Juan Humberto ALBORNOZ PRADO, 25 years old, and Hernán Fernando ALBORNOZ PRADO, 23 years old, both married and agricultural workers.

Juan Albornoz was detained on September 15, 1973, while he was working, by Carabineros officers accompanied by civilians. They placed him in the trunk of a car along with other detainees. Hernán Albornoz was detained along with his father by the same agents as he was arriving at his parents' house.

They were taken to the Paine Sub-Comisaría, where witnesses saw them being beaten, interrogated, and having their heads shaved.

The following day, several detainees were released, among them the father of the Albornoz Prado brothers, who remained at that Sub-Comisaría. Since then, the whereabouts of both remain unknown.

On March 5, 1979, a criminal complaint was filed for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against the officers who participated in the events. The case was dismissed in November 1981, a resolution that was ratified by the Court of Appeals on May 15, 1982.

Considering the background information, this Commission is convinced that the disappearance of both individuals was the responsibility of State agents, as their detentions and the subsequent loss of all information regarding their whereabouts while in the custody of their captors have been reliably proven.

The brothers Hernán Fernando and Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado, both married, agricultural workers, and union leaders, were detained on September 15, 1973, along with 4 other peasants, from the La Estrella settlement in the town of Huelquén, Paine.

The detention involved Carabineros from the Paine Sub-station and armed civilians. No official documentation was presented to justify the arrest. Subsequently, they were taken to the Sub-station, where all those affected were kept together.

Starting at 9:30 p.m. that day, the other peasants were released, but this did not happen for the Albornoz Prado brothers, whose whereabouts remain unknown; they remain to this day in the status of forcibly disappeared.

At approximately 3:00 p.m. on September 15, 1973, an operation began at the La Estrella settlement. Present at the scene were Sergeant Manuel Reyes Alvarez, Carabineros Angel Cabello González, Guillermo Oscar Fuentes, Sergio José Nilo Calderón, and Corporals Osvaldo Carrasco Jerez and Juan Enrique Zapata Flores.

Along with them were civilians Julio Emilio Tagle Román, a farmer and owner of the San Miguel estate; Rubén Darío González Gallardo, owner of a butcher shop; and a merchant with the surname Ramírez, all of whom were residents of Paine. They immediately began to detain peasants whose names appeared on a list carried by the captors.

This is how Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado, his father Juan Bernardo Albornoz Ramírez, his cousin Luis Enrique Albornoz Prado, and the peasants Isaías Lázaro Quintero Espinoza and Luis Antonio González Pinto were detained. Simultaneously, Hernán Fernando Albornoz Prado was detained while arriving at his parents' home.

The detainees were transported to the Paine Sub-station in private vehicles driven by the civilians. For this, they used a red Fiat, another white or cream-colored vehicle, a light blue one, and a truck.

Upon entering the Sub-station, they were kept in the guardroom, where they were stripped of their personal belongings and forced to remove their clothes, remaining only in their underwear. Their hair was also shorn, and they were then taken to a cell from which they were called out one by one to be subjected to interrogations accompanied by beatings and insults.

At approximately 9:30 p.m. that same day, Sergeant Raúl Reyes A. began ordering the release of the prisoners every 10 minutes. Those released had to return to their homes during curfew hours. Their homes were located in Huelquén, 12 km away from the sub-station.

The Albornoz Prado brothers were not released.

The following day, their respective spouses requested information at the Sub-station and were given contradictory answers. Some Carabineros said that the entire group had been released the previous night, while others replied that the detainees had been transferred to San Bernardo by a military patrol.

In case file 23853, initiated in the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters regarding the illegal arrest of the Albornoz Prado brothers, the four released peasants testified, confirming their arrests and their time spent as detainees at the Paine Sub-station alongside the Albornoz Prado brothers.

Civilians Julio Emilio Tagle Román and Rubén Darío González Gallardo were also summoned to testify. Both denied knowing the Albornoz Prado family and participating in any joint operation with the Carabineros. However, they acknowledged to the Court that they had provided their private vehicles to the Paine Carabineros after September 11, 1973.

In the same case, Sergeant Reyes was summoned to testify (June 4, 1975). He stated verbatim in one part: "many times we had to detain people who were specifically ordered by the military, who gave us the names and addresses, and we only went to those places, detained them, and immediately they were handed over to the military.

The names of the detainees were not recorded in any book, so no control was kept regarding this. Because of this, I cannot specify the destination of the brothers Hernán Fernando and Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado, whom I do not physically recognize, although I know their father.

