Address: Avda. Forestal 5806, Block 1, Depto. 5, Población El Cortijo, Quilicura commune, Santiago Marital Status: Married Occupation: Merchant Political Affiliation: Member of the Communist Party, former Sectional Leader of Conchalí, former Secretary of the Chamber of Deputies. Date of Detention: June 7, 1977

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Hernán Soto Gálvez, married, father of 8 children, a communist militant, footwear merchant, and former secretary of the Chamber of Deputies between 1964 and 1972, left his home on June 7, 1977, around 16:20 hours to carry out his usual work, stating that he was heading to run errands in the Gran Avenida sector. At the moment of his departure, he was carrying his usual suitcase and shoeboxes.

The victim—a man of very rigorous habits—was accustomed to returning home around 21:00 hours. However, on that day, June 7, he did not return.

His spouse, Graciela Salinas Moreira, began taking steps to locate his whereabouts. She inquired at aid stations, hospitals, the Legal Medical Institute, prisons, and the Investigations police.

Seeing that these efforts yielded no results, she proceeded to make inquiries in various sectors where her husband delivered footwear.

In this way, she managed to establish—through information from a witness—that he had been detained on June 7 at the intersection of Séptima Avenida and Gran Avenida José Miguel Carrera. The captors were approximately 3 civilians.

The witness's version is that, as the victim was walking through the intersection of said streets, a black vehicle without license plates pulled up beside him. Two people got out, one of whom proceeded to hold him at gunpoint while the other took his suitcase and shoeboxes. They then forced him into the vehicle and drove off toward an unknown location.

Approximately 18 months before his disappearance, he was sought at his home by unknown individuals who, upon finding him absent, proceeded to interrogate his spouse about his whereabouts and activities. On that occasion, the victim was not at home due to family reasons. From that moment on, he began to see his personal freedom threatened.

Despite the multiple efforts made by his family from the moment of his disappearance, no information was ever obtained that could clarify the fate of the victim.

According to information held by the Rettig Report, his situation is closely related to the case of the triple disappearance of communist militants in Buenos Aires—Ricardo Ramírez, Héctor Velásquez, and Alexei Jaccard—as a consequence of a DINA operation in Buenos Aires, in which agents found the victim's name listed as a "financial liaison for the Communist Party between Argentina and Chile."

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On June 9, 1977, his spouse filed a Writ of Amparo (Habeas Corpus) with the Court of Appeals, which was registered under No. 301-77. During the processing of this writ, the Ministry of the Interior responded via Official Letter 1956, dated June 15, 1977, stating that they had no record of the person in question, "nor has any resolution been issued or is pending that would affect him." Furthermore, urgent reports were requested from the Ministry of the Interior, the Director General of Investigations, the General Prefecture of Carabineros, and the Director of the DINA; the Court of Appeals only accepted the first of the requested measures.

During the proceedings, another document was submitted, providing new information related to the version of the witness who saw the detention. On June 25, the Writ of Amparo was rejected, and this ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court on the 28th of the same month.

The resolution stated "that without prejudice to what has been resolved, this file should be sent to the corresponding Criminal Judge, so that a summary investigation may be initiated into the possible commission of a crime regarding the disappearance of the aforementioned Soto Gálvez."

The records were sent to the 3rd Criminal Court; the judge, for reasons of jurisdiction, sent the records to the 4th Criminal Court of San Miguel on July 20, 1977. Seven days later, the judge of the latter court, for reasons of territorial jurisdiction, also declared himself incompetent and sent the records to the 1st Criminal Court of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Department.

The latter accepted jurisdiction on the 18th and ordered a summary investigation, sending official letters to the Ministry of the Interior, the General Prefecture of Carabineros, and the DINA, "requesting they report if they have issued an arrest warrant against Hernán Soto." This case was registered under No. 45942-1.

Investigations, Carabineros, and the Ministry of the Interior all responded that they had no information on the victim. All these responses were received within the first month of the processing of this case.

