On July 13, 1974, DINA agents arrested MIR militant Jaime Mauricio BUZZIO LORCA as he arrived at his home in the commune of Ñuñoa. He was held at the Londres Nº 38 detention center. Days after his arrest, he was taken back to his home for a few moments.

His last known trace is at the Londres Nº 38 facility. The Commission is convinced that his disappearance was the work of State agents, who thereby violated his human rights.

Jaime Mauricio Buzio Lorca, 21 years old, a Mechanical Maintenance student at the UTE Technological Institute in Santiago and a member of the Communist League, was detained by DINA agents on July 13, 1974, around 12:00 p.m., while returning from classes to his home located on Calle República de Israel in the Ñuñoa district.

The captors, all armed, forced him into one of the vehicles they were using and immediately left the scene. From the early hours of that morning, a yellow Chevrolet pickup truck with an olive-green canopy and no license plate had remained parked in front of his house, with three civilians inside.

The victim had been living at the home of Amelia Arredondo and her children since late 1973, after her husband, Carlos Salazar Contreras, a socialist lawyer and friend of former President Allende, died at the Estadio Nacional after being detained in October of that year.

The young Buzio was taken to the DINA facility located at Londres 38, where he was immediately subjected to interrogations under intense and lengthy torture sessions, which caused him great physical harm. In addition, they broke his eyeglasses, without which he could see very little.

At this location, he was confronted with another prisoner, Cristián Van Yurick, who had been detained for a couple of days, as had his brother Edwin and the latter's spouse, Bárbara Uribe. The Van Yurick brothers were leaders of the MIR and, although he was not a member of that party, Buzio was a friend of theirs, having been a schoolmate at the Liceo Manuel de Salas.

Upon the arrest of Cristián Van Yurick, the DINA identified an orange Jeep that these brothers and also Jaime Buzio used. Edwin Van Yurick and his spouse are forcibly disappeared, as is the victim, while his brother Cristián remained detained for several months without his arrest being acknowledged, eventually being expelled from the country two and a half years later.

The day after his arrest, DINA agents went to detain his friend Beatriz Kettlun Maluk, a former classmate at the School of Sociology of the Universidad de Chile, with whom he had participated in a political reflection group called the "Communist League." She was also taken to Londres 38, where she was confronted with Jaime regarding the political ties between them before and after the Military Coup.

According to Beatriz, her friend was accused of holding a high-ranking position in the MIR. At a moment when they were able to talk while not being interrogated, the young man told her that he was being charged with very serious acts of which he knew nothing, that he had been subjected to torture with the application of electricity, and, anticipating that she would be released before him, he asked her to deliver a message to his mother (who was in Argentina) in the event that she returned to Chile.

Beatriz Kettlun was later able to identify one of her captors as Osvaldo Romo Mena, who directed the interrogations to which she was subjected and the confrontation with Buzio. Jaime also told her that this individual had been a friend of his and that they had worked together in the Lo Hermida shantytown before the military coup of September 11, 1973.

He added that he had a dual attitude toward him, as he treated him with benevolence while simultaneously torturing him. The witness was released three days after her arrest, and in the following days, Osvaldo Romo called her on the phone several times, asking how she was and announcing visits to discuss political topics with her.

Each time he called, she asked him about Jaime, and the last time he contacted her, at the end of July 1974, he replied that her friend was no longer in the place where she had been with him.

Jorge Jaime Flores Durán was detained on the same day as Buzio and was also taken to Londres 38. Both were childhood friends and were able to talk during the moments they were not being subjected to interrogations.

Flores states that the victim was in very poor physical condition due to the torture to which he was subjected, and he recounts that on July 18, Buzio was taken during the day to another facility, from which he returned at night, whipped to such a point that it was impossible for him to speak.

Another witness to his confinement and torture at this DINA facility was former prisoner Antonio Osorio Olivares, who noted that he heard the screams and moans of the young Buzio when he was being subjected to torment.

Finally, Oscar Alfaro Córdoba, who remained confined at Londres 38 for eight days, also saw him there. As a result of the torture to which he was subjected and the little and poor-quality food provided to him, the young man’s pre-existing gastric ulcer was aggravated, which caused him severe pain.

According to Antonio Olivares, on one occasion, Buzio had to be taken urgently to the infirmary due to his serious state of health.

On July 24, 1974, around 11:00 a.m., Jaime Buzio was taken from this DINA house along with other detainees. Since then, he has not been seen again in any other interrogation center or prisoner camp, except for Cristián Van Yurick, who believes he saw him at Villa Grimaldi after this date.

Two days after he was detained, on July 15, Jaime was taken by Osvaldo Romo and two other DINA agents to his home, where they proceeded to raid his bedroom. The housekeeper, María Emérita Navarrete, and the owner’s youngest son, only 10 years old, were in the house. Jaime told Mrs. María that he was being detained, which Romo corroborated, adding that they were going to search his things.

One of the agents took the boy to the patio, while the others went up to his room. The boy recounted that the subject who guarded him in the patio asked him if Jaime held political meetings in the house.

The victim looked very bad, dirty, bruised, and disheveled; Romo allowed him to change his clothes and told Mrs. María that she could give the young man some cans of condensed milk to take with him.

After remaining in the house for about half an hour, they left in a new, closed pickup truck. Before getting into the vehicle, Jaime managed to say that they should worry about his girlfriend.

In July 1975, Jaime Buzio appeared on a list of 119 Chileans killed in Argentina and other countries, some in alleged confrontations with Argentine security forces and others among themselves due to internal disputes within the MIR.

This alleged news was published by the Brazilian newspaper O'DIA and the Argentine magazine LEA, both unknown in their respective countries and edited only once, undoubtedly with the sole objective of spreading this falsehood.

This information was denied by the Argentine and Brazilian authorities, who stated they had no knowledge of these events. Faced with this evidence, the Chilean military government had to officially acknowledge that there was no record of these alleged deaths, nor that these people had left the country.

The individuals on this list correspond to people detained by Chilean security services, all of whom have been forcibly disappeared since then.

His parents returned to Chile upon learning the news of his detention and made multiple attempts to locate their son Jaime, without positive results. His father passed away years later after a long and painful illness.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On July 17, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, case file 763-74, which was rejected after receiving negative responses from the Ministers of the Interior and Defense regarding the detention of Jaime Buzio. However, the records were sent to the corresponding Criminal Court so that the reported facts could be investigated.

Thus, on September 21, 1974, the 8th Criminal Court of Santiago initiated case file 11,273, a court to which a complaint for alleged disappearance was also presented on the same date.

The victim's mother, Alicia Lorca, testified before the Court, where she reported news received from another prisoner who had indicated that her son was in a Prisoner Camp in Cajón del Maipo.

In addition to a broad order to investigate, the Judge decided to issue an official letter to the DINA to confirm the presence of Jaime Buzio at the aforementioned Prisoner Camp.

Meanwhile, a new writ of amparo had been filed before the Court Martial, case file 3-75. Once again, the Ministry of the Interior responded negatively, as did the head of Defense, who sent a photocopy from SENDET indicating that there was no record of Buzio's detention by any service under that Ministry.

The DINA, for its part, responded as it usually did, stating that such inquiries should be directed to the Ministry of the Interior or SENDET, the agencies in charge of answering them.

This amparo was rejected by the Court Martial, which also decided to send the records to the corresponding court so that the described facts could be investigated.

On March 6, 1975, the Judge instructing the case for the disappearance of Buzio Lorca ordered these files to be consolidated and, twelve days later, decided, based on the merit of the response from SENDET to the Court Martial, to dispense with the official letter previously ordered to the DINA.