If they remained detained at the Sub-station, they must have been taken by the Military from San Bernardo." Regarding the civilians, he declared: "Regarding the use of private vehicles and the fact that Carabineros were accompanied by civilians, I must say that at that time many civilians collaborated with the Carabineros by lending us their vehicles, and some drove their own cars, and apart from that, they had no other participation in police duties."

In case file 26036-2, investigated in the same Court regarding the kidnapping of Ramón Alfredo Capetillo Mora, which occurred in Paine on October 8, 1973, Lieutenant Colonel Nelson Juan Bravo Espinoza testified.

When informing the Court of the procedure followed in the arrests of the detainees, he contradicted what had been stated by his subordinate, Sergeant M. Reyes. Referring to the detention of Ramón A. Capetillo, Nelson Bravo said verbatim: "I must state to you that I know nothing personally, but in the event that he had been detained for any reason at the Paine Sub-station, which I cannot confirm as I do not personally know said person, it would have to be registered in the Unit's books, and if it does not appear there, it is impossible that he was detained at the Sub-station," and added, "I want to clarify to you that we did not carry out operations to detain any specific person or persons, since the operations were always in charge of the Military, who, whether they took detainees or not, did not pass through the Sub-station. In any case, I must state that we never acted together, always totally separately; furthermore, the orders the Carabineros had were for surveillance, since patrolling and detentions were in charge of the Army." (July 4, 1980).

In the complaint for the illegal arrest of the Albornoz Prado brothers, file 25614-2 of the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters, the Carabineros accused of participating in said arrest were summoned to testify.

Corporal Guillermo Oscar Fuentes Barrera declared on May 14, 1979, regarding Sergeant Reyes: "In Paine, Sergeant Reyes was the third-in-command, and his job was to monitor the people, his work, his organization." Another person accused in the events, Corporal Osvaldo Heriberto Carrasco Jerez, when questioned by the Court on October 19, 1979, stated: "I did indeed know Juan Bernardo Albornoz Ramírez, who lived at the La Estrella estate in Huelquén, and likewise his two sons, Juan and Hernán, who were leftist activist leaders, whom we had to monitor on different occasions so that no damage or serious consequences would occur, since they were in charge of mobilizing people and seizing properties in the area; in any case, I do not remember seeing their father acting in such events."

It is necessary to indicate at this point that in the possession of the Court, at the time Corporal Carrasco testified, there was already an Official Letter sent by Colonel Fernando Arancibia Reyes, Vice Director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), in which he reported regarding both brothers that, after reviewing the documentation of said Center, they did not have a record of political activity or membership in political parties, nor were there any arrest warrants of any kind against them.

In the same case (file 25614), Alejandro Bustos González, a peasant from the area who survived his execution, was summoned to testify. On September 17, 1973, he had presented himself at the Paine Sub-station after being informed by the President of the Paula Jaraquemada settlement (to which he belonged) that he was required at the police station.

For the same reason, peasants Raúl del Carmen Lazo Quinteros, Orlando Enrique Pereira Cancino, Pedro Luis Ramírez Torres, and Carlos Chavez Reyes presented themselves on that occasion. Bustos González declared to the Court that he had recognized Sergeants Víctor Sagredo and Manuel Reyes and Carabineros with the surnames Valenzuela and Ortiz at the Sub-station.

Upon entering the police station, he was stripped of his personal belongings and forced to undress, remaining only in his underwear. He was interrogated about alleged possession of weapons, and his negative answers were followed by punishments and death threats.

Subsequently, he was placed in a cell where he remained with other detainees, among them his 4 companions from the Paula Jaraquemada settlement. All had evident signs of having been severely punished. These five peasants were taken out of the cell at 1:00 a.m. on September 18 and loaded into a private green van that set off, accompanied by a small yellow vehicle owned by the Carrasco brothers, civilians from the area.

Joining the caravan were Francisco Luzoro, President of the Truckers' Union; Claudio Oregón, another local nicknamed "el relámpago"; and other civilians whose names are unknown. All of them were truckers affiliated with SIPRODUCAM (Professional Union of Truck Owners).

Among the uniformed men, Bustos González clearly identified Sergeant Manuel Reyes. The vehicles headed to the Collipeumo Estate, where the 5 peasants were ordered to get out of the vehicle. Bustos González recounted the moments that followed, which ended the lives of four of them, to the Court as follows: "Sergeant Reyes told us: 'Because you won't agree, because you won't tell the truth, this is as far as you go, we are going to kill you,' and he made us stand by the river.

Immediately after, the Carabineros discharged their weapons against us, as in an execution squad. I received a bullet impact in my left arm; beside me, I felt the other people fall; I don't remember who was immediately next to me; I fell backward; Carlos Chávez fell on top of me, wounded.

