Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega, married, one child, employee, and Communist militant, was detained on August 4, 1976, at approximately 12:30 p.m., on a public street while on his way to buy bread, at the intersection of Cóndor and San Francisco streets in Santiago.

At that location, he was intercepted by two individuals in civilian clothes, agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who proceeded to apprehend him and force him into a vehicle. It was later established that he was taken to the secret DINA detention center of Villa Grimaldi.

Eyewitnesses to the detention immediately informed his spouse, Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez, who proceeded to communicate what had happened by telephone to their son, Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera, in the city of San Felipe, where he resided.

Simultaneously, around 2:00 p.m., Mrs. Alicia went to the home of her sister-in-law, Carmen Rosa Vivanco Vega (Hugo Ernesto's sister), to recount the events, later returning to her own home.

Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez, married, one child, housewife, and also a member of the Communist Party, was detained on August 4, 1976, around 4:00 p.m., at her home—a few hours after the public detention of her spouse, Hugo Vivanco Vega—by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who also proceeded to raid the residence.

The raid on the home and the detention of Alicia de las Mercedes took place after she had gone to the home of her sister-in-law, Carmen Rosa Vivanco Vega, and communicated by telephone with her son Nicolás—in the city of San Felipe, where he resided—to inform them of the detention of her husband earlier that same day around 12:30 p.m.

Around 5:00 p.m. that same day, Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera, the only son of the two forcibly disappeared victims, arrived at his parents' house, noticing that everything in the home was in disarray and his mother was not there.

He was also quickly able to confirm the absence of some valuable belongings, which had been stolen by his mother's captors. Moments later, Genoveva Aurora Ramos Vivanco, a niece of Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez, arrived at the home; Mrs. Alicia had asked Genoveva to accompany her at the house until her son Nicolás arrived.

As was later established through witnesses who managed to survive the conditions to which detainees were subjected in the detention centers, the captors of Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez took her to the clandestine DINA detention center known as Villa Grimaldi or Cuartel Terranova. Her trail was lost from that location, and her whereabouts remain unknown.

The following day, August 5, 1976, Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and his son Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco—brother-in-law and nephew of the Vivanco Herrera couple—were detained by DINA agents and taken to Villa Grimaldi.

Following these events, on August 10, 1976, Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera, married, three children, automotive worker, and Communist militant, was detained on a public street. His detention occurred around 9:00 p.m. while he was returning from dropping off an aunt at the northern bus terminal, at the intersection of Cóndor and San Francisco streets in Santiago, the area where his parents lived.

At that point, he was apprehended by individuals in civilian clothes, an act witnessed by neighbors who had known Nicolás since he was a child and who—like his father and his uncle Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido—had also worked at the Imprenta Horizonte. He was the only son of the Vivanco Herrera couple and was at that time making efforts to find out the whereabouts of his parents.

As was later established through detention witnesses, the captors of Nicolás Hugo took him to the clandestine DINA detention center known as Villa Grimaldi or Cuartel Terranova. His trail was lost from that location, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Beyond their family ties, the aforementioned victims were also united by their common membership in the Communist Party. Their detentions took place in the midst of a sweep that began in July 1976 against various members of that party linked to printing activities, including José Tolosa Vásquez (July 15), Guillermo Martínez Quijón (July 21), Juan Luis Quiñones Ibaceta (July 23), Guillermo Gálvez Rivadeneira (July 28), and Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate (August 13).

All of them, like the victims, are forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 5, 1976, five days before his own detention and disappearance, Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera filed an Amparo (Habeas Corpus) appeal, case No. 699-76, before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of his parents, Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega and Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez.

It was rejected on September 28, 1976, based solely on a report from the Ministry of the Interior, which denied that the detention had been ordered by that State Secretariat. On October 5 of the same year, the resolution was confirmed by the Supreme Court.

However, on the 18th of the same month, case No. 109.788 was initiated in the Fourth Criminal Court of Santiago by order of the Court of Appeals of the same city; this case was later consolidated with case No. 109.565 of the same court, as they involved the same events.

