Address: Pje. El Estribo 514, Villa El Rodeo, Conchalí, Santiago Marital Status: Married Occupation: Worker at Industrias Químicas Policrón Yarur, Cerrillos Political Affiliation: Member of the Communist Youth Date of Detention: September 23, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán, an industrial worker, married, and a member of the Communist Youth, was working as an operator at the Yarur Industrial Chemical Plant located on Avda. Cerrillos as of September 11, 1973.

Jaime Millanao attended his job normally until September 23, 1973; on that day, he was scheduled to work the 4:00 PM to 11:00 PM shift. It should be noted that the victim carried an identification card issued by the factory in order to be able to circulate during curfew hours and avoid being detained.

That night, Millanao did not return home. The following day, his spouse, Mrs. Noelia Ortiz Namuncura, contacted the factory to inquire about his whereabouts. At the gate of the Yarur plant, she was informed that her husband had been detained the previous night.

Noelia Ortiz went immediately to the plant, where she was told that while her spouse was working, military personnel arriving in a truck had proceeded to detain him. The person who provided this information stated that they did not know where he had been taken or what accusations were being made against him; they only recommended that she go to the Ministry of Defense, where lists of the names of detainees were being published.

On September 25, Noelia Ortiz went to the offices of the Ministry of Defense, where she was told that her spouse's name did not appear among the list of detained persons. While waiting in line to be attended to, the person behind her indicated that she was also looking for her husband and that he had been detained at the Yarur Industrial Chemical Plant.

This accidental fact confirmed to her that several workers from the plant had been detained that day, not just her husband.

In the following days, Jaime Millanao's spouse visited several detention centers, unable to obtain any information regarding his whereabouts.

In December 1973, she went to the Legal Medical Institute (Instituto Médico Legal), where, upon providing her husband's details—name, place of work, and the clothing he was wearing—an official indicated that around September 25, they had collected a corpse on Avda.

General Velásquez whose clothing matched that of her spouse, and that said corpse had remained at the Legal Medical Institute for about a month without being identified. Subsequently, it had been ordered to be buried in the General Cemetery as an "NN" (unidentified person).

Noelia Ortiz went to the cemetery, where she was told that in order to determine if the person buried in the place indicated by the Legal Medical Institute was indeed her spouse, she would have to carry out a series of procedures that were very difficult to perform, given the circumstances the country was living through.

Given the declarant's lack of knowledge regarding such matters and the precariousness of her situation, it was not possible for her to carry out further procedures.

The facts related are contained in a sworn statement provided before a Notary by the victim's spouse, Mrs. Noelia Ortiz Namuncura.

For her part, Jaime Pablo Millanao's sister, Mrs. Rosa Millanao, a resident of the city of Temuco, declared under oath that her brother was seen detained at the Estadio Nacional by her brother-in-law, Mario Herrera Macaya, who at the time was a Carabineros officer and was serving in that location. The family repeatedly inquired at that facility, where they were told he was not there.

To date, the whereabouts of Jaime Millanao remain unknown, and he remains in the status of forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

The victim's family, having limited resources, went to the Ministry of Defense and detention centers such as the Estadio Nacional and the Public Jail immediately after the detention occurred, without positive results.

They also went to the Legal Medical Institute, where they were officially provided with no information; unofficially, they were told that an unidentified corpse buried in the General Cemetery at the end of October 1973 could correspond to the victim.

On April 10, 1991, Jaime Millanao's spouse, Mrs. Noelia Ortiz Namuncura, filed a complaint for alleged disappearance before the 21st Criminal Court of Santiago, which was registered under number 33126-2 and was in the summary stage at the end of 1992.

The anthropometric data of Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán were attached to case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of illegal burial in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of unidentified persons who died between September and December 1973.

The investigating judge of the case ordered the excavation of 108 graves in September 1991. From there, 125 bodies were exhumed and sent to the Legal Medical Institute. Currently (late 1992), the forensic identification reports are pending.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, convicted six retired military personnel for their responsibility in the repeated crime of qualified homicide of Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán.

These crimes were perpetrated in September 1973 at an underpass.

According to a statement from the Judiciary, Minister Carroza sentenced Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz to 15 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the homicides of the victims, who were detained at various points in the current commune of Cerrillos and transported to the Santiago International Fair (FISA) facility, where personnel from the No. 18 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja were stationed.

They were subsequently executed at the underpass located at the intersection of Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla.

Meanwhile, Luis Rodrigo Albornoz Costa must serve 7 years in prison for his responsibility as the author of the crimes; Sergio Eduardo Padilla Abarca and René Palominos Zúñiga were sentenced to 4 years in prison—granted the benefit of intensive supervised release for the same period—as accomplices; and Eugenio Segundo Díaz Parada and Manuel Jesús Zúñiga Jofré were sentenced to 800 days in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, for their responsibility as accomplices.

In the case of Prüssing Schwartz, the visiting minister suspended the execution of the corporal punishment imposed due to the mental incapacity affecting the convicted man, for which he was released under bail for custody and treatment by his family.

In the case, the acquittal of the accused Rubén Santiago Pinilla Riquelme and Joaquín Arnoldo Penroz de la Barra was decreed, as their participation in the events was not proven.

In the civil aspect, the State and the convicted individuals were ordered to pay a total compensation of $240 million to the victims' families.

The resolution established the following facts:

"Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Patricio Millanao Caniuhuán were transported to the facilities of the Santiago International Fair (FISA), where part of the No. 18 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja was stationed under the command of a lieutenant colonel.

While all were in that facility, on the night of September 24, 1973, they were ordered to board a truck and were then transported to the 'Lo Valledor' bridge, located at Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla, where an Army officer, accompanied by military personnel under his command, ordered them to descend into the underpass and ordered his subordinates to shoot them with their firearms.

Upon being activated, these caused them serious injuries and resulted in the loss of their lives at the same location, in a state of absolute defenselessness. Their bodies were abandoned at the site, under military guard, waiting for the moment when another military patrol would remove them and take them to the Legal Medical Service."

Source: enestrado.com, August 25, 2020 Date: 08-25-2020

Santiago Court increases sentences for former Army members for the crimes of three workers at the Lo Valledor bridge in 1973

The Santiago Court of Appeals convicted five former members of the Army for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of qualified homicide of workers Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán, perpetrated between September 24 and 25, 1973, in the area of the Lo Valledor bridge in the current commune of Cerrillos.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 6.638-2020), the Ninth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza, Minister Paula Rodríguez Fondón, and acting lawyer Patricio Carvajal Ramírez—confirmed the first-instance sentence with the declaration that the sentence to be served by former Army officer Luis Rodrigo Albornoz Costa, as the author of the repeated crimes of qualified homicide, is increased to 15 years and one day in prison.

Meanwhile, former conscript soldiers Sergio Eduardo Padilla Abarca and René Palominos Zúñiga must serve 10 years and one day of imprisonment, and Manuel Jesús Zúñiga Jofré and Eugenio Segundo Díaz Parada must serve 5 years and one day in prison as co-authors of the crimes.

Former Army General Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz, sentenced to 15 years and one day in the first-instance ruling, was acquitted due to "mental incapacity."

In the first-instance sentence, issued in April 2020 by Minister Mario Carroza, former officer Albornoz Costa had been sentenced to 7 years in prison; Padilla Abarca and Palominos Zúñiga to four years in prison; and Zúñiga Jofré and Díaz Parada to 800-day prison sentences.

Executions The murdered workers had been previously detained by military personnel and transported to the Santiago International Fair (FISA) facility, where the troops forming part of the No. 18 Mountain Infantry Regiment "Guardia Vieja," coming from Los Andes, had established their base. This military contingent was under the command of then-Colonel Luis Prüssing Schwartz.

The victim Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, 27 years old, married, chemical engineer, member of the Communist Party and former comptroller of the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas, was detained by the military on September 24, 1973, around 8:00 PM, while he was at his home located at Calle Alejandro Flores N° 6383, Villa Cerrillos in the commune of Maipú.

Among the apprehenders was an officer from the aforementioned Guardia Vieja Regiment, who indicated that the detainee would be taken to the military facilities installed at the FISA. A center for the detention of political prisoners existed at that location.

On the other hand, Servando Antonio González Maureira, 28 years old, President of the Workers' Union of the company Rayón Said Industriales Químicos S.A., and a sympathizer of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 24, 1973, in a raid carried out by the same military personnel who detained Nicholls Rivera.

Finally, Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán, 24 years old, an operator at the Yarur Chemical Plant and a member of the Communist Youth, was detained by the same military personnel on the night of September 23, 1973, during a raid on the plant located in the Cerrillos sector.

On the night of September 24, 1973, the three detained workers were loaded onto a military truck by the uniformed men. Immediately thereafter, they were transported to the 'Lo Valledor' Bridge, located at Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla, where they were made to descend and were led to the underpass.

The officer in charge of the execution operation ordered his subordinates to shoot the detainees with their firearms, causing their immediate death. The victims' bodies were abandoned at the same location, waiting for another military patrol to remove them and take them to the Legal Medical Service.

On the morning of September 25, relatives of Servando González Maureira who were searching for their detained family member saw the lifeless body of Servando while passing by the Lo Valledor bridge, along with the other two murdered workers. The corpses were under military guard awaiting the arrival of the SML (Legal Medical Service).

The Ninth Chamber of the Court of Appeals' decision to increase the sentences is based on the rejection of the mitigating factors of "due obedience" and "substantial collaboration in clarifying the facts," which were taken into consideration by Minister Carroza in his ruling.

In this regard, the Court's resolution states: "That, contrary to the reasoning of the Investigating Minister, the mitigating factor of Article 211 of the Code of Military Justice cannot be accepted. Indeed, due obedience requires for its configuration: a) that it be an order from a superior; b) that the order be related to Service; and c) if the order notoriously tends toward the perpetration of a crime, this must be represented by the subordinate, and in such an event, insisted upon by the superior."

The resolution adds: "From the above, it follows that whoever invokes the exemption must have acted in an 'act of service,' that is to say, those that refer to or have a relationship with the function that corresponds to each uniformed person by virtue of belonging to the Armed Institutions.

Consequently, these do not refer to the apprehension of supporters or social leaders affiliated with the deposed regime, much less murdering them or making them disappear, which is why the accused could not have acted in an act of service proper to their status as military personnel."

For the appellate court: "Moreover, such a modification must be rejected, since it is not possible to accept that a subordinate simply admits to fulfilling a superior's order when that order consists of committing a crime, especially one of the magnitude of those in this case; to ignore such a circumstance would imply that the perpetrator acts with full awareness of the unlawful nature of their actions, which leads to an evident contradiction."

"On the other hand," it continues, "in the event that the subordinate considers the superior's order illegal, they have the right not to obey it, in accordance with Article 335 of the Code of Military Justice, unless it is insisted upon, and only from that moment can their refusal be considered protected by the legal system, thus validating their conduct as an exemption or mitigating factor, as appropriate.

None of this was proven in this sense, so the mitigating factor invoked by these defenses cannot be accepted."

Source: resumen.cl, July 4, 2022 Date: 07-04-2022

Minister Solís handed over the remains of forcibly disappeared persons to their families

Minister Alejandro Solís handed over the remains of three people who were listed as forcibly disappeared in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery to their families this Monday, after they were identified by the North Texas laboratory in the United States.

The victims are Pablo Aranda Schmied, identified on December 2, 2009; Juan Carlos Díaz Fierro, identified on December 29 of the same year; and Jaime Pablo Millanao Canihuán, identified last January 27.

The magistrate handed over the remains at the Memorial for the Forcibly Disappeared and Politically Executed at the General Cemetery.

Judge Solís, after finishing with the identification of these three victims, will continue with the verification of identities in relation to other victims of Patio 29, which are also being investigated in the United States laboratory.

Source: COOPERATIVA.CL, 6/7/2010 Date: 06-07-2010

Identities of forcibly disappeared persons in Chile released

The minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Solís, confirmed the identities of three people whose remains were found in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery and which were sent to foreign laboratories for forensic analysis. The confirmed identities correspond to:

• Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuan, in whose report Dr. Francisco Etxeberría Gabilondo (specialist in legal and forensic medicine) and Dr. Rhonda Roby (specialist in forensic genetics) participated.
• Raúl Luis Jiménez Barrera, in whose report Dr. Francisco Etxeberría Gabilondo, Dr. Douglas Ubelaker (specialist in forensic anthropology), and Dr. Rhonda Roby participated.
• Raúl René Fuentes Vera, in whose report Dr. Francisco Etxeberría Gabilondo and Dr. Rhonda Roby participated.

Minister Solís met—on Wednesday, January 27, 2009—with the relatives of the identified victims, whom he informed of the results of the forensic reports received.

Source: dhpedia.wikis.cc, 1/27/2010 Date: 01-27-2010