Then the police and civilians approached our bodies; I had blood on my face; the wound on my arm was bleeding a lot, and my left arm was practically bent toward my back. Between Sergeant Reyes and the civilian Carrasco, they grabbed me by the head and another by the feet, and exclaiming 'this one is ready,' they proceeded to throw me into the river waters.

I fell violently into the current; the water carried my body; as best I could, I grabbed onto some willow roots with my right hand. While there, in a whirlpool of the waters, Orlando Pereira was floating, still alive.

He begged me to help him; I couldn't do it because I risked being dragged by the current. The current threw both of us to the riverbank; Pereira was still alive, presenting seven or eight bullet impacts in his chest; he was bleeding profusely. He perished a few minutes later, having asked before that I tell his wife to take care of themselves."

The lifeless bodies of these 4 peasants were recovered by their relatives after they were informed of their executions by Alejandro Bustos González. Their deaths were registered in the Civil Registry, and their bodies were buried in the Paine Cemetery in September 1973.

The names of Juan Humberto and Hernán Fernando Albornoz Prado appeared in the Report that the Chilean government delivered in 1975 to the United Nations at its 30th Session, the purpose of which was to account for the human rights situation in Chile.

Indeed, a list of 63 people "alleged to be forcibly disappeared" was annexed to said report, and regarding whom the government declared that there was information in the Legal Medical Institute that they were deceased persons.

Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado appeared with autopsy protocol No. 2551, date of death September 16, 1973, at 10:00 p.m., while Hernán Fernando Albornoz Prado appeared with protocol 2545, date of death September 15, 1973, at 1:30 p.m.

It should be noted that in case 240051, whose investigation was in charge of the Extraordinary Visiting Minister Juan Rivas L. and in which an attempt was made to clarify the disappearance of 23 peasants from Paine, it was established that said list presented by the Military Government to the United Nations was false.

There were doubts about the authenticity of the signature consigned on it and attributed to Dr. Vargas, who at the time of the investigation was deceased. Likewise, it was established that the stamp that appeared on the report did not correspond to the one used by the Directorate of the Legal Medical Institute.

On the other hand, Visiting Minister Rivas, after studying the 63 autopsy protocols attributed to forcibly disappeared persons, had concluded that they corresponded to people who died from bullet impacts after September 11, 1973, and whose identity had not been possible to establish because the bodies lacked epidermis on their hands; for this reason, their remains had been registered as N.N. (John/Jane Doe) without existing subsequent identifications.

Thus, the existence of an official recognition of their death was discarded, maintaining in both cases their status as Forcibly Disappeared.

The detentions and subsequent disappearances of the Albornoz Prado brothers are framed within what was the repression in Paine in 1973.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

The first efforts to locate the whereabouts of the Albornoz Prado brothers were carried out by their relatives, who personally went to the detention centers in Paine, Buin, San Bernardo, and Santiago; they also held interviews with representatives of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense.

In all of them, the results were negative. They did not obtain recognition of their arrests, nor could they establish what happened to them after their detentions. Faced with such results, both families initiated separate complaints before the Courts of Justice.

Sara Duarte, spouse of Hernán Fernando Albornoz Prado, filed an Amparo (habeas corpus) appeal on December 4, 1974, before the Rancagua Court of Appeals in favor of her husband (file 13363). Said Court requested information from the Ministry of the Interior in order to gather information on any administrative order that might have been issued by that Ministry and that affected the detainee.

In similar terms, it requested reports from the Ministry of National Defense and requested reports from the Paine Carabineros. All responses were negative. None of them had any record of an order affecting the person under protection.

With this information, the Court resolved on December 9, 1974, to dismiss the amparo appeal. Without prejudice to the above, it resolved to request the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters to initiate the corresponding summary investigation and to investigate the veracity of what was stated by the complainant and, if affirmative, the identity of the "alleged officials who acted in these events, pursuing the corresponding responsibilities." In this way, case file 23853 was initiated, with the investigating judge ordering the Legal Medical Institute to report to the Court on the entry of the detainee's body starting from September 15, 1973. The response from this Institute was also negative. His name was not found registered in the indices of body entries or protocols performed between September 15, 1973, and December 27, 1974.

The Court also ordered the Investigative Police to investigate in order to try to find the whereabouts of Albornoz Prado. In its report, it stated that it had gone to the Paine Sub-station, where it obtained from Captain Víctor Hugo Moya Rivera the information that the detention of Albornoz Prado did not appear in the detention books of the indicated date.

A similar response had been received when requesting information at the San Bernardo Infantry School.