On the same date, he ordered the closure of the summary proceedings and issued a temporary dismissal of the case "because the crime was not proven."

On May 12 of the same year, the Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed this resolution.

In July of that year, the victim's mother informed the Court of the publication of the lists known as "the 119," in which her son was mentioned.

That same month, the Minister of the Interior responded to an inquiry from Mrs. Lorca regarding the situation of her disappeared son, informing her that there were no records of him. However, the Minister added that the young man appeared among these 119 dead Chileans.

This response was also made available to the Court, and it was requested that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be consulted to clarify whether this tragic news was official or not.

The response from the Foreign Ministry was that this information had been denied by the Argentine and Brazilian authorities and that there was also no evidence that these people had left the country.

On November 26, 1975, the reopening of the summary proceedings was requested, for which new evidence was provided, including a sworn statement from Jorge Flores Durán, who had been confined with Jaime at the facility on Calle Londres 38.

In addition, it was requested that Cristián Van Yurick, also a witness to the victim's confinement, who was detained at that date in Puchuncaví, be summoned to testify.

Upon receiving the file that had been archived, the Judge first decided to issue an official letter to the Ministry of the Interior to report on Van Yurick's situation.

On May 13, 1976, without yet receiving a response from the head of the Interior, nor having the inquiry reiterated, new evidence was submitted to the Court consisting of a new sworn statement from Antonio Osorio Olivares, another witness to Buzio's stay at the house on Calle Londres.

On June 9, 1976, the Minister of the Interior finally issued the requested report regarding Cristián Van Yurick, in which he stated that this person was detained at that time at the Tres Alamos Prisoner Camp.

It should be noted that the Minister gave the date of Cristián Van Yurick's detention (according to an Exempt Decree from that Ministry) as September 16, 1974, when in reality he was detained on July 11 of that year.

Despite having received this response, the Judge did not resolve anything regarding the appearance before the Court of this important witness who had been with Jaime Buzio at Londres 38. This action was requested again on August 6, 1976, at which time it was also requested that DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena, who had been identified as one of the victim's captors, be summoned to testify.

Once again, the Judge did not resolve anything regarding the request, and on August 16 of that year, it had to be requested that the action of summoning Van Yurick to testify be set aside, since he was about to leave the country and the summons under those circumstances would be inconvenient for him, given his long period of confinement, which already totaled more than two and a half years.

On this occasion, the Judge immediately accepted the request, also deciding to dispense with Romo's testimony, as he did not consider it strictly indispensable. Immediately after, he ordered the case to be archived again, and the summary proceedings were not reopened. On December 6, 1976, the reopening of the summary proceedings was requested again, which was denied.

On April 25, 1977, the reopening was requested again, following statements made in an interview by the Director of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In it, he recounts that in a meeting held with General Augusto Pinochet, the latter had responded to an inquiry about the disappeared by saying that those people had died or left the country and instructed the Minister of the Interior to take care of the matter.

With this evidence, the Judge decided to return the case to the summary stage and decreed that the respective agencies be officially notified to establish whether the death of Jaime Buzio or his departure from the country was recorded.

On June 11 of that year, after receiving negative reports regarding his eventual death or departure from the country, the summary proceedings were closed again and the case was temporarily dismissed, a resolution that was approved by the Court of Appeals.

In March 1979, a new document was filed requesting the reopening of the summary proceedings and that Beatriz Kettlun, who had been confronted with Buzio at the house on Calle Londres in the presence of Osvaldo Romo, be summoned to testify. The judge decided, without ordering the reopening of the summary proceedings, to summon the witness to testify.

In April of that year, the case passed into the hands of Visiting Minister Servando Jordán, appointed by the Santiago Court of Appeals to investigate cases of disappearance of people detained by security services.

The Minister immediately ordered the summons of Osvaldo Romo to testify, under penalty of arrest; however, the civil police, in charge of the action, could not locate him.