Likewise, a broad order to investigate was given to the Investigations Police, which did not achieve favorable results regarding his whereabouts. This report was sent to the Court on August 31, 1977.

Parallel to these proceedings, on July 11, 1977, his spouse filed a complaint for kidnapping with the 1st Criminal Court of San Miguel, which was registered under No. 45847-11.

Upon initiating the case, the Court requested reports from the Ministry of the Interior, Investigations, and the Legal Medical Institute.

On July 28, the Minister of the Interior, Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar, responded that that Secretariat of State possessed no information. In turn, the Legal Medical Institute provided a negative report.

Two months after the disappearance, the complainant requested a series of measures, given the lack of progress in the judicial investigation. This request was granted by the Judge.

Thus, the Court received responses from the Warden of the Santiago Penitentiary, the Public Jail, the Ministry of the Interior, and the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), all of whom stated that Hernán Soto was not registered, nor was there any information about him.

On September 14, 1977, cases 45847 and 45942 were consolidated for joint processing.

Faced with a new document from the complainant, official letters were dispatched to and received from the Military Prosecutor's Offices, the Aviation Court, the Directorate of Investigations, and International Police. Once again, the responses yielded no results regarding the victim's whereabouts.

Given reports appearing in the press stating "that the Government released a list of supposedly disappeared persons who have been located at their respective homes or have left the country" and that 1,200 cases of disappeared persons were allegedly resolved, on December 30, 1977, the complainant requested that the Minister Secretary General of Government be officially asked to provide the Court with all information in his possession regarding the situation of Hernán Soto.

In February 1988, the Minister Secretary General of Government, René Vidal Basaure, returned the official letter to the judge because "the requested information is not within the competence of this General Secretariat."

On February 28, the summary was declared closed and case No. 45847-11 was temporarily dismissed; this resolution was approved by the Court of Appeals on March 25, 1988.

On September 29, 1978, the reopening of the summary was requested, following the Supreme Court resolution dated June 27, 1978, in which "the zeal and diligence in the instruction of the processes for disappearance is manifested to the Criminal judges..." and due to the evidence of the victim's disappearance.

Without prejudice to the status of the case, the judge decided to send official letters to the Identification Cabinet, the Foreigners Department of Investigations, and the Private Employees Fund; these letters were answered without providing new information in the investigation regarding the location of the victims. The case was filed away again.

In addition to the judicial actions mentioned above, his spouse also carried out multiple other administrative and reporting efforts; among them, she went to the Ministry of the Interior and reported the case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, so that it might intercede on her behalf before the Government of Chile.

Despite all this, to this day, nothing has been known about the fate of Hernán Soto Gálvez.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The Santiago Court of Appeals increased the sentences to be served by 22 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the qualified kidnappings of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, Julio Valladares Caroca, Juan Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Luis Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Velásquez Mardones, and the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce—crimes perpetrated within the framework of the so-called "Operation Condor," a cooperation agreement between the repressive groups of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay in the 1970s.

In the ruling (roll 4.545-2019), the Eleventh Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Jessica González, Loreto Gutiérrez, and Jaime Balmaceda—modified the sentences of the lower court and increased the criminal sanctions for the former agents involved in the crimes committed both in Chile and abroad.

1) Agents Cristoph Willike Floel and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann must serve a 20-year prison sentence as authors of the qualified kidnappings of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, Julio Valladares Caroca, Juan Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Luis Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Velásquez Mardones, and a 20-year sentence as authors of the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

2) Agent Juan Morales Salgado was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the qualified kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones, and 20 years in prison for the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, and Matilde Pessa Mois.