Three months after the start of the process, the detainee's father, Mr. Juan Bernardo Albornoz Prado, filed a Criminal Complaint for the alleged crime of Illegal Deprivation of Liberty committed against his sons Hernán Fernando and Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado. For the latter, his wife Olga Lizama Calderón had filed an Amparo appeal in which the Rancagua Court of Appeals had resolved "no grounds."

The complaint was accumulated into case 23853 on August 17, 1975.

The 4 peasants who had been arrested along with the Albornoz Prado brothers testified before the Investigating Judge, confirming the facts. For their part, the civilians implicated in the illegal arrest, as well as Sergeant Manuel Reyes, testified denying any participation.

Despite the state of the case, the judge decided to close the summary and dismiss the process on June 25, 1975. This resolution was approved by the Rancagua Court of Appeals on July 30, 1975, ordering its archiving.

On March 2, 1979, and with the situation of the detainees having not changed, a Complaint for the Kidnapping of the Albornoz Prado brothers was again filed before the same Court. The action was directed against the people who had participated in the kidnapping and who were identified.

Judge Fernando Montenegro A. was in charge of process file 25614-2. The investigation carried out by Judge Montenegro did not achieve progress.

The San Bernardo Infantry School, International Police, National Intelligence Center, Civil Registry Directorate, General Cemetery Directorate, and Legal Medical Institute responded negatively. The plaintiff requested that the process be accumulated into case 24005, as they were events of the same nature committed within the jurisdiction of the same Court, because the same people were implicated in most of the cases, and because these events had been carried out within the same brief space of time.

Faced with such a request, and with case 240051 temporarily under consultation by another Court, its resolution was postponed indefinitely.

For its part, the Rancagua Prefecture of Investigations delivered reports regarding the investigations carried out by them regarding this process. In said report, along with reproducing the statements of the relatives of the affected persons, it was pointed out to the Court that there were numerous people who, after September 11, 1973, had filed Complaints for Presumed Misfortune regarding relatives of disappeared persons who had been detained in operations by Carabineros and/or Military, according to the statements of the complainants themselves, and that all of them were being investigated through simple decrees. By virtue of this, the Prefecture of Investigations requested the Investigating Judge of the case for a warrant that would grant it broad powers of investigation, search, breaking and entering, seizure of documents, and the apprehension of those who resulted as responsible for the disappearance of these people. In addition, Investigations accompanied a list of cases under investigation in that same Court for presumed misfortunes, regarding whose persons nothing was known to date (May 31, 1979), and in which, according to the complainants' own statements, Carabineros or Military had participated. These were processes No. 23802 dated October 24, 1974; case 23847 dated December 13, 1974; case 24005 dated June 2, 1975; and case 25245-3 dated April 25, 1978, all of which had been duly reported and returned without results to that court. The judge did not take a resolution regarding such information. The plaintiff also provided important information that demonstrated the joint participation of civilians and Carabineros in the crimes of kidnapping and homicide. The peasant Alejandro del C. Bustos González, who survived his execution, was presented to the Court. He provided the names of each of those implicated in the execution of 4 peasants on that occasion when he came out alive. Civilians Juan Francisco Luzoro Montenegro, head of the Truck Owners' Union in the Santiago Province, and Mario Emilio Tagle Román had to testify before the Court. Sergeant Reyes also had to testify for his participation in the events. Upon these people denying any participation and knowledge of the events, the plaintiff requested that they be confronted with the survivor Alejandro Bustos González. In the confrontations carried out in 1981, each one maintained their statements. In November 1981, the judge declared the summary closed and resolved to temporarily dismiss the case, "the perpetration of the crime that gave rise to the formation of the case not being completely justified in the records."

The cases of Hernán Fernando and Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado are recorded in case 290E, which is being investigated by Visiting Minister Germán Hermosilla by resolution of the President Aguirre Cerda Court of Appeals, and in which a complaint for illegal burials that occurred in Paine in 1985 was accepted for processing.

At the close of this writing (late 1992), no new information regarding these two detainees had been produced in said case.

The information on the Albornoz Prado brothers is also included in case file 4449-AF, which is being investigated by the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago and which was initiated on August 22, 1991, following the filing of a complaint for the crimes of illegal burials of forcibly disappeared persons who currently remain buried as N.N. in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of Santiago.

Both complaints were formulated by the Vicariate of Solidarity of the Archbishopric of Santiago.

In September 1991, the investigating judge ordered the exhumation of 125 bodies buried in 108 graves. At the close of this writing, the remains are at the Legal Medical Institute, and work is underway on their identification.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity