Jacqueline Binfa Contreras, daughter of Aldo Binfa and Julia Contreras, had a brother, José, three years her junior. Jacqueline was orphaned of her father when she had just turned 7 years old and her brother José was only 4.

Her father, a merchant, died in a car accident, leaving the family without any income. This painful circumstance forced her mother to seek work, returning to the Military Hospital, where she had worked as a nurse for twelve years before retiring upon marriage to dedicate herself to her home.

With great effort and dedication, her mother educated her, and she completed all her years of study at the San Gabriel school. The difficult situation she had to live through from such a young age—the death of her father; the mother's obligation to work to support the home and maintain a standard of living similar to what they had before the father's death—conditioned her behavior and subsequently determined her political choice.

"Kelina," as her mother affectionately called her, was a girl with a difficult character, demanding as an adolescent. She began to rebel against injustices and the traditional structure of society; she was often very critical of the self-denial and dedication her mother gave to her work, trying to break abruptly with established frameworks.

For a time, she left home, adopting a behavior of youthful rebellion. It was during that period that she became linked to the MIR, pouring her rebellion into dedication for the poor and dispossessed of our homeland.

She returned home and some time later applied to the School of Social Work at the University of Chile, entering in 1972. Not many people knew her at the School, because her main activity was carried out in the shantytown front, where she met and had to work with the DINA agent Osvaldo Romo.

She would always arrive at the School in a rush to participate in her classes, with a disheveled appearance; I seem to see her arriving with her handmade bag, very little concerned about her personal appearance, somewhat older than the average of the others, and for that reason, she had a critical attitude regarding the commitment and dedication of others to the cause.

She left very little time for her personal life, spoke very little about herself, and was always seen as the militant devoted and dedicated to the party and its activities on the shantytown front. Jacqueline gave herself entirely to her ideals, she committed herself to her cause; the cause of the people, despite belonging to a well-off family that her mother always tried to give the best she could, she renounced those guarantees on countless occasions.

Jacqueline's mother, Mrs. Julia, passed away in 1982, a victim of cancer, without ever being able to obtain any information regarding the whereabouts of her daughter, whom she had educated and raised with such self-denial.

The mother died with the enormous pain of never having obtained the slightest help, or even a piece of news, from those who today exercise power and are responsible for the disappearance of her daughter—people whom she had often attended to, cared for, and dedicated hours of her life to throughout her professional activity as a nurse at the Military Hospital.

Everyone turned their backs on her; none of those who had known her for so many years could receive her, nor did they have any consideration for her sadness over the loss of her daughter. A year later, her only brother, José, died as a result of a heart condition.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

After issuing indictments against those involved, Minister Alejandro Solís declared the summary phase in both processes concluded and is preparing to issue accusations.

After the massive indictments issued for the aggravated kidnapping of student Jacqueline Binfa Contreras and the homicide of Lumi Videla, both former militants of the MIR, were confirmed by the higher courts, the minister in charge of investigating both crimes, Alejandro Solís, decided to close the summary stage and focus on issuing accusations in both cases.

This was reported by sources close to these investigations, which are part of the episode known as "José Domingo Cañas," in allusion to the clandestine detention center where both women were taken after their arrest in the days following the coup d'état.

For the disappearance of Binfa, Solís indicted retired General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, former operational chief of the dissolved DINA, and former agents of the organization Miguel Krassnoff, Ciro Torré, Basclay Zapata, Osvaldo Romo, César Manríquez, Marcelo Moren, and Orlando Manzo, all as authors of the crime of aggravated kidnapping.

Meanwhile, for the death of Lumi Videla, the magistrate indicted Contreras Sepúlveda, General (R) Maximiano Ferrer Lima, and Brigadiers (R) Miguel Krassnoff and Christophe Willike; Colonel (R) Marcelo Morén Brito; and Corporal (R) Basclay Zapata.

Following this determination, Judge Solís is in a position to enter the accusatory phase of both processes, provided that none of the parties requests new proceedings and there is no justified need to reopen the summary. Procedural histories

In the middle of this month, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court set aside the ruling issued by the Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals which, on January 16, applied the figures of Amnesty and the statute of limitations to set aside the indictments issued against former DINA agents accused of the aggravated kidnapping of Jacqueline Binfa.

Although the highest court refused to accept a complaint appeal against the ministers of the capital's appellate court who were in favor of applying the questioned regulations for cases of crimes against humanity, it decided ex officio to re-establish the indictments issued by Solís.

In this way, the criminal instance of the Supreme Court made it clear that such a type, regarding the application of amnesty and the statute of limitations in cases of the forcibly disappeared, is not a criterion shared by the high court.

Meanwhile, on March 24, the Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court confirmed the indictments decreed by Solís in eight permanent kidnappings and six aggravated homicides, among which is the murder of the former MIR militant Lumi Videla, whose body was thrown, in November 1974, inside the Italian embassy with evident signs of torture.

Source: May 30, 2006 El Mostrador

Date: 05-30-2006

A message to the feminist tide: on nineteen women of the 70s

To the sexual violence that occupies the front pages today, one must incorporate on this date the practice of State agents who, during the dictatorship, exercised extreme political sexual violence on nineteen fellow political prisoners, kidnapped in the so-called Operation Colombo.

These women of the 70s—free, solidary, who lived love and political militancy to the fullest—resisted until their unknown end.

Colombo (Columbus in Italian) was also—we know it now—a colonizing message in terms of gender, a mirror of terror, also directed at the women of those times. Because these women were autonomous, committed to their time, insurrectionary, courageous, joyful, and felt they were masters of their own destiny.

Before throwing them into the sea, into a volcano, or into an unmarked grave, the repressive agents exercised sexual violence and torture on all of them in the most atrocious forms imaginable, including the use of pentothal injections to break them, the use of trained animals to humiliate them, and raping them in front of their partners and loved ones.

The youngest of them, María Isabel, was nineteen years old at the date of her arrest. The two oldest in the group were Sonia, thirty, and Violeta, forty. Thirteen of them were under twenty-five years old and the rest were not yet 30.

There was one pregnant comrade, and four were mothers of very young children. Their names, along with those of 100 other detained men, appeared on the "List of the 119" published in stages in the Pinochetist press and media in Brazil and Argentina, claiming that 119 Chileans had been exterminated "like rats" by their own comrades in the struggle (headline of the evening paper "La Segunda" on July 24, 1975).

The majority of those detained in this repressive episode were from Santiago, but some came from Isla de Maipo, Chillán, or Temuco, and were university students in Talca, Concepción, or Santiago, or were workers and public officials.

Eighteen of them were militants in the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and one belonged to the Communist Youth. They disappeared between 1974 and 1975, in Operation Colombo, a media setup with which the DINA sought to paralyze those who fought against the dictatorship, having the MIR as a preferred target.

The survivors of those years, their sisters, have testified in court in detail about the sexual violence they witnessed and experienced. The criminals failed to subdue either the disappeared or their comrades—organized as "Women Survivors Always Resisting." The prisoners, deprived of all contact with the outside world, supported each other, tended to their wounds, cried, sang, wove bracelets with splinters, told each other stories, recipes, and poems; they exchanged clothes, devised secret codes to protect themselves when they were separated, and continued to resist.

Torture and sexual violence against men

It is known that the dictatorship also exercised sexual violence against men, and it is likely that this also occurred in the so-called Operation Colombo. But until now, in all the cases of the 100 detained comrades, this is not documented as such; there are only testimonies of torture, which were also extremely grave.

In those lawsuits, sexual violence has not been addressed judicially, because in general, due to the type of society in which we live, marked by machismo, surviving men have even greater difficulties in processing these types of trauma.

It is indisputable, however, that torture was always present in clandestine detention centers, and also in this repressive episode, as the main method used by agents to obtain information and break the strength of the detainees, who remained blindfolded and incommunicado, subjected to all kinds of humiliations.

In total, regarding the group of these 119 disappeared, the Supreme Court has issued 56 final sentences, of which 45 rulings (five issued in 2017/2018) correspond to the men who disappeared in Operation Colombo.

That is to say, in less than half of the disappeared men has there been justice. One of those rulings (in 2016), in the process for the kidnapping of Rodolfo Marchant, acquitted Augusto Pinochet—who only ended up being indicted for that and other cases—due to death, as well as former Major Marcelo Moren Brito (chief of Grimaldi for a period) and Manuel Contreras, the criminal director of the CNI, the only three defendants in the case (see statistical table 1).

Women and Chilean "in-justice"

In the case of Jacqueline Binfa, the final ruling in 2009 exonerated all DINA agents, establishing the total statute of limitations for the crime of kidnapping. This year, 2018, the Supreme Court only issued two final rulings in the case of the comrades, which brought the number of rulings issued by that court for the 19 disappearances already cited from the List of the 119, which occurred 43 years ago, to eleven (see table 4).

That is to say, for women, justice has issued sentences in more than half of their claims. But in some cases, such as that of María Angélica Andreoli, only the DINA leadership was convicted, and all the agents who carried out the torture and rapes were acquitted.

The late sentences of recent years vary in the cases of the women between 6 and 10 years for the perpetrators of the kidnapping, almost always the surviving members of the DINA high command headed by former General Manuel Contreras (deceased), in direct line with Pinochet, and seconded by the Halcón brigade, whose prey were the members of the MIR.

In command of Halcón was former Army Brigadier Miguel Krassnoff Marchenko, one of those who now expects to serve his multiple sentences in the comfort of his home. Also convicted were former Brigadier Pedro Espinoza (second in command of the DINA and chief at Villa Grimaldi); former General Raúl Iturriaga (sub-chief of the DINA and responsible for the foreign department that set up Operation Colombo in Argentina, Brazil, and other countries); former Carabineros officer Ciro Torré (chief of the Ollagüe facility at José Domingo Cañas); Francisco Ferrer (Commander of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade and member of the Caupolicán Brigade); Orlando Manzo, former prison officer (chief of Cuatro Álamos). There were also convictions for former Army General César Manríquez (chief of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade and later of Villa Grimaldi), for Nelson Paz (Army non-commissioned officer and DINA agent), Manuel Carevic, former Army Colonel (member of the DINA), Risieri del Prado Altez, former detective (DINA), and Hugo Hernández, former detective of the Venda Sexy, among others.

Seven of the 19 cases of the women detained in Operation Colombo are still in the Court of Appeals or are in the first instance. And there is one case, that of Violeta López, in which there are not even any indicted persons.

In the eleven cases where the sentence has punished the criminals to varying degrees, it has done so for kidnapping, but sexual violence, a specific form of torture, is ignored in the rulings. The 119 Collective of Relatives and Comrades of the disappeared in that repressive episode, together with lawyers and other human rights collectives, has fought incessantly for justice and memory.

On the other hand, a lawsuit filed in 2014 by surviving women focuses on the specific crime of political sexual violence committed against them, as well as the effects on the victims.

None of the convicted have provided information that would allow for the finding of the comrades' remains. All the perpetrators retain their military rank, their pension, and privileges as members of the Armed Forces, far superior to the meager pensions received by Chilean citizens.

The army paid the expenses of their legal defense, which for decades managed to prolong the trials and in several cases has meant biological impunity, due to the death of the accused.

For the feminist tide

Here we finally present, in alphabetical order, a brief fragment of those 19 lives of women—one of them of Mapuche origin, Mónica Llanca—that the torturers cut short and wanted to erase. Their biographies are somewhat more developed in "119 de nosotros" (Lucía Sepúlveda, LOM, 2005); however, it is relevant to bring them back now to the heart and memory, to deliver them with love to the new generations of young social fighters and feminists.

Because last May 2018, in the midst of the eruption in the streets of the feminist wave and tide, some of them, high school students, asked me why I was marching. And I replied that the women who were advancing along the Alameda were, in some way, stepping firmly on the footprint that these 19 comrades left imprinted in the sand of history.

Because today, new generations are advancing along the path opened by thousands of women, many years before, and also after, by fighters like them, invisible women whom we want to recognize today.

1. María Inés Alvarado Borgel was 21 years old when she was detained on July 17, 1974. She was a secretary and had studied at the Liceo Manuel de Salas. She was a militant in the MIR. Before the coup, she was part of teams that worked with the residents of Nueva La Habana, a land occupation, to address issues such as family violence and provide political education.

During the dictatorship, she fulfilled one of the tasks of greatest risk, invisibility, and responsibility: being a liaison for her partner, Martín Elgueta. He was a mid-level leader of the MIR and was in contact with Hernán Aguiló, another high-ranking leader.

Martín was detained 2 days earlier. María Inés was tortured to reveal Aguiló's whereabouts. The agents took her to her parents' house and set up a trap there, waiting for other resistors to arrive. Her mother saw the traces of torture and the marks of burns and sexual torture on her daughter. Without the strength and courage of comrades like María Inés, the resistance would not have been possible.

2. María Angélica Andreoli Bravo was detained at her home on Calle Bilbao on August 6, 1974. She was 27 years old and was from the MIR. Before the coup, she studied at the University of Talca. She was going to be a nutritionist.

But after the military coup, she interrupted her studies and went to work as a secretary at Sigdo Coppers. She worked on the support team for the Political Commission of the MIR, and for Miguel Enríquez, its secretary general.

She was turned in by an informant, Marcia Merino. The agents took her to the clandestine detention center located at Londres 38, where other prisoners heard her voice for several days, resisting.

3. Jacqueline Binfa Contreras, a militant of the MIR, was detained on August 27, 1974, when she was 28 years old. On the street, she was turned in by Marcia Merino, "La Flaca Alejandra." She had completed secondary school at the Colegio San Gabriel, where she was a rebellious adolescent, very critical of her social environment.

Since she had advanced ideas, she argued with her mom, who was a widow and worked at the Military Hospital. She studied Social Work at the University of Chile. Her classmates from the university remember her as a committed student, totally devoted to her activities on the shantytown front in San Bernardo.

She was tortured in the clandestine detention centers of Villa Grimaldi, José Domingo Cañas, and Cuatro Álamos. But no one was convicted for her kidnapping, sexual violence, and disappearance. The Supreme Court determined in 2009 that all crimes had reached the statute of limitations.

4. Carmen Bueno Cifuentes, a film actress, was 24 years old when she was detained on November 29, 1974. She had studied at the Liceo 1 in Santiago and lived in the República neighborhood. She was the third of five siblings.

Her sister describes her as a woman who was free in love and in her relationships, without conventionalisms, sexual taboos, or duplicity. A friend says she was "stubborn, somewhat existentialist, and read books about women." Carmen had acted in "La Tierra Prometida," by director Miguel Littin.

She and her partner, cameraman Jorge Müller, were forced into a van and taken to Villa Grimaldi. Both were militants in the MIR and participated in the Revolutionary Workers' Film Front. They fell madly in love while the film "A la Sombra del Sol," by Silvio Caiozzi, was being shot, where Carmen was the producer.

The couple was tortured at Villa Grimaldi and Cuatro Álamos. They supported each other by shouting their love while they remained detained.

5. María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda, a militant of the MIR, was 24 years old when she was detained on December 9, 1974. There were only a few days left until the date she was to take her final exam to graduate in Social Work at the University of Chile.

During the government of President Allende, she participated in the "Health Train," organizing care for patients in remote parts of the country who required medical attention. To this day, other participants in that experience remember her because "her copper-colored hair gave her an aura of light" and for the impeccable organization she displayed there.

She was a leader but also a liaison for Hernán González, who, having been detained previously, gave up the location where she developed photos, copied microfilms, and studied city maps to set the contact points that would allow them to communicate with members of the organization. She was taken to Villa Grimaldi, tortured, and humiliated, only to disappear definitively afterward.

6. Sonia Bustos Reyes, a militant of the MIR and a cashier at the Investigations Service (the current PDI), was 30 years old when she was detained at her home in the Brasil neighborhood on September 5, 1974.

Her father, who died early, was imprisoned in Pisagua during the times of González Videla. Sonia studied at the Higher Institute of Commerce. The family remembers that in her previous jobs at a hotel and a real estate agency, she did not accept any abuse from the bosses and always fought to dignify the life of the people.

Her sister Rosa, detained along with her just like her boyfriend Carlos, survived and says that Sonia was flirtatious since she was a girl and liked to dress up and design her own clothes. She also wrote poems and painted.

Through her work, she received information about people the DINA was looking for, and she would get it to the Resistance so they could protect themselves. Sonia worked politically alongside a detective, Teobaldo Tello, and a civil servant, Mónica Llanca. All of them are disappeared.

7. Cecilia Castro Salvadores was 24 years old, had a two-year-old daughter, Valentina, and a husband, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, when both were detained in their apartment on November 17, 1974. She was in her fourth year of Law school, had been a Chilean national volleyball player, and a national champion at the Liceo 1, where she studied.

In her family, there was a history of fighting women. Her paternal grandmother was one of the first suffragettes and the first woman to sign up for the Radical party. Cecilia was a militant in the MIR, where she did activism by participating in land occupations in Linares with the Revolutionary Peasant Movement and teaching literacy to the peasant women of the area.

Her group, after the occupation was evicted, ended up in the Parral jail and was released thanks to the efforts of President Allende. Cecilia married Juan Carlos, also a MIR militant, very shortly after that episode, in February 1972. The couple was tortured at José Domingo Cañas, and then Cecilia was taken to Villa Grimaldi. Cecilia and Juan Carlos disappeared.

8. Muriel Dockendorff Navarrete was 23 years old when she was detained on August 6, 1974. She was a MIR militant, and like her husband, she had been a student leader at the School of Economics at the University of Concepción, although she came from Temuco.

In the years prior, she had participated in volunteer work in Mapuche communities, teaching literacy and talking about the right to organize and recover usurped land. Her friends from her university days remember her as a rigorous militant, but they also know of her poems and her closeness to art.

Muriel liked to embroider and gave very personal touches to the house where she lived as a student in Laguna Redonda, Concepción. In prison, she sang love songs and wanted to know about Juan, her husband, imprisoned like her.

She was turned in by Marcia Merino. Like María Angélica Andreoli, she belonged to the support team for the Political Commission of the MIR and its secretary general, Miguel Enríquez. Gloria Laso, a survivor, says that Muriel dreamed of reuniting with Juan when the nightmare ended and going to live in the south, where "she would live in a little wooden house in the middle of a forest of mañíos and araucarias, and she would name her children after heroes and those who had fallen fighting in pursuit of their dreams."

9. Jacqueline Drouilly Yurich was 24 years old and 4 months pregnant when she was detained in Santiago on October 30, 1974. A few hours later, in another place, her husband, Marcelo Salinas, was detained.

Miguel Enríquez had already fallen in combat on October 5, and now the DINA was looking for his successor in the leadership of the MIR, Andrés Pascal Allende. The couple of MIR militants had married in August, and after the party with family and friends, Jacqueline joked, showing the purple sheets, "bishop-style," with white trim that she had sewn when she began living with Marcelo.

They were part of the teams that carried out tasks within the structure of Information, directly linked to the leadership of the MIR. Jacqueline was the oldest of four sisters and lived her childhood and adolescence in Temuco.

She studied Social Work at the University of Chile. But since she also had artistic inclinations, she studied two years of Theater in Santiago when they moved there. After the coup, her parents offered to support her to go to Europe.