3) Meanwhile, agent Pedro Espinoza Bravo must serve a 20-year prison sentence for the qualified kidnappings of Julio Valladares Caroca, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and a 20-year prison sentence for the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

4) Jorge Escobar Fuentes, Federico Chaigneau Sepúlveda, and Miguel Riveros Valderrama will serve 18-year prison sentences for the kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and 18-year prison sentences for the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

5) Agent Gladys Calderón Carreño was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison for the qualified kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and 15 years and one day in prison for the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

6) Agents Jaime Ojeda Obando and Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme will serve 5 years and one day in prison for the qualified kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and 10 years and one day in prison for the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, and Matilde Pessa Mois.

7) Miguel Krasnoff Martchenko and Gerardo Godoy García will serve 15 years and one day in prison for the qualified kidnapping of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón.

8) Agent Hermon Alfaro Mundaca was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the qualified kidnapping of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón. The same sentence for the same crime was given to José Fuentes Torres, Jorge Andrade Gómez, José Aravena Ruiz, Luis Torres Méndez, María Gabriela Órdenes Montecinos, Osvaldo Pulgar Gallardo, and Rodolfo Concha Rodríguez, who had been acquitted in the first-instance ruling.

9) Finally, Jerónimo Neira Méndez and Manuel Rivas Díaz must serve 3 years and one day in prison for the qualified kidnapping of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón.

The Court shared the first-instance criterion regarding the participation of those convicted in the case, as there were real and proven facts regarding their participation in the events, whether as inducing authors or direct authors of the crimes attributed to each one.

"Regarding the sentences and, specifically, in relation to those accused whose participation was classified as co-authorship, the Court agrees with the conclusion reached by the first-instance judge, in that with the information gathered during the investigation, it is possible to construct various judicial presumptions that, by meeting the requirements of being based on real and proven facts, being multiple, serious, precise, direct, and concordant, are sufficient to maintain with conviction that the accused Cristoph Georg Willeke Floel, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Jorge Marcelo Escobar Fuentes, Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Miguel René Riveros Valderrama, Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño, Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Eduardo Alejandro Oyarce Riquelme, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, and Orlando José Manzo Durán had intervention in the capacity of co-authors, in the terms of Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of Article 15 of the Penal Code, as specified in each case, of the repeated crimes of qualified kidnapping of Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez, Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones, and of qualified homicide of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce," the ruling states.

It adds: "Indeed, in the case of those who were part of the Exterior Department of the National Intelligence Directorate—Willeke Floel, Iturriaga Neumann, and Espinoza Bravo—in the 28th, 29th, 31st, 32nd, 34th, and 35th foundations, all the evidentiary background on which the charges are based is exposed one by one, and it is correctly concluded that the form of authorship that applies to each of them is that of No. 1 of Article 15 of the Penal Code for the first of those named, having taken part in the execution of the acts immediately and directly, and of No. 2 in relation to the remaining two, as it was demonstrated that they forced or directly induced others to execute them.

The same applies to the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate who were part of the so-called Lautaro Brigade, which operated in the barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8.630 in the commune of La Reina, in relation to the qualified kidnappings of the victims Jaccard Siegler and Velásquez Mardones and the qualified homicides of the victims Ramírez Herrera, Stoulman Bortnik, and Pessa Mois, that is, the convicted Valdebenito Araya, Morales Salgado, Oyarce Riquelme, and Ojeda Obando; and the sentenced Calderón Carreño, Riveros Valderrama, Chaigneau Sepúlveda, and Escobar Fuentes in these same crimes and also in the qualified homicides of the victims Soto Gálvez and Correa Arce.

The 37th, 39th, 44th, and 54th foundations, regarding the first four, and the 42nd, 47th, 50th, and 52nd motives, in relation to the remaining four, give a detailed account of the background according to which it is possible to deduce with certainty that at the time of the events, these accused were part, as operational agents, of the brigade of the National Intelligence Directorate that carried out the kidnapping of Communist Party militants, among whose members were the people just named, in such a way that, despite some of them not remembering their specific names, it is indisputable to conclude, just as the a quo does, that they took part in their illegitimate deprivation of liberty, in some cases, and their homicide, in others, whether immediately and directly, or by forcing or directly inducing others to execute these acts, in the manner provided for in the cited Nos. 1 and 2 of the cited Article 15 and that, therefore, they are punishable co-authors of these crimes.

