The magistrate issued indictments against the former governors of Parral, retired Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela and retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grant, as well as retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Luis Alberto Hidalgo, as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of 15 forcibly disappeared persons.

These were the first indictments issued by investigating judge Juan Guzmán following the final dismissal of the case against Augusto Pinochet. With this, the magistrate set the course he will follow if he does not declare himself incompetent to continue presiding over the various cases accumulated in his hands, despite the final dismissal of the former Army chief.

Judge Guzmán indicted the former governors of Parral, retired Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela and retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grant, as well as retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Luis Alberto Hidalgo, as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of fifteen forcibly disappeared persons.

The magistrate is also working on new indictments for other cases he is investigating, which he expects to issue in the coming days. The charges were filed for the kidnapping and disappearance of: Enrique Carreño González, Rolando Ibarra Ortega, Edelmiro Valdés Sepúlveda, Haroldo Laurie Luengo, Hernán Sarmiento Sabater, Armando Morales Morales, José Luis Morales Ruiz, Aurelio Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Luis Pereira Hernández, Armando Pereira Merino, Oscar Retamal Pérez, José Riveros Chávez, Enrique Rivera Cofré, Hugo Soto Campos, and Víctor Vivanco Vásquez.

All were detained between September 11, 1973, and 1974 in Parral, taken to the police station and the city jail, but in several cases, their trail was lost after they were placed at the disposal of the local Military Prosecutor's Office.

In some cases, their relatives have stated that there is evidence that they were taken to Colonia Dignidad, 40 kilometers east of Parral. Of these, Carreño González, Morales Morales, Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Retamal Pérez, Riveros Chávez, and Soto Campos appear in the Armed Forces report issued by the human rights roundtable as having been thrown into the Putagán River.

The magistrate issued these new arrest warrants immediately after returning last Monday from medical leave, which began on Monday, July 1, the date on which the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court issued the ruling that definitively dismissed the Caravana de la Muerte case against Augusto Pinochet due to "mental incapacity" caused by "incurable vascular dementia." Originally, this investigation began in Parral following the 1991 Rettig Report; it was later taken up by the judge of the Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago, Lientur Escobar, who was investigating the disappearance of MIR militant Alvaro Vallejos Villagrán at Colonia Dignidad. After multiple procedural shifts, the case reached the military justice system, from where it was rescued by lawyers from Codepu and ended up accumulated in the hands of Judge Guzmán. Plaintiff lawyer Julia Urquieta stated that "justice is finally being served for the victims and the families of Parral. Several of the disappeared from Parral ended up in Colonia Dignidad," the lawyer said. Although these disappearances occurred in Parral before the DINA barracks began operating there in 1975, the head of the DINA Southern Brigade, retired Colonel Fernando Gómez Segovia, was implicated in the initial investigations.

Source: Primeralinea.cl, July 10, 2002

Prison sentences in human rights case

Minister Alejandro Solís handed down prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for the aggravated kidnapping of 21 people in Parral. According to Canal 13, the cases, which occurred between September 1973 and January 1974, include a case of child abduction.

The first-instance sentence affects the former governor and retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caullier, retired Army Commander Hugo Cardemil, and retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Luis Hidalgo. They will be notified today.

Source: emol.cl, August 6, 2003

Parral: Four former uniformed officers indicted for human rights cases

The judge, with preferential dedication to human rights cases, indicted retired Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil and retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grandt, as well as former uniformed police non-commissioned officers Pablo José Duarte Vallejos and Luis Alberto Hidalgo, for aggravated kidnapping.

One of the cases relates to the disappearance of Gaspar Hernández, a farmer with no political affiliation, who was detained on October 14, 1974, in a rural sector of Parral. Meanwhile, the second victim was José Riveros Chávez, also without political affiliation, detained on October 11, 1973, by Carabineros officers.

In August of last year, the former uniformed officers were convicted by special judge Alejandro Solís as perpetrators of nearly 30 aggravated kidnappings. The sentences were 17 years for Colonel Cardemil, ten years for Colonel Caulier, and seven years for the former Carabineros officer Hidalgo.

Solís traveled today to the Seventh Region to take statements from nearly 12 former victims of political imprisonment and torture, who could provide information regarding the human rights violation cases he is investigating.

Source: elmostrador.cl, January 16, 2004

Sentences reclassified for former military officers involved in Parral crimes

The Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals reclassified, in the second instance, the sentences handed down by special judge Alejandro Solís against three uniformed officers accused of the aggravated kidnapping of 21 dissidents of the military regime, in events that took place in Parral between September 1973 and January 1974, which include a case of child abduction.

On August 6, 2003, Judge Solís handed down prison sentences of between 10 and 15 years to the former governor and retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caullier Grant; retired Army Commander Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela; and retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Luis Hidalgo.