But she and Marcelo refused, arguing that the shantytown dwellers and the workers could not leave, and "we are going to endure" like them. They knew the risks, but they also knew that their party and the people needed them. In prison, at Cuatro Álamos, Jacqueline managed to communicate with Marcelo using a mirror, and she cheered up her comrades by telling stories and jokes. Both disappeared.

10. María Teresa Eltit Contreras was 22 years old and studied secretarial work. She was a militant in the MIR. She was detained on December 12, 1974, a few days after the detention and death under torture of José Bordaz, military chief of the MIR, with whom she worked as his liaison.

Her militancy came from the times when she was a student and belonged to the FESES, Federation of Secondary Students. In prison, she reunited with a comrade from that time, a survivor, who describes her as "impulsive, in love, and very committed" to the objectives of her party.

Another friend remembers her doing political work in the "Patria o Muerte" and "Venceremos" camps in the La Granja commune, which emerged from land occupations. María Teresa was tortured on the grill many times; however, other prisoners remember that she was the one who received and consoled those who then went through that same ordeal.

Before the other comrades, she also expressed her pain for the helplessness in which her mother, who was a widow and a health worker, had been left.

11. María Elena González Inostroza was 22 years old when she was detained in Santiago on August 15, 1974. She was a MIR militant, and until the coup, she had been the Director of School No. 18 on the El Calabozo estate in Chillán.

The daughter of peasants, she had been the best student in her program, graduating with distinction as a primary education teacher at the University of Chile in Chillán. The persecution in that region was intense.

Her parents' house was raided 17 times. She and her brother Galo moved to Santiago and were detained in their apartment along with three other comrades and the 5-month-old son of one of them. A survivor testifies to María Elena's extraordinary mettle in the concentration camps: "She knew about Chilean cooking and empanadas.

She measured everything in deep plates. She told me, unflappable, that they had been torturing her for 36 hours on the grill." She was capable of laughing at everything, with a black humor that was proof against the circumstances. She and Galo disappeared.

12. María Isabel Joui Petersen, "Marisa," 19 years old, studied economics at the University of Chile. She was detained on December 20, 1974. She was the only woman in a traditional home, where her two brothers and her father were in uniform.

She arrived at political commitment from the Christian perspective, as she was a member of the Young Catholic Students (JEC), where she understood Christianity as explained by liberation theology: commitment to the struggle to liberate the oppressed and build a better world.

She was president of the Student Center of Liceo 3, whose board participated in the meetings of the FESES. That was how Marisa arrived at the Revolutionary Student Front (FER) and later began to be part of the Secondary Brigade of the MIR.

Political readings of Che and Bakunin, street fighting, occupations, strikes, protests in front of the United States embassy in Parque Forestal, as well as selling the MIR newspaper El Rebelde at the entrance to factories and before entering class, were part of her life.

In those times, an unbreakable friendship arose with María Teresa Eltit and with María Alicia (a survivor), who remembers that Marisa liked to listen to Cat Stevens, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Quilapayún.

Marisa was with her friends celebrating in the Alameda on the night of President Allende's victory. And during volunteer work, she fell in love with Renato Sepúlveda, a medical student, also from the MIR.

They married in December '73, when little remained of the world they had lived in. The dictatorship had closed her school, but both continued in the resistance. The trio of friends later shared prison and torture. With threads from a blanket and splinters, they wove bracelets that they promised to always carry with them. Marisa and Renato disappeared.

13. Mónica Llanca Iturra was 23 years old, had a 2-year-old son, Rodrigo, and a husband, when she was detained on September 6, 1974. She was a civil servant in the Central Investigations Cabinet and belonged to a clandestine network that provided identity cards to the resistance.

She worked alongside detectives Antonio Tello and Sonia Bustos. Over the course of six months, she managed to transfer blank identity card forms for the creation of new identity cards destined for the persecuted MIR leaders who could not pass street checkpoints.

Mónica studied at Liceo 15 on Calle Santo Domingo and lived in the Carrascal neighborhood, where she met her husband, Manuel. They married in 1971 and shared the enthusiasm of the years of the Popular Unity and the changes the country was experiencing.

Mónica went to rallies and marches, read the magazine Punto Final and El Rebelde with Manuel, and in a letter to a friend, she asked her if she also thought that Allende was truly the Savior of Chile. Manuel worked at Cemento Polpaico, an intervened industry, and studied at night at the USACH, then the State Technical University.

They were a happy family full of hope; they had set up a wooden shack in the backyard of Mónica's sister's house. Manuel became unemployed after the coup, and they lived through difficult days, with her supporting the home alone.

A coworker describes her as "cheerful, lively, trusting, and trustworthy. In the cafeteria, she always spoke to us with much love about Manuel and her little son Rodrigo."

14. When Violeta López Díaz, a MIR militant and widow, disappeared, she was 40 years old, had a 16-year-old son, Ricardo, and a 14-year-old daughter, Rebeca. A militant and artist, mother and beautiful woman, worker and secretary, she broke traditional canons.

Before the coup, she had founded the Acquarius theater group. She participated in the Railroad Theater Association and was also secretary of the Society of Theatrical Authors of Chile. On September 11, she was working as a laborer at Cecinas Loewer and was detained along with eleven other workers and harassed for several days.

On that occasion, the uniformed men made her swallow gasoline, threatening to set her on fire and harm her children. Brave and determined, she continued forward with her family, her militancy, and her life, but after her new detention at her home in San Miguel on August 29, 1974, her children lost her forever.

The complaint for the habeas corpus petition was filed by the boy, Ricardo, at the Vicariate. When he looked for her in police facilities, the uniformed men would tell him to go back home because his mother had abandoned him.

He continued looking for her, desperate, and quit his studies. He was imprisoned again and again because during the nights of the curfew, he would go out into the streets to demand Violeta's whereabouts and then insult the uniformed men.

A lawsuit was filed in 2005 by CODEPU, and again in 2015 as part of a collective lawsuit by the Londres 38 Memory House. Finally, the visiting minister Marianela Cifuentes took the case, which still has no indicted persons.

15. María Cristina López Stewart, 21 years old, a MIR militant, a history student at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile, was detained on September 22, 1974, within the framework of the operations that the DINA carried out to locate Miguel Enríquez, Secretary General of the MIR.

The young student, with honey-colored hair and short stature, directed a part of the information structure, working with Alejandro de la Barra, who was executed by the DINA in December 1974. From the age of eight, María Cristina, the youngest of three sisters, kept a diary.

At 16, she wrote there: "I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of ceasing to live." She studied at Liceo 7, where she was able to meet girls from social sectors different from her family, who lived in La Reina, and made dear friends at the Liceo.

She read, studied, listened to The Beatles, her favorite musical group, and played with her little dog Jenny. Her rebellion and her search for equal rights led her to refuse to attend the graduation ceremony at the end of her secondary studies because there were other students who would not do so because they could not afford the outfit for the occasion.

She began her university militancy on the student front, participating even on Sundays and holidays in political and shantytown work, which made her mom say: "It seems that my daughter Mari feels that every minute of her existence is more important given to others than to herself, and so she goes on leaving her overflowing joy and hope in humbler homes." Later, Mari went on to work politically in the search, collection, and systematization of information related to the coup-plotting movements that operated prior to the coup.

16. Eugenia Martínez Hernández, a worker, from the MIR, a Colo-Colo fan, 25 years old, was detained on October 24, 1974, at the Laban industry, where she worked. Her mother explains that she joined the MIR because she wanted to live in a free and just society.

Her social commitment was awakened when she worked in a paper factory. Eugenia finished her secondary education by attending the Liceo Nocturno No. 3, arriving very late at her home in La Legua Emergencia.

Laban’s factory was taken over by its workers on June 29, 1973, the day of the "Tancazo," a sort of rehearsal for the coup. Quena managed to get the industry intervened by denouncing the employers' boycott of production, and from then on, they joined the Macul Industrial Belt. But the experience only lasted 2 months. After the coup, the industry returned to the hands of the employers.

17.- Marta Neira Muñoz , communist, 29 years old, one son – Francisco – was detained on December 9, 1974, hours after her partner, César Arturo Negrete (MIR), for whom she was a liaison, was also taken prisoner.

Tita, cheerful and generous, with large blue eyes, the third of five siblings, grew up in the town of Isla de Maipo. In the plaza, everyone would form a circle around her when she danced rock and roll with her brother Miguel Angel.

She was the pride of the Communist Youth in the town, where she used to distribute El Siglo. She was short and liked to wear very high heels. Her father had experienced persecution during the times when González Videla outlawed the Communist Party.

When the family moved to Santiago, she spent some time at Liceo 5 on Calle Portugal but finished her studies at a night school. Her beautiful face, with tanned skin and a perfect smile, was once on the cover of the youth magazine Ramona, edited by Quimantu, where she worked until September 11.

18.- Patricia Peña Solari , a biology undergraduate student, was 23 years old when she was detained on December 10, 1974. Her brother Fernando had been taken the day before. Her mother, a concert pianist and sister of the actress Malucha Solari, had passed away shortly before.

She was a member of the MIR and was in charge of reproducing the MIR newspaper, El Rebelde, in a complex process that began with deciphering the texts that came on microfilm. She had studied at Liceo 1.

Beautiful, with long, straight black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and dark skin, Patricia played the piano and guitar and loved music. She belonged to the Liceo choir and later to the Guido Minoletti Chamber Choir.

During the long nights of the dictatorship and resistance, Patricia and her partner worked printing the newspaper El Rebelde to make about 200 copies, after which, with their hands still stained with ink, they would caress each other... afterwards, Patricia would play the piano, interpreting Mozart and Chopin, in a succession that Claudio, her partner and a survivor, recalls: "There you were again, sweet as always: the love, the meeting, El Rebelde, and the return to the musical staff."