In turn, the accused Godoy García and Krassnoff Martchenko, agents of the National Intelligence Directorate assigned to the so-called Terranova Barracks or Villa Grimaldi and convicted for the qualified kidnapping of the victim Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, are also authors in the terms of No. 1 of the same Article 15, as heads of operational groups—Tucán and Halcón respectively—in charge of the dismantling of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) through the kidnapping and homicide of its members, one of whom was the aforementioned Fuentes Alarcón, who, as stated, was illegitimately deprived of liberty in the town of Enramada in the Republic of Paraguay and transferred first to Cuatro Álamos and then to Villa Grimaldi, the latter place being where, according to numerous evidence reviewed in the first-instance ruling, he was interrogated and subjected to torture to obtain information about the organization in which he was a militant, activities in which the heads of the aforementioned operational groups evidently had to participate, which also abundant evidence indicates they directed these interrogations. In these capacities as direct interrogators or indirect custodians of a person who, after being kidnapped, was kept deprived of liberty in Villa Grimaldi, it cannot but be concluded that, as in the previous cases, despite not remembering the specific name of the victim Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, the accused Godoy García and Krassnoff Martchenko took part in his kidnapping immediately and directly in the manner provided for in No. 1 of Article 15 of the Penal Code."

Civil Reparations

In the civil aspect, the amounts of compensation for some of the victims' families were modified, and two new reparatory measures requested by the spouse of Alexei Jaccard Siegler were accepted: ordering the State to allocate the sum of $15,000,000 so that, through the Ministry of Education, books on the subject of Human Rights can be acquired, which must be delivered equitably to all public schools in the commune of Chiguayante, and that a plaque be installed in a visible place in the libraries of each of them, informing of the existence of such books and that they were delivered in memory of Alexei Jaccard Siegler, a victim of human rights violations during the military dictatorship.

In addition, the State of Chile must deliver $75,000,000 to the University of Concepción so that it can institute the "Alexei Jaccard Siegler" award, which will be granted annually to a regular student of that institution who develops research on the subject of Human Rights, in the context of their studies at the University of Concepción, and which will amount to the equivalent in pesos of 100 Unidades de Fomento, with the University itself having to regulate the requirements, prerequisites, and conditions of the work.