Beatriz Kettlun testified before the Minister and recognized Osvaldo Romo in a photograph that was shown to her. Other witnesses who had been detained at the facility on Calle Londres also testified and recognized agent Romo as one of the captors and interrogators at that location.

The Minister decided to visit this house, an action he carried out on June 22, 1979, with the support of experts from the Investigations police. The report that was drawn up established that the description of this place given by the witnesses was accurate.

However, the photographs taken inside by the experts could not be developed because "the photographic material used on this occasion had manufacturing defects," according to the Head of the Special Units Prefecture.

It should be noted that, as stated in the report, two months before this inspection was carried out, two military trucks went to that house and cleaned it out.

On July 20, 1979, his mother filed a complaint before Minister Jordán for aggravated kidnapping, prolonged incommunicado detention, unnecessary rigor and mistreatment, arbitrary detention in places not contemplated by law, and serious injuries, directed against Osvaldo Romo Mena and other DINA agents who might be responsible.

In it, she requested the reopening of the summary proceedings, which had not been formalized. After taking statements from other witnesses regarding the circumstances of Jaime Buzio's detention and confinement, on December 14, 1979, Minister Jordán declared himself incompetent and sent the case to the 2nd Military Court, a resolution that was appealed by the plaintiff.

On March 11, 1980, the Court of Appeals confirmed the appealed resolution after receiving the report from the Prosecutor of that Court, who requested approval because there were well-founded presumptions that the victim had been detained "by DINA personnel or, at the very least, members of some military force although dressed in civilian clothes... without their subsequent destination being known."

On April 22, 1980, the Military Judge accepted jurisdiction and decided to continue the investigation in the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office, under case file 259-80.

None of the actions taken by the Prosecutor yielded positive results in finding the victim's whereabouts. The Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández Fernández, reported for his part that the inquiries ordered to be carried out by the Investigations police had also not yielded a positive result.

On the other hand, the Director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), the legal successor to the DINA, responded that the only record he had of Buzio was his inclusion on the list of "the 119."

In May 1980, three people were apprehended in connection with a VAT (Value Added Tax) fraud, a process that was linked to the investigations into the disappeared because, as the civil police themselves made known, one of the assumed names used for the fraud corresponded to a forcibly disappeared person, Alvaro Barrios Duque.

As a result of this news and the fact that Minister Jordán had carried out a series of actions in relation to these facts, the Military Prosecutor was requested to issue an official letter to the Minister to inform whether Jaime Buzio appeared among his inquiries. The same was requested regarding the Minister who was instructing the case for the fraud and the civil police.

Despite the importance of these actions related to this news, which was widely published by the national press and caused commotion, the head of the 2nd Prosecutor's Office did not grant the request.

An attempt was made again to locate agent Romo, but he was not found, and the CNI reported that he did not appear among its personnel.

On August 7, 1981, this case was consolidated with case 553-78, which was being instructed in the same Prosecutor's Office, corresponding to a complaint against General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, former Director of the DINA, and other officers.

This had been filed in 1978 by relatives of victims, among whom Jaime Buzio Lorca was included. (For complete details of the complaint against Manuel Contreras, see the case of Eduardo Alarcón Jara.)

In this process, the Prosecutor's Office practically only dedicated itself to consolidating the various cases that were being instructed for these victims, and, without any actions 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 processing, 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) because "the criminal liability of the persons allegedly accused of the reported facts was 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.

In November 1991, former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena, involved in the detention, interrogation, and torture of Jaime Buzio Lorca, was arrested upon his arrival in Santiago when he was expelled from Brazil; months earlier, Investigations personnel, in an action ordered by the 3rd Criminal Court for the disappearance of Alfonso Chanfreau Oyarce, also in 1974, had located him in Brazil, where he was residing under a false identity.

As of December 1992, Romo was being interrogated in various cases of forcibly disappeared persons. As of that date, it is unknown if he has provided information that could clarify the fate of the victim.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad