Eight former agents of the repressive agency were prosecuted yesterday as co-authors of the crime of aggravated kidnapping perpetrated against five members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) in September 1987.

Eight slots at the Army Telecommunications Command in Peñalolén were designated for an equal number of former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) who were prosecuted—as authors of aggravated kidnapping—by investigating judge Mario Carroza in the case known as the five disappeared of '87.

This emblematic case relates to the final disappearances carried out during the dictatorship, which ended with the members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) kidnapped, killed, and thrown into the sea (tied to railway sleepers) at the hands of members of the repressive agencies and the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE).

The events occurred within the framework of the kidnapping of Colonel Carlos Carreño Barrera. As established by the judge, between September 9 and 10, Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola were detained without a judicial warrant.

They were members of the FPMR and were selected from institutional files to be used in a prisoner exchange for the kidnapped Carreño. During those days, according to the indictment, they were held at the Cuartel Borgoño, only to be eliminated once the officer appeared in Brazil.

Following that episode, an operation was initiated to transport the bodies to the Fuerte de Peldehue, from where they were transported by helicopter and thrown into the waters off the coast of Quintay, tied to railway sleepers to prevent them from surfacing.

The ruling highlights that after compiling a large amount of evidence, it is reasonable to think that "these bodies correspond to the kidnapped persons, who, having been thrown into the sea, were not identified." The case recognizes that individuals from different departments participated in an operation that involved "different stages," such as detention, confinement, interrogation in the interval prior to their death, and the transport of their bodies to the depths of the sea.

Those charged are Gonzalo Maas del Valle, Heraldo Velozo Gallegos, Sergio Mateluna Pino, Roberto Rodríguez Manquel, José Fuentes Cortez, Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa, Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, and Patricio Leonidas González.

In conjunction with the prosecution, Judge Carroza ordered their entry into the Army Telecommunications Command, where they must remain for the duration of the investigation.

Source: lanacion.cl, April 9, 2008

6 CNI agents prosecuted for attempted homicide by explosives in May 1984

This Monday, January 18, the extraordinary investigating judge for human rights violations cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, issued an indictment against six former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the crime of frustrated aggravated homicide of Héctor Enrique Muñoz Morales, perpetrated in May 1984 on Cerro San Cristóbal, in the Metropolitan Region.

In the resolution (case file 238-2010), the investigating judge charged the following as co-authors of the crime: former Army Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, alias "Faraón"; former Army Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, alias "El Piscola"; former Army Captain Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, alias "El Huiro"; and former civilian Army agents Patricio Leonidas González Cortez, alias "El Gigio"; Luis René Torres Méndez, alias "Negro Mario"; and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, alias "El Suave." All of those prosecuted were agents of the CNI's Brigada Azul. During the investigation phase, Judge Carroza was able to determine the following facts: "On May 17, 1984, between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM, while Héctor Muñoz Morales, a militant of the MIR, and his partner María Loreto Castillo were returning to their home located in the Pedro Aguirre Cerda commune, Población Dávila, after having gone to buy food, they were intercepted on a public street by operational agents of the Brigada Azul of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) who were traveling in at least two vehicles. After subduing them using firearms, they were loaded into a van, blindfolded, and taken to the institution's Cuartel Borgoño, where they were beaten and interrogated for several hours, until a moment when they were taken to another point in Santiago, still blindfolded, near the La Pirámide sector of Cerro San Cristóbal, where they were separated. On that occasion, Héctor Muñoz Morales was repeatedly beaten by CNI agents on the head, losing consciousness. He awoke moments later surrounded by explosives that failed to detonate, managing to flee the scene to a medical center where he was able to recover and report what had happened. It is necessary to indicate—the resolution states—that Héctor Muñoz Morales was being followed and watched that day and on previous days by agents of the CNI's Brigada Azul, who knew his routine and his movements." The act constitutes the crime of frustrated aggravated homicide, the ruling concludes. Days later, Héctor Muñoz Morales, accompanied by lawyers from the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, made a public denunciation of the event, as well as the murder of his partner. María Loreto Castillo Muñoz had also managed to break free and flee the place where they tried to blow her up along with Héctor, but she was almost immediately recaptured by the henchmen, who took her to another place and this time succeeded in carrying out the treacherous crime. María Loreto was found the next day in the Pudahuel commune, next to some high-voltage towers, where she was murdered by the CNI agents using another explosive device. At the same time, Jorge Eduardo Muñoz Navarro, another MIR member detained on the same date, who also remained at the Cuartel Borgoño along with the couple, was taken to another location in the Renca commune where he was also murdered, next to a high-voltage line, staging a false shootout to cover up the crime. Last June, Judge Carroza prosecuted these same individuals as authors of the aggravated homicide of María Loreto Castillo Muñoz, and Álvaro Julio Corbalán Castilla, Fernando Rafael Rojas Tapia, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, and Rafael Primitivo Salas Cataldo as authors of the aggravated homicide of Jorge Muñoz Navarro. The farces of false shootouts and the treacherous bomb crimes committed by the dictatorship's repressive agents are gradually being unveiled by the justice system, and despite the cover-ups, pressures, and maneuvers of impunity, the truth is finally prevailing.

Source: resumen.cl, January 20, 2016

20 former CNI agents convicted for 1983 Calle Fuenteovejuna crimes

The extraordinary investigating judge for human rights violations cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinoza, issued a sentence against 20 former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the aggravated homicides of former militants and leaders of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela, Arturo Vilavella Araujo, and Sergio Peña Díaz, crimes perpetrated on September 7, 1983, on Calle Fuenteovejuna in the Las Condes commune.

The event was an episode of a false shootout with which the CNI and the dictatorship attempted to hide crimes and murders, with the active complicity of the corporate press. In the ruling (case file 539-2011), Judge Carroza sentenced former Army Brigadier Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, former head of the CNI's Metropolitan Division, to 15 years and one day in prison as the author of the aggravated homicides.

Meanwhile, former Army officers Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, alias "Caracha," former head of the Brigada Azul at the time of the crimes; Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, former head of the CNI's anti-subversive division; Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, alias "Gorilón," former member of the Special Brigade; and former civilian Army employee Manuel Mariano Ventura Laureada Núñez, alias "Piolín," also an agent of the Special Brigade, were sentenced to 10 years and one day as authors of the crimes.

In the case, former Army officer and Schmied Zanzi's second-in-command in the Metropolitan Division, Sergio María Canals Baldwin, and former agents Juan José Pastene Osses, Patricio Leonidas González Cortez, Luis René Torres Méndez, Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Sergio Daniel Valenzuela Morales, Juan Modesto Olivares Carrizo, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza, Luis Eduardo Burgos Cofré, Raúl Horacio González Fernández, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, and Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa were sentenced to 3 years and one day in prison, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, as accomplices. Meanwhile, former Special Brigade agent Egon Antonio Barra Barra, alias "Siete Fachas," was acquitted of participation in this episode (the group in which he participated was simultaneously committing other crimes on Calle Janequeo). Brigada Azul During the investigation phase of the case, Judge Mario Carroza was able to establish that, after the assassination of the Intendant of the Metropolitan Region Carol Urzúa Ibañez, committed on August 30, 1983, the director of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), Humberto Gordon Rubio (deceased), ordered the Metropolitan Anti-Subversive Division, under the command of Roberto Schmied Zanzi, to form a new group: the Brigada Azul, to investigate the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). In this context, on the morning of September 7, 1983, the detention of MIR members who were in the property at Fuenteovejuna 1330, which had been previously located, was ordered. A considerable number of agents were sent to this location in the afternoon under the command of Álvaro Corbalán Castilla (commander of the Metropolitan Anti-Subversive Brigade) and Aquiles González Cortés (head of the Brigada Azul). "In the initial actions, the agents installed a fire base in front of the property, consisting of a 7.62 mm Rheinmetal machine gun mounted on the roof of a jeep, which was driven on that occasion by Manuel Ventura Laureada Núñez, and the weapon was operated by at least two people: one who fired, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and the other in charge of passing the ammunition belt, with a firing capacity of 10 rounds per short burst and a full firing capacity of 500 rounds per minute, with tracer bullets," the ruling states.

The resolution adds that

"Once the fire base was in position, the officer in command ordered it to be aimed and fired at the property for about a minute, that is, about 500 rounds; then they stopped their action and, using loudspeakers, ordered the occupants of the property to surrender." "One of them," it continues, "Sergio Peña Díaz, decided to surrender and walked out with his hands behind his neck, but as he walked toward the agents, they shot him, and his wounds caused his death, which incited the reaction of the only woman in the group, who confronted them with a weapon; faced with this reaction, Álvaro Corbalán again gave the order to fire the fire base in the direction of the property, which caused not only the death of Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela from gunshot wounds, but also the burning of the house and the incineration of the third member of the movement, Arturo Vilavella Araujo." On the same day, September 7, 1983, the CNI carried out a simultaneous operation on Calle Janequeo, in Quinta Normal, where two other MIR militants were executed. This episode, however, is being substantiated in a separate case and by a different investigating judge.

Source: resumen.cl, January 18, 2018

Judge Mario Carroza convicts former CNI agents

The extraordinary investigating judge for human rights violations cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, issued a sentence against 20 former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the aggravated homicides of Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela, Arturo Vilavella Araujo, and Sergio Peña Díaz, crimes perpetrated on September 7, 1983, on Calle Fuenteovejuna in the Las Condes commune.

In the ruling, Judge Carroza sentenced Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi to 15 years and one day in prison as the author of the aggravated homicides. Meanwhile, Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and Manuel Ventura Laureada Núñez must serve 10 years and one day as authors of the crimes.

In the case, former CNI members Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Juan José Pastene Osses, Patricio Leonidas González Cortez, Luis René Torres Méndez, Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Sergio Daniel Valenzuela Morales, Juan Modesto Olivares Carrizo, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza, Luis Eduardo Burgos Cofré, Raúl Horacio González Fernández, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, and Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa were sentenced to 3 years and one day in prison, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, as accomplices.

Meanwhile, former agent Egon Antonio Barra Barra was acquitted. Brigada Azul During the investigation phase of the case, Judge Mario Carroza was able to establish that, after the assassination of the Intendant of the Metropolitan Region Carol Urzúa Ibáñez, committed on August 30, 1983, the director of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), Humberto Gordon Rubio (deceased), ordered the Metropolitan Anti-Subversive Division, under the command of Roberto Schmied Zanzi, to form a new group: the Brigada Azul, to investigate the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR).

In this context, on the morning of September 7, 1983, the detention of MIR members who were in the property at Fuenteovejuna 1330, which had been previously located, was ordered. A considerable number of agents were sent to this location in the afternoon under the command of Álvaro Corbalán Castilla (commander of the Metropolitan Anti-Subversive Brigade) and Aquiles González Cortés (head of the Brigada Azul).

The resolution adds: "Once the fire base was in position, the officer in command ordered it to be aimed and fired at the property for about a minute, that is, about 500 rounds; then they stopped their action and, using loudspeakers, ordered the occupants of the property to surrender." "One of them," it continues, "Sergio Peña Díaz, decided to surrender and walked out with his hands behind his neck, but as he walked toward the agents, they shot him, and his wounds caused his death, which incited the reaction of the only woman in the group, who confronted them with a weapon; faced with this reaction, Álvaro Corbalán again gave the order to fire the fire base in the direction of the property, which caused not only the death of Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela from gunshot wounds, but also the burning of the house and the incineration of the third member of the movement, Arturo Vilavella Araujo." In the civil aspect, the judge ordered the state to pay a total compensation of $335,000,000 to the victims' families.

Source: elciudadano.cl, January 18, 2018