The Facts In the investigation stage, Minister Mario Carroza established: -That as a result of the events that occurred in the country on September 11, 1973, the Military Government formally instituted on November 25, 1975, in a meeting held in the city of Santiago, Chile, a plan for the coordination of actions and mutual support between the leaders of the intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile, intended to destabilize opponents of the regimes assumed by the Armed Forces and Order; -That this link generated in a state-led and immediate manner a reality that had already been forged in concrete actions between the aforementioned countries, that is, surveillance, detentions, interrogations under torture, transfer between countries, disappearance, or execution of people opposed to the de facto instituted governments; -The previous scenario would have allowed cases such as those indicated below to be consummated: -That on May 17, 1975, Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was detained in the Republic of Paraguay, in the town of Enramada, and then transferred to the city of Asunción, where he remained deprived of liberty until September 23, 1975, when his transfer to Chile by air was defined in a clandestine manner by DINA agents, who, once in the country, took him to the secret detention and torture centers that this organization maintained, that is, Cuatro Álamos and Villa Grimaldi. It is in the latter place where Fuentes remained a prisoner and deprived of liberty for the longest time, received cruel treatment from his captors, was interrogated under torture, and was kept in inhumane conditions, until probably January 17, 1976, when other prisoners saw him for the last time, his whereabouts remaining unknown to this day. -That, in turn, on July 2, 1976, in the city of La Paz, Republic of Bolivia, the Chilean citizen Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, a militant of the Socialist Party, was detained by the Directorate of Political Order, the security agency of that country at that time. In the aforementioned condition, he remained detained until November 13, 1976, the date on which he was handed over to DINA agents in the border town of Charaña, who transferred him to our country and took him to the "Cuatro Álamos" Prisoner Camp, which was located on Calle Canadá at the height of 3,000 Vicuña Mackenna, remaining under the custody of its agents, a place where, according to witnesses, he remained locked up and incommunicado, and where he was seen alive for the last time at the end of November 1976; -That on the other hand, on April 3, 1976, in the city of Mendoza, Argentine Republic, three Chilean citizens were detained: Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, and Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez, socialist militants, who were transferred clandestinely by land to Chile and placed at the disposal of the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate, who took them to the Villa Grimaldi Barracks, located at Avenida José Arrieta No. 8.200 in Santiago, as has already been said, a political prisoner camp that belonged to the aforementioned intelligence organization; in that place, they were locked up, interrogated, and tortured, and they were seen alive for the last time at the end of April 1976, their whereabouts remaining unknown to date; -That finally, in an episode that occurred in 1977, Communist Party militants, whose external organic leadership had decided on the need to channel external financial aid to the Party in Chile, asked one of them to travel from Switzerland—Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler—to Chile, with a prior stop in Buenos Aires, to meet with another militant who was to travel from Russia—Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera—and for both to also contact the militant who resided in that city—Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones. This meeting could not take place because all three were detained by the Argentine Federal Police on May 16, 1977, without legal basis, and deprived of liberty to be handed over to the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate, who transferred them to Santiago de Chile, where they were locked up in the Simón Bolívar Barracks, located on the street of the same name, No. 8.630, were interrogated under torture, and on an undetermined date disappeared. The search continues to this day as it has not been possible to find the victims Jaccard and Velásquez, who have no recorded exits or entries, nor are their deaths confirmed, but part of the remains of their companion in misfortune, Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, has been found in Chile, in the sector called "Cuesta Barriga," as well as those belonging to the married couple formed by Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik and Matilde Pessa Mois, who traveled to Buenos Aires to finalize the dispatch of the money to our country, but were detained beforehand—on May 29, 1977—at Ezeiza Airport, at the moment they were getting off the plane that brought them from Chile, with all trace of them being lost from that moment on, until the aforementioned certain evidence of both having been buried in the aforementioned place; -In this operation, Communist Party militants who were in Chile and served as liaisons in this operation also participated, but when the ruse was discovered, they were executed: Hernán Soto Gálvez on an undetermined date, between June 7 and November 10, 1977, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce, on May 28 of that same year. -The analysis of the background information outlined in the preceding paragraphs makes clear the noted cooperation and coordination of the intelligence services, in concrete cases, where the intelligence agents of our country, in these cases, colluding with those of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, not only concerted the detention of the victims but also created the conditions to lock them up and transfer them to our country, with the sinister purpose of confining them in clandestine centers to interrogate them, torture them, and then proceed with extreme cruelty to eliminate them.

Source: adprensa.cl 25/7/2022 Date: 25-07-2022

Minister Carroza sentences 20 former DINA agents for qualified homicides and kidnappings. Operation Condor Case.

The visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, sentenced twenty former members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicide of victims of the coordinated action of South American intelligence services in the 1970s, known as Operation Condor.

In his ruling, the presiding Minister sentenced agents Cristoph Georg Willeke Floel and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 17 years of effective prison, in the capacity of authors of the repeated crime of qualified kidnapping of: Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones; and as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of: Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce.