Case No. 109.565 corresponds to a complaint filed on September 7, 1976, for the kidnapping of Alicia Herrera Benítez and Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega before the 4th Criminal Court of Santiago, which was temporarily dismissed on July 13, 1977, a resolution confirmed by the Court of Appeals on August 4, 1977.

It is important to note that, although the military government denied the detention of Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez, her husband Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega, and their son Nicolás, in statements released on July 14 and 17, 1976, through its National Division of Social Communication (DINACOS), it informed the public that, following operations carried out by security services, 32 "mailbox houses" (safe houses) of the Communist Party had been dismantled, which served as links between the National Directorate of said party and its Regional Committees.

The statement also reported the detention of militants of that group, adding that no further information could be provided so as not to hinder the ongoing investigations.

Another piece of evidence that links the responsibility of State security agencies to the disappearance of the victims is recorded in the August 12, 1976, edition of the weekly magazine "Qué Pasa," in an article titled "From the MIR to the PC," which points out that, following operations carried out in recent days by security agencies, numerous militants and leaders of the Communist Party had been detained.

When judicial proceedings were abruptly interrupted due to the detention of Nicolás Hugo, Carmen Rosa Vivanco Vega, sister of Hugo Vivanco, sister-in-law of Alicia Herrera, and aunt of Nicolás Vivanco, continued with the proceedings—along with making countless efforts before national and international organizations and authorities—without succeeding in getting the Military Junta to acknowledge the detentions and subsequent disappearance of her relatives, including her spouse Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido and her son Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco.

Following a letter sent by Mrs. Carmen Vivanco to the Minister of the Interior, in which she requested information about her five forcibly disappeared relatives, she was summoned on August 16, 1977, to the General Headquarters of Investigations, where she was interrogated by an official regarding the letter.

However, on the 14th of that same month and year, at approximately 9:00 p.m., three young individuals arrived at Mrs. Carmen's home in a white Peugeot car, license plate NN-663 of Providencia. Two of them identified themselves as members of the DINA, coming from the Diego Portales building.

In the identification of one of them, she only managed to see the surname "Gómez" and the acronym DINA. The other who accompanied him stated his name was "Faúndez." Gómez told her that, by order of General Pinochet, they were investigating the rumors regarding the detention of her relatives.

Along with this, he asked her to make a voluntary statement recounting the events. She agreed to this request, writing on a piece of paper provided by the agents a brief account of the events, adding that she was sure the perpetrators belonged to a government security agency and that she was making this statement at the demand of Messrs.

Gómez and Faúndez and at the request of General Pinochet. Upon reading this, Gómez tore up the paper. Finally, she wrote another statement recounting the events, omitting that she was doing so at the request of the aforementioned subjects. Gómez asked her to leave a blank space, to which she refused.

Ultimately, the judicial process concluded without establishing the whereabouts or the fate of Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez and Hugo Vivanco Vega Herrera.

On August 16, 1976, an Amparo appeal, case No. 760-76, was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera, which was rejected on September 28, 1976, a resolution confirmed by the Supreme Court on October 5 of the same year.

That same month, a complaint for kidnapping was filed before the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, which declared itself incompetent and sent the case files to the Fourth Court, where it was assigned case No. 109.719. This case was temporarily dismissed by the Court on June 24, 1977, a resolution confirmed by the Court of Appeals on August 5, 1977.

On June 20, 1980, a criminal complaint was filed before the Second Criminal Court of Santiago for the kidnapping of Nicolás Vivanco Herrera against a group of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) specialized in the repression of the Communist Party, which included, among others, Bernardo del Carmen Acevedo Acevedo.

This process was investigated by the Visiting Judge Servando Jordán, who appeared at the Second Criminal Court of Santiago for such purposes. In February 1982, the magistrate temporarily dismissed the case, without being able to establish the whereabouts or the fate of Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera.

Furthermore, on August 1, 1978, relatives of 70 disappeared persons, including those of Alicia Herrera Benítez and Hugo Vivanco Vega, filed a complaint before the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Army Colonel Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo.

The identities of other agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), information on the secret detention centers of said organization, and other data regarding its structure and the means at the DINA's disposal were also provided to the Court.

Without carrying out any investigative steps, on May 10 of that year, the judge of the 10th Court declared herself incompetent and sent the case files to the Military Justice system; after several appeals, in May 1979 the case was lodged with the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago, under case No. 553-78.

In 1983, the Court reviewed the four volumes of the Extraordinary Visit for cases of forcibly disappeared persons in the Metropolitan Region, which was conducted by Judge Servando Jordán; they contained important information regarding the actions of the DINA and the responsibility of that security agency in the cases of hundreds of forcibly disappeared persons.

Without any investigative steps being taken for four years, on November 20, 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, Military Prosecutor General, requested the application of the Amnesty Decree Law (D.L. 2.191) for this case, because the process had the exclusive purpose of investigating alleged crimes that occurred during the period between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978, and because, during the 10 years of proceedings, it had not been possible to "determine the responsibility of any person." On November 30, 1989, the request was accepted by the 2nd Military Court, which dismissed the case totally and definitively—which was still in the summary stage—due to "the criminal responsibility of the persons allegedly implicated in the reported events having been extinguished." The plaintiffs appealed this resolution to the Court Martial, which confirmed the ruling in January 1992. A complaint appeal was then filed before the Supreme Court of Justice, which, as of December 1992, had not yet issued its resolution.

(Complete records of the complaint against Manuel Contreras can be found in the case of Eduardo Alarcón Jara, July 30, 1974).

Along with judicial actions, multiple administrative actions and complaints were filed with agencies of the State of Chile and with international organizations concerned with human rights violations.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

During the military regime, five of her relatives disappeared. Paradoxically, Carmen is about to turn 91. One day before the detention of her husband and son, her brother and sister-in-law were captured. Relatives The five disappeared relatives of Carmen Vivanco:

• Her husband: Oscar Ramos Garrido.
• Her son: Oscar Ramos Vivanco.
• Her brother: Hugo Vivanco Vega.
• Her sister-in-law: Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez.
• Her nephew: Nicolás Vivanco Herrera.

Complex feelings converge within Carmen Vivanco regarding the death of Augusto Pinochet. She suffered the Military Regime in an extreme way. Five of her close relatives are forcibly disappeared. Among them are her husband and her son.

Her husband, Oscar Ramos, had served as intendant in the Llanquihue Province in the last year of the UP (Popular Unity) and was a member of the Communist Party. His body, like that of his son, was never found, and the circumstances of his death remain unknown.

Paradoxically, Carmen is about to turn 91, the same age at which the retired general who led the country during the period in which her relatives disappeared died. "It is a shame that he perished without having taken responsibility for the death of our relatives.

My husband, my son, my sister-in-law, my brother, and my nephew are on the list of the disappeared. They were detained on August 4, 5, and 10, 1976," recounted Carmen Vivanco.

Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, Carmen's husband, was 58 years old at the time of their detention.

Oscar and his son were working on repairing radios when they were detained by the regime's security forces. Five DINA agents captured the father and son and forced them into a red vehicle. Both were taken to Villa Grimaldi.

One day earlier, Carmen Vivanco's brother had been detained, then her sister-in-law disappeared, and finally a nephew. In total, five members of her family were kidnapped and never found again.

"The coup d'état caught Oscar in Santiago, as he was suffering from an ulcer and the doctor sent him to the national capital. But the detention was three years later," explained Carmen.

During the month in which her husband and son disappeared (August 1976), a series of detentions were carried out by the DINA against members of the Communist Party and people related to printing activities. In fact, Oscar Ramos Garrido was a linotypist and radio technician.

"After he was detained, I went to a barracks to find out where they were, but they never arrived at the Investigations (police) or the Legal Medical Institute. Later I went to the Vicariate of Solidarity and they helped me file the Amparo appeal.

It is most likely that they killed them, but I cannot mourn because I still have not seen their bodies. If I saw their remains, I could mourn, but our uncertainty is eternal. That is why Pinochet's death, without having been convicted, is very serious for us," stated Carmen.

Carmen's son, Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, was 24 years old when he was detained along with his father. The last thing known about him is that he told a fellow prisoner that the military agents stole his coat and replaced his shoes with older ones.

Source: El Llanquihue, Tuesday, December 12, 2006 Date: 12-12-2006

1976 was a harsh year. Repression expanded under the new pretext of "mailbox houses," which were allegedly the liaison points between the PC (Communist Party) and its regional committees. More than a hundred people were thus added to the list of DINA detainees who disappeared during the nights of that period.

There was no administrative action, legal appeal, or protest that could return them to the bosom of their families, to the world of normalcy, of daily and undeniable presence. It was a "dry" repression without real justification.

Many victims were men from the graphic arts trade, whose most serious crime was contributing professionally to the publication of the leftist press, persevering in their ideas, and agreeing with the majority regarding the disaster that the military regime represented. These pages are about those workers, their decimated families, their defenselessness, and their integrity.

Extermination of two families

Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega (father) Alicia Herrera Benítez (wife) Nicolás Vivanco Herrera (son) Oscar O. Ramos Garrido (father) Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco (son)

Carmen Vivanco is like the axis of a tragedy that affected two families: the one she formed with her husband, Oscar Ramos, and that of her brother Hugo, an employee of the Horizonte publishing company and distribution manager for the newspaper El Siglo.

Hugo Vivanco was the first. He was detained and disappeared on August 4, 1976. He remained at his job until September 11, 1975, the day the new regime closed and confiscated the newspaper and the company, while simultaneously sending the manager, Luis Barría, to prison.

His sister remembers that Hugo was advised to leave, to the north or the south, as many people did, but he did not want to. He lived for a time with a brother, but returned as soon as he could.

Carmen Vivanco

"My brother gave himself fully during the entire difficult period, because there were many things that had to be saved, as he used to say. Somehow he managed to work as a street vendor, offering soaps and combs, to have the opportunity to make contact with old comrades.

Along with the printing of some leaflets, that contact was the only possibility to resist, not to feel crushed and decimated by the terror."

Vivanco was ill; he had a serious condition in his legs and waist; he could barely walk. He was beginning to recover when he had the misfortune of going out to buy bread. At noon on August 4, two robust men detained him, pushed aside a neighbor who tried to intervene, and dragged him to the car in which they had arrived. It was the beginning.

Vivanco was married to Alicia Herrera, 51, who arrived home that day at two in the afternoon. When she learned what had happened, she left in desperation for Calle 7 de Apoquindo, to the home of her sister-in-law Carmen, to see what measures could be taken.

She also telephoned her son Nicolás, who worked at the Peugeot automotive plant in San Felipe. Following the family tradition, Nicolás also worked at Horizonte as a maintenance worker, but an ailment in his arms forced him to change professions and go north.

Detention of Alicia Herrera

As soon as he received his mother's call, Nicolás left for Santiago in anguish. He arrived late, because there was no one at his parents' house. Everything was in disarray. A total raid. From people in the neighborhood, he learned that his mother was detained at 16:00.

When his cousin Genoveva Ramos arrived to check on the house, she found him desperate amidst the disorder, rummaging through things in search of photographs to take to the Vicaría de la Solidaridad. He wanted to ask for help, but he could not find the photos.

Genoveva convinced him not to stay there; they would look for the photos later. Nicolás slept that night at the home of his aunt and uncle, the Ramos Vivancos, and the next morning he returned to San Felipe to renew his leave and continue the search.

His aunt Carmen Vivanco also went out early to run errands. That August 5, a recurso de amparo (writ of habeas corpus) was filed on behalf of Hugo Vivanco, which the Court ruled against two months later. Another appeal on behalf of Alicia Herrera Benítez had a brief response: "No ha lugar" (Denied).

Who was Hugo Vivanco?

Carmen Vivanco: "Since he was a child, he was a born distributor and very enthusiastic about the popular press. We lived in the saltpeter mines, at the Aníbal Pinto office, and we would walk kilometers through the pampa, in the middle of the night, distributing the newspaper.

We did it at night because it was forbidden to get close. We had to wait for the 'well-being' officers, the night watchmen, to pass by before approaching and knocking."

--What newspaper was it?

Carmen Vivanco: "I think it was 'El despertar de los trabajadores.' It spoke a lot about Russia, about what had happened in 1917, and about things in the north, where there was ferment. My father didn't know how to read, but he supported the FOCH, the workers' federation.

He was scared of our late-night wanderings, but as soon as the paper arrived, sometimes at one in the morning, he would ask me to read it to him. I was about 13 or 14 then, and my brother was two years younger.

He was the organizer. Near our house, there was a station from which the workers left for the work centers. While they waited, they would ask Hugo: 'Alright, kid, what paper do you have? Read it then.' My brother would sit down and read to them. He liked it; he would sit close so they would call him."

--Did you have primary education in the pampa?

Carmen Vivanco: "In Aníbal Pinto there were only three years of school, but we read everything that came into our hands, especially the history of Chile. For him, it wasn't easy, because miners worked there, but children did too. At seven years old, my brother started by carrying cans. He was left with problems in his hands and a dropped shoulder. He could barely do his military service."

Oscar Ramos and Oscar Arturo Fall

When Carmen Vivanco returned to her home on Calle 7 de Apoquindo, her shock was enormous. Her husband and son were detained. Genoveva, while preparing lunch, saw a red car without license plates park, with five men inside.

Two knocked insistently on the doorbell, shouting for them to open quickly. The one who opened—and he was slow because he was getting ready to do so—was the 25-year-old son, Oscar Arturo, who had a heated exchange of words with those knocking. He was prepared to block their path. The response was his immediate detention.

A younger son of Genoveva and the neighbors saw the young man being handcuffed and shoved into the vehicle. While the incident was taking place at the door, two other agents entered quickly, searching everything.

Oscar Arturo qualified as a turner at the Industrial School of Puente Alto and also worked at Horizonte, but an ear disease forced him to change trades. He learned radio assembly and worked at home, in a small workshop set up in a back room, where DINA agents found Oscar Ramos, his 70-year-old father who used to help, in his work clothes.

They took him away as a detainee. There was concern because many detentions were occurring with the same outcome: the disappearance of the detainees. The agents entered the Apoquindo house with no credentials other than force, without an arrest warrant, and certainly without a search warrant. The crime, the double kidnapping, remained in the shadows. The perpetrators left no traces.

Nicolás Falls

But one chapter was missing from this story. Nicolás, the only son of Hugo Vivanco and Alicia Herrera, had been traveling between San Felipe and Santiago during those days of anxiety, fulfilling his work and, at the same time, doing the impossible to find out about his parents.

Six days after the disappearance of his parents, on August 10, he left the Ramos Vivanco house in Apoquindo to go to San Felipe with an aunt, but he did not board the bus, promising his relative that he would travel later. He never appeared again. Nicolás was 30 years old. His wife and three children still live in San Felipe.

Source: derechos.org 9/1/2002

Date: 01-09-2002

The Second Chamber confirmed the sentence that condemned Juan Morales Salgado, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, and Ricardo Lawrence Mires to 20 years in prison as authors of the eight kidnappings, after ruling out an error of law in the resolution that dismissed applying the figure of "half-prescription" (reduced sentencing due to time elapsed) in this case.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals for cassation filed against the sentence that condemned four agents of the dissolved DINA (National Intelligence Directorate) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping of José Vicente Toloza Vásquez, Guillermo Gálvez Rivadeneira, Guillermo Albino Martínez Quijón, Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega, Alicia Herrera Benítez, Óscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, Óscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, and Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera.

These crimes were perpetrated between July and August 1976 in the Metropolitan Region.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 32.658-2018), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Juan Manuel Muñoz Pardo, Jorge Zepeda, and lawyers Diego Munita and Carolina Coppo—confirmed the sentence that condemned Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, and Ricardo Lawrence Mires to 20 years in prison as authors of the eight kidnappings, after ruling out an error of law in the resolution that dismissed applying the figure of half-prescription in this case.

"That, without prejudice to what was reasoned above, the constant jurisprudence of this Criminal Chamber has repeatedly maintained, to dismiss the cause in question, based on the violation of Article 103 of the Penal Code, that:

a) On one hand, the classification of the illicit act committed as a crime against humanity obliges the consideration of International Human Rights Law regulations, which excludes the application of both prescription and the so-called half-prescription in this class of crimes, understanding such institutes to be closely linked in their foundations and, consequently, contrary to the jus cogens regulations originating from that sphere of International Criminal Law, which reject impunity and the imposition of penalties not proportional to the intrinsic gravity of the crimes, based on the passage of time.

b) On the other hand, it is emphasized that whatever interpretation may be made of the foundation of the legal precept in discussion, it is certain that the norms to which Article 103 refers grant a mere faculty to the judge and do not impose the obligation to reduce the amount of the penalty even if several mitigating factors concur (Among others, SCS File No. 35.788, of March 20, 2018, File No. 39.732-17, of May 14, 2018, and File No. 2458-18 of July 27, 2019).

c) That, according to Article 95 of the Penal Code, the prescription period for criminal action is counted from the day the crime was committed, that is, from its consummation, the stage of the iter criminis to which the law assigns the full penalty indicated for the illicit act.

Consequently, in the case of permanent crimes, such as the kidnapping in these proceedings, which our doctrine includes among those, because it is carried out the entire time that the deprivation of liberty lasts (Matus-Ramírez, ‘Manual de Derecho Penal Chileno.

Parte Especial’, Tirant lo Blanch, 2017, p. 335), the aggression against the protected legal interest is prolonged as long as the unlawful situation caused by the perpetrator lasts, so these can only be understood as consummated from the moment the criminal activity has ceased and the agent has definitively interrupted their unlawful behavior, so only from this event could the passage of the prescription period for criminal action begin to be counted. (SCS No. 2458-18 of July 27, 2019).

d) Finally, just as this Court has also maintained in previous rulings, Article 103 of the Penal Code is not only contemplated in the same title as prescription, but is developed after it, and as both institutes are based on the passage of time as a justifying element for their application, the impropriety of applying total prescription must necessarily reach partial prescription, since no reason is seen to recognize time as having the effect of reducing the sanction, because both situations are based on the same element that is rejected by the international humanitarian penal order, so neither is appropriate in illicit acts such as the one in this case. (SCS No. 34057-16 of October 6, 2016)," the ruling of the highest court details.

In the first-instance sentence, the visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, established the following facts:

"I. The National Intelligence Directorate (hereinafter, DINA) maintained between the years 1974 and 1977 the clandestine detention center called 'Cuartel Terranova' or 'Villa Grimaldi,' located at Avenida José Arrieta No. 8200 in the commune of Peñalolén, Metropolitan Region, where a group of agents operated who constituted Brigades and Operational Groups (such as the 'Caupolicán' and 'Purén' Brigades, and the 'Halcón,' 'Águila,' and 'Mehuín' groups) who, with the knowledge of the Director of the organization and the President of the Government Junta and holding various degrees of hierarchy in command, ordered some and executed other captures of people who were militants or sympathetic to political parties or leftist movements, whom they illegitimately imprisoned in the place, breaking them under physical torment of various kinds, with the object of forcing them to provide information about other people of the political left in order to apprehend them. In January 1975, 'Villa Grimaldi' became the operations center of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, which exercised internal repression in Santiago. Detainees were taken to 'Villa Grimaldi' for their first interrogations and were subjected to different forms of torture; prisoners who had already been interrogated and tortured were also held there for long periods, awaiting the decision on their fate. They were kept uninterruptedly blindfolded, in deficient hygienic conditions, and with scarce food. The most characteristic places where prisoners were kept were the following: 'La Torre,' 'Casas Chile,' and 'Casas Corvi.'

II. Likewise, the DINA maintained, from the end of 1975 and at least throughout the year 1977, the 'Simón Bolívar' Barracks, located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8.630, commune of La Reina, a facility in which the brigade called 'Lautaro' operated, whose main function, in addition to repressive tasks of detaining political dissidents, was the protection of the DINA Director, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and his family.

This brigade was directed by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado, who was also the head of the barracks, and who was under the strict supervision of the DINA Director, who was also his direct evaluator.

III. In the year 1975, a restructuring of the Brigades and operational groups that had 'Villa Grimaldi' as their barracks took place, merging the groups in charge of Army Captains Germán Barriga Muñoz and Carabineros Captain Ricardo Lawrence Mires, and integrated by numerous agents belonging to different branches of the Armed Forces and Carabineros, and whose denomination would have been the 'Delfín' brigade or group.

The purpose of this brigade was the repression of the Communist Party, carrying out tracking and detention tasks of leaders and militants of that Party, which were verified throughout the year 1976. In this way, during said period, the capture of dozens of Communist Party militants proceeded, many of them members of successive Central Committees that were constituted as the previous ones were being dismantled by the aforementioned repressive organization.

The detainees were taken to the 'Terranova' or 'Villa Grimaldi' barracks, where they were interrogated under torture. Some of them were subsequently taken, still deprived of liberty, to the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks—to which the 'Delfín' brigade moved approximately in mid-1976—which became the main operations center of the aforementioned brigade, and from where operational groups went out to practice detentions, in addition to transferring the Communist Party detainees who were in 'Villa Grimaldi.' To fulfill the functions described above, the so-called 'Delfín' brigade had the collaboration of the 'Lautaro' brigade, directed by Juan Morales Salgado. In the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks, the detainees, upon being admitted, handed over their personal belongings to an agent of the Barracks' general staff, who kept them in envelopes, writing on them the name of the detainee to whom the items belonged. In said barracks, the detainees were interrogated under torment, their trail being lost and their current whereabouts unknown; however, there is evidence that several of these people were put to death, their bodies being removed and buried clandestinely; and others were thrown into the sea from helicopters; without their remains being recovered yet.

IV. Under these circumstances, the detentions of the following people occurred: a) José Vicente Toloza Vásquez, married, one child, linotypist, communist militant, was detained on July 15, 1976, near 21:00 hours, in the vicinity of bus stop 2 and a half of Gran Avenida, perhaps Calle Milán, outside the Vicaría Zona Sur; b) Guillermo Gálvez Rivadeneira, widower, five children, journalist, former union leader, communist militant, detained on July 28, 1976, near 21:00 hours, in the vicinity of the Journalists' Circle on Calle Amunátegui No. 33; c) Guillermo Albino Martínez Quijón, married, linotypist, communist militant, was detained on July 21, 1976, near 05:00 hours, at his home located at Calle Roberto Espinoza No. 975; d) Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega, married, one child, employee, communist militant, was detained on August 4, 1976, near 12:30 hours on the public thoroughfare, in the vicinity of Calle Cóndor and San Francisco in the commune of Santiago; e) Alicia Herrera Benítez, spouse of the previous, one child, housewife, Communist Party militant, detained on August 4, 1976, at 16:00 hours at her home on Calle Cóndor 745, house 6; f) Óscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, married, two children, linotypist, former intendant of Llanquihue, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, was detained on August 5, 1976, at 13:00 hours at his home located at Calle 7 No. 7801, Villa El Parque in the commune of Las Condes; g) Óscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, son of the previous, sympathizer of the Communist Youth, single, 24 years old, detained together with his father, at his home located at Calle 7 No. 7801, Villa El Parque in the commune of Las Condes; h) Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera, married, 3 children, automotive worker, communist militant, detained on August 10, 1976, at 21:00 hours, at his home on Calle Cóndor 745, house 6. The consequences of these detentions are that the aforementioned people are in the status of disappeared, since, deprived of liberty, they have not made contact with their relatives; nor have they carried out administrative procedures before State agencies or private organizations, nor do they register entries or exits from the country, with no record of their death either."

In the civil aspect, the sentence that condemned the State to pay a total compensation of $600,000,000 for moral damages to the victims' relatives was confirmed.

Source: pjud.cl 16/06/2021

Date: 16-06-2021