The minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations for the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, has indicted four former members of the Army, Carabineros, and the Investigations Police (PDI) for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of kidnapping, kidnapping with serious injury, illegal detention, and the application of torture against 31 victims of such illicit acts, which were perpetrated starting on September 11, 1973, in the city of Puerto Montt.

In the resolution (case file 10.858-P), Minister Mesa Latorre indicted former Army General Eugenio Adrián Covarrubias Valenzuela, former Carabineros officer Carlos Segundo Tapia Galleguillos, former PDI inspector Roberto Javier Díaz Moya, and former PDI officer Javier Armando Olavarría Díaz as authors of crimes against humanity.

In the case of the defendants Covarrubias Valenzuela and Tapia Galleguillos, they must be notified at the Punta Peuco Prison, where they are serving sentences for other human rights violation crimes in various cases. Meanwhile, regarding the defendants Díaz Moya and Olavarría Díaz, their entry into pretrial detention was ordered.

The defendants were members of the Jurisdictional Area Command for Internal Security (CAJSI) based in the city of Puerto Montt, which included the provinces of Llanquihue, Chiloé, and Palena. This organization operated under the command of Air Force Brigadier General Sergio Hiram Rodolfo Leigh Guzmán (deceased), then Commander of the Third Air Brigade and Wing No. 5 (El Tepual Air Base), and operated out of the facilities of the Provincial Intendency of that time.

Part of the aforementioned CAJSI were the now-deceased Army Colonel and commander of the Infantry Regiment No. 12 'Sangra' of Puerto Montt, Rubén Rojas Román; the Frigate Captain and commander of the Naval Station and Maritime Governor of Puerto Montt, Osvaldo Federico Pablo Schwarzenberg Stegmaier, representing the Navy; the Carabineros Lieutenant Colonel and Prefect of the Province of Llanquihue, Eduardo Partarrieu Navarrete (deceased); and the Prefect of Puerto Montt, Vicente Leonel Hormazábal Rojas (deceased), representing the Investigations Police.

To transmit his instructions and directives, General Sergio Leigh Guzmán established an operational group of liaison officers with each of the Armed Forces and Order institutions existing in the territory under his command.

For the Army, the operational liaison was the then-captain Eugenio Adrián Covarrubias Valenzuela, who was in charge of the Second Intelligence Section of the Infantry Regiment No. 12 'Sangra'; for the Air Force, it was Colonel Mario Ernesto Jahn Barrera (deceased); for the Carabineros, it was the then-lieutenant Carlos Segundo Tapia Galleguillos, of the Second Carabineros Precinct of Puerto Montt; and for the PDI, it was the detective Roberto Javier Díaz Moya, of the Information Department of the Puerto Montt Prefecture; for the Navy, the name of the officer who fulfilled said liaison function is not known with exactitude.

The 31 victims were all illegally detained by military and police units; several of the detained persons surrendered voluntarily, complying with the calls to that effect made by the de facto authority of the area. In that condition as prisoners of the uniformed officers, they were subjected to abuse and torture that correspond to crimes against humanity.

Source: resumen.cl, November 11, 2022