In the case, Minister Mario Carroza also sentenced:

-Juan Hernán Morales Salgado to the sentence of 15 years and one day in prison, in the capacity of indirect author of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones; and as indirect author of the crime of qualified homicide of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, and Matilde Pessa Mois; -Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo to the sentence of 15 years and one day in prison, as author of the repeated crimes of qualified kidnapping of Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones; and as author of the crime of qualified homicide of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce; -Jorge Marcelo Escobar Fuentes, Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda, and Miguel René Riveros Valderrama must serve 15 years and one day in prison, as indirect authors of the repeated crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones; and as indirect authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce; -Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño must serve 10 years and one day in prison, in the capacity of author of the repeated crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones; and as author of the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce; -Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia was sentenced to the penalty of 10 years and one day in prison, as author of the repeated crime of qualified kidnapping of Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, and Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez; -José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Eduardo Alejandro Oyarce Riquelme, and Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya must serve 7 years in prison, as authors of the repeated crime of qualified kidnapping of Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones; and as author of the crime of qualified homicide of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, and Matilde Pessa Mois; -Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García will serve 5 years and one day in prison, as authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón; -Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez and Orlando José Manzo Durán must serve 5 years and one day in prison, in the capacity of authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca; -Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Hermón Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres were sentenced to 301 days in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, as accomplices to the crime of qualified kidnapping of Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, and -Manuel Rivas Díaz, to 100 days in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, as accomplice to the crime of qualified kidnapping of Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón.

In the case, Minister Carroza acquitted 32 other former DINA agents due to a lack of evidence of participation in the events.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl 22/9/2018 Date: 22-09-2018

Remains of two disappeared persons during the Pinochet dictatorship identified

These are Jorge Troncoso Aguirre and Hernán Soto Gálvez, both members of the Communist Party, found in 2001, along with those of other forcibly disappeared persons, in an abandoned mine in the Cuesta Barriga sector, about 30 kilometers southwest of Santiago.

The remains of two people who disappeared after being detained in 1977 in Chile, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, have been identified and handed over to their families, the Legal Medical Service (SML) reported today.

These are Jorge Troncoso Aguirre and Hernán Soto Gálvez, both members of the Communist Party, found in 2001, along with those of other forcibly disappeared persons, in an abandoned mine in the Cuesta Barriga sector, about 30 kilometers southwest of Santiago.

In that place, only bone fragments of several victims were found, based on which work was done to determine the identities.

In 1978, after the discovery of a clandestine grave with the bodies of fifteen forcibly disappeared persons, Pinochet ordered the so-called "Retiro de Televisores" (Television Removal) operation, which consisted of the clandestine exhumation of hundreds of murdered victims, whose remains were placed in sacks tied to rails and thrown into the sea.

However, in some places, bone fragments remained and, in some cases, personal objects of the victims, such as rings or watches, which have also served to identify the disappeared.

In a statement, the SML said today that the families of Jorge Troncoso Aguirre and Hernán Soto Gálvez were informed of the identification this Friday by judges Miguel Vásquez and Mario Carroza, along with the director of the agency, Patricio Bustos.

Hernán Soto Gálvez, 52, married and father of eight children, was detained in Santiago by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) on June 7, 1977.

According to the judicial file of the case, his detention occurred after an operation carried out by the DINA in Buenos Aires, with the collaboration of the Argentine dictatorship, in which other Chilean communist militants were detained and disappeared: Ricardo Ramírez, Héctor Velásquez, and Alexei Jaccard.

In said operation, framed within the coordination agreed upon between the South American dictatorships to eliminate opponents and which became known as "Operation Condor," the agents found the name of Hernán Soto as a "financial liaison" of the Communist Party between Argentina and Chile.

Meanwhile, Jorge Troncoso Aguirre, 48, single, was kidnapped in the vicinity of his home by DINA agents on May 11, 1977, and transferred along with other people to a clandestine detention and torture center, where he died due to torture.

The bone fragments found in Cuesta Barriga have allowed for the identification so far of communist militants Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo, and Ángel Gabriel Guerrero Carrillo, the latter a member of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR).

According to official figures, during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), some 3,200 Chileans were killed by State agents, of whom 1,192 remain disappeared, while another 38,000 suffered torture and imprisonment for political reasons.

Source: elmostrador.cl 29/09/2012 Date: 29-09-2012