In a split vote (2-1), the capital's appellate court, composed of ministers Alejandro Madrid, Juan Muñoz Pardo, and Humberto Provoste, resolved to increase the punishment imposed on Hidalgo from seven to ten years and one day; maintain the ten-year prison sentence for Caulier; and reduce the sentence for Cardemil Valenzuela from 17 years to 15 years and one day of major imprisonment.

The investigation, initiated at the beginning of this decade by retired magistrate Juan Guzmán Tapia, made it possible to determine the responsibility of the accused in the disappearances of Enrique Carreño González, Rolando Ibarra Ortega, Edelmiro Valdés Sepúlveda, Haroldo Laurie Luengo, Hernán Sarmiento Sabater, Armando Morales Morales, José Luis Morales Ruiz, Aurelio Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Luis Pereira Hernández, Armando Pereira Merino, Oscar Retamal Pérez, José Riveros Chávez, Enrique Rivera Cofré, Hugo Soto Campos, and Víctor Vivanco Vásquez.

All were detained between September 11, 1973, and 1974 in Parral, taken to the police station and the city jail, but in several cases, their trail was lost after they were placed at the disposal of the local Military Prosecutor's Office.

In some of the cases, their relatives have stated that there is evidence that they were taken to Colonia Dignidad. Of these, Carreño González, Morales Morales, Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Retamal Pérez, Riveros Chávez, and Soto Campos appear in the Armed Forces report issued by the human rights roundtable as having been thrown into the Putagán River.

Originally, this process began in Parral following the 1991 Rettig Report; it was later taken up by the judge of the Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago, Lientur Escobar, who was investigating the disappearance of MIR militant Álvaro Vallejos Villagrán at Villa Baviera.

Source: lanacion.cl, June 16, 2005

Case of victims burned with phosphorus at Dignidad remains unpunished

The court's resolution left one of the most gruesome crimes committed during the dictatorship without sanction, provoking hopelessness and indignation among the victims' families. The latest "Christmas gift" from the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has left the families of the 22 disappeared from Parral with the feeling that they fought for 30 years to seek justice, but did not achieve it.

Minister Alejandro Solís had sentenced the perpetrators of the kidnappings and disappearances to prison—17 years for retired Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela, 10 years for retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grant, and 7 years for retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Luis Alberto Hidalgo—but the five ministers of the Criminal Chamber reduced the initial sentences and set them free.

Although Cardemil was sentenced to 5 years and Caulier to 4 years—Hidalgo had been acquitted by the Santiago Court of Appeals—the Criminal Chamber granted them "supervised release." The new "Supreme reduction"—as the systematic reduction of sentences for human rights violators has been described—has a special connotation because it was applied in one of the most gruesome cases.

AT THE RANCH

The 22 detainees were taken between September and October 1973 from the Parral jail and the Catillo police outpost in the VII Region, driven to the Linares Artillery School, where Cardemil served, and from there taken to Colonia Dignidad.

There, they were killed with the help of the Germans and buried in a clandestine grave. At the end of 1978, on Pinochet's instructions, Paul Schäfer ordered the "cleaning of the ranch." The bodies were exhumed, put into sacks, burned with chemical phosphorus, and the ashes thrown into the Perquilauquén River.

The operation was led by Gerhard Mücke, as he himself acknowledged before Minister Jorge Zepeda.

THE OTHER PERPETRATORS

In this way, the ministers of the Criminal Chamber, mainly magistrates Rubén Ballesteros and Nibaldo Segura—judges who favor absolute pardon for the criminals of the Pinochet regime—left one of the most moving and massive episodes of the past oppressive system in total impunity.

Judges Hugo Dolmetsch, Jaime Rodríguez, and acting lawyer Juan Carlos Cárcamo set the sentences for Cardemil and Caulier at 5 and 4 years respectively, but granted them supervised release. Ballesteros and Segura were in favor of completely acquitting the perpetrators, as they are proponents of amnesty and the statute of limitations due to the passage of time, and of disregarding treaties and conventions of international criminal law that condemn crimes against humanity.

National associations of families of the disappeared and executed, plaintiff lawyers, and the relatives of the Parral victims have begun to express their indignation at this new resolution by the Criminal Chamber.

They have done so previously, protesting loudly against other cases before the doors of this court. Relatives of the Parral victims will travel to Santiago in the coming days to protest this decision, against which no further appeals can be filed.

The wave of sentence reductions in these types of trials will reach its peak when the president of this chamber, Alberto Chaigneau, retires next January upon turning 75. On many occasions, Chaigneau has tipped the balance with his vote in favor of achieving real justice for the crimes of the military regime, although he has also given his approval to substantially reduce some sentences.

Whoever succeeds Chaigneau will be vital in providing a majority in one direction or the other.

Source: La Nación, December 31, 2007