19.- Bárbara Uribe Tamblay , detained on July 10, 1974, was 20 years old. She graduated from high school a year before marrying Edwin in December of '73. It was love at first sight. They met at the premises of the Night Students' Federation as active members of the FER, and she took the initiative.

Iván worked in the Information structure of the MIR, and it is likely that Bárbara did as well. She studied at Liceo 7 for Girls and Liceo 9 in Macul, where she fought for all just causes. There were four sisters, and one of them, Viviana, says that she had a reputation as a rebel and was kicked out of everywhere.

She also cared for her friends, and one of them highlights that Bárbara taught her how to put on mascara. Emotional and sensitive, she liked music and singing and found heavy reading boring. Very beautiful, she was advised to be a model, but she chose to take a secretarial course.

She joined the MIR after participating in volunteer work in support of the peasant and worker movement in Talca: "When she saw poverty directly, she never stopped seeing it," her sister explains. She worked politically in the Lo Hermida and Nueva Habana shantytowns and knew the agent Romo closely, who at that time was a community leader and later was the one who detained and abused her.

She had remained linked to the residents and strove to help those being persecuted. Bárbara and Edwin remain forcibly disappeared and united forever.

Source: rebelion.org, 28/07/2018

Date: 28-07-2018

U. de Chile awards 104 posthumous degrees to political executions and the forcibly disappeared

This Monday, in the context of the commemoration of a new anniversary of the coup d'état, the University of Chile announced by decree the awarding of posthumous degrees to students who were forcibly disappeared or victims of political executions during the civil-military dictatorship.

The activity took place in the Domeyko courtyard of the University of Chile and was attended by the relatives of the 104 students who were recognized, who came from various degree programs. Claudio Nash, coordinator of the Human Rights chair at the university, explained that the ceremony is part of a process that began with the return to democracy and is related to making reparations to the victims of the dictatorship, in this case, the students.

The academic said that the University community was the object of acts of violence against its staff, academics, and students, so this act would be part of "that community that is being rebuilt and returns to accompany its students to tell them that they have not been forgotten." The rector of the institution, Ennio Vivaldi, pointed out that public institutions have inescapable responsibilities, such as recognizing those who were victims of human rights violations.

From his perspective, this type of action contributes to a reconciliation with a sense of justice. "We are moved by the tremendous turnout this has had among the relatives, because it means that for them, one of the attributes of their loved ones was precisely that which linked them to our University," he stated.

Lorena Fries, Undersecretary of Human Rights, valued the ceremony and stated that it is not only a significant gesture for the families of the young people, but also a way to contribute to the construction of a truth that allows for the creation of memory in the country. "We are recognizing as a society that those life projects, which were not only personal but also a way of serving the construction of a country, were unjustly truncated by the dictatorship.

With this, we are contributing to deepening the truth, because those events that those who are being honored today had to suffer are made visible," she added. For their part, the relatives of the students who were recognized valued and thanked the university for the awarding of posthumous degrees.

One of the people who was in the Domeyko courtyard was Mónica Pilquil, wife of Ismael Darío Chávez Lobos, who was detained in July 1974 when he was a law student at the University of Chile. The young man was a militant of the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement), was 22 years old, and had a son of almost one month when he was detained.

For Mónica, this recognition is part of the justice they have waited for for years. "The University had to make a recognition like this because that makes the new generations take these young people as an example, who, besides being students, were social fighters who participated with their people in unions and shantytowns." María Isabel Leiva, cousin of Luis Valenzuela Leiva, a 21-year-old sociology student who disappeared in 1975 according to the information gathered by his family, also referred to the ceremony: "It is a joy, in quotes, because to this day we know nothing about him.

That they recognize him as a student of this place is something very beautiful for the family." The act was also attended by Ángela Jeria, mother of President Michelle Bachelet, who commented that it is fundamental that a tribute be paid to the young people who "had a great commitment to the country, so that new generations know their value and dedication." Regarding the work that institutions have developed in this matter, she indicated that "they have not had the time to do enough," but that "it must be encouraged so that it is carried out." Although the awarding of posthumous degrees corresponds to an unprecedented action at the University of Chile, there are other institutions such as the University of Santiago and the University of La Frontera in Temuco that have already carried out this type of tribute to students who were forcibly disappeared or victims of political executions during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. For the moment, the announcement includes 104 young people, but from the Human Rights chair, they pointed out that there are many more students of the University who deserve this recognition, so they have already begun to work on it.

Source: radio.uchile.cl 11/9/2017

Date: 11-09-2017

School of Social Work commemorates International Human Rights Day

With a tribute to students and professionals who were victims of the military dictatorship, the School of Social Work, together with the College of Social Workers of Chile, commemorated the 66th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948 – 2013) this December 10.

