, the effective configuration of a magnicide.

Today, for the country's history, it is established that Frei Montalva was assassinated. The violation of the President's inner circle, both by his driver and by his former undersecretary, plus their collusion with the State agents who participated in this operation, other doctors, particularly, and informant agents have allowed the veracity of the facts to be configured," he added.

Source: cooperativa.cl, January 30, 2019

Supreme Court rules out homicide of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva and confirms acquittal of those convicted

The Supreme Court issued a final judgment in the investigation into the death of the former President of the Republic, Eduardo Frei Montalva, which occurred on January 25, 1982, at the Clínica Santa María in Santiago.

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled out the homicide of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, who died on January 25, 1982, at the Clínica Santa María in Santiago. In 2019, Judge Alejandro Madrid sentenced Dr.

Patricio Silva Garín as the author of the homicide of the Christian Democrat. Likewise, five other people were found guilty as co-authors, accomplices, and accessories to the event that occurred in 1982.

However, the Santiago Court of Appeals acquitted all those involved in 2021. In that sense, the Frei Montalva family intended to challenge this last sentence. Now, in the ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and María Teresa Letelier—partially accepted the cassation appeals only in the part where it ruled on the acquittals of Patricio Silva Garín, Helmar Rosenberg Gómez, and Sergio González Bombardiere, who passed away during the processing of the case.

Furthermore, the ruling acquitted Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez and Luis Becerra Arancibia, convicted in the first instance as authors, and Pedro Valdivia Soto, convicted in the first instance as an accomplice.

In all other respects, the Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeals against the sentence that acquitted those convicted in the first instance, considering that there is no evidence to prove the homicide of the former head of state and possible maneuvers to hide his poisoning.

Death of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva It should be mentioned that yesterday, on the Mega program "Elegidos, 50 años en primera persona," Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle referred to the moments prior to his father's surgery. "With great emotion, I remember that before he headed to the clinic, I was with him in his office.

He insisted on everything that was happening and questioned his decision to have surgery in that place," the former head of state specified. He also stated that "I regret not having had the strength and conviction to convince my father to have surgery outside of Chile. It was a mistake."

Source: biobio.cl, August 18, 2023