In an act held at the memorial that remembers the 17 social workers who were forcibly disappeared and victims of political executions, inaugurated last year on our University's premises, those men and women who lost their lives at the hands of State agents were remembered one by one. "Our colleagues have faces and names," note those who knew them.

The activity was led by the School director Pablo Miranda, professors, students, and representatives of the College of Social Assistants of Chile. Omar Ruz, from the School of Social Work of our University, recalled that ten of the victims studied on the premises of what is currently the Academy and which, during those years, housed the School of Social Service of the University of Chile.

Furthermore, he highlighted the ideology of those who lost their lives after the military coup, who in his view believed in and fought for an ideal: "they are a ray of light present in each one of us," he indicated.

In a public statement read during the day by Luis Cáceres, the Provincial College of the National College of Social Workers and Social Assistants of Chile stated that "We want on this occasion to pay a heartfelt tribute to our colleagues and students of Social Service who were victims of the repression of the military dictatorship, for the sole fact of thinking differently and dreaming of a better world." They add that "the unrestricted and inalienable defense of Human Rights is a constitutive part of our history, memory, and professional identity.

We feel fully legitimized to demand justice and punishment for those responsible for the civil-military dictatorship of 1973-89, who, sheltered by the state, organized, directed, and executed this policy of systematic terror," they indicate in the statement.

Also present were the national president, Alicia Yáñez, and representatives of the entity's national Human Rights commission, who provided details and progress on the cases that are in the courts, several of which have had favorable results. "One of the hallmarks of our College at the national level is to work with human rights from the point of view of history so as not to forget it, and that has also been reflected in the work that our Human Rights Commission has carried out over the last 41 years," maintained Yáñez.

There are 17 victims at the national level who belonged to various universities in the country, five of whom head the list of political executions and 12 were detained and to this day remain forcibly disappeared.

To these is added a new case that the College of Social Workers did not include in its records. It is the student of the University of Chile, Chillán campus, José Alfredo Romero Lagos, 22 years old, who was detained and murdered in 1973 in a mountain town in that city. "The search for possible new victims of the dictatorship, especially social service students, is an open wound and a permanent task for the College," indicated Omar Ruz.

The victims Alfredo Gabriel García Vega (Student, disappeared), Carolina Wiff Sepúlveda (Social Worker, disappeared), Elizabeth Rekas Urra (Social Worker, disappeared), Jacqueline Binfa Contreras (Student, disappeared), Jacqueline Droully Yurich (Student, disappeared), José Ernesto Agurto Arce (Social Worker, disappeared), José Alberto Salazar Aguilera (Student, disappeared), Juan Ernesto Ibarra Toledo (Student, disappeared), Luis Jorge Almonacid Dúmenez (Student, disappeared), María Cecilia Labrín Saso (Social Worker, disappeared), María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda (Student, list of the 119), María Teresa Eltit Contreras (Student, list of the 119), Elizabeth Cabrera Balarritz (Social Worker, political execution), Gilberto Victoriano Veloso (Student, political execution), Segundo Norton Flores Antivilo (Social Worker, political execution), Sonia Valencia Huerta (Social Worker, political execution), Rolando Angulo Matamala (Social Worker, political execution).

Source: academia.cl 11/12/2014

Date: 11-12-2014

Supreme Court acquits DINA leadership in kidnapping of MIR militant

The Supreme Court of Chile acquitted the DINA leadership this Thursday of all criminal responsibility for the qualified kidnapping of Jacqueline Binfa Contreras, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), whose trail was lost on August 27, 1974, in Santiago.

According to judicial sources, in a split decision, the judges acquitted the accused based on the statute of limitations, overturning the ruling established by the special judge Alejandro Solís and ratified by a chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals.

The ruling had sentenced the former head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), General Manuel Contreras, and former agents Marcelo Moren Brito, César Manríquez Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff, and Ciro Torres Sáez to between 10 and 15 years in prison.

Binfa Contreras was detained by former agent Osvaldo Romo Mena, subsequently passing through the clandestine centers of political imprisonment and torture José Domingo Cañas, Simón Bolívar, and then Villa Grimaldi, all used during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

The judges who were in favor of acquitting the accused of responsibility were Nibaldo Segura, Rubén Ballesteros, and Julio Torres Allú, who is a candidate for titular judge of the highest court. Meanwhile, Jaime Rodríguez and Hugo Dolmetch voted against, as they were in favor of confirming the sentence.

Loreto Sepúlveda, a lawyer for the Human Rights program of the Ministry of the Interior, expressed surprise at what happened. "It is a ruling that takes us back to the past; we thought we had already advanced in the matter of the application of International Law, but it seems that is not the case," she maintained. "The issue is that it is difficult because there are moments when the titular ministers (judges) are not there, and in this case, they integrate with a substitute minister, and in other cases with participating lawyers, so it depends on who is there," added Sepúlveda.

Source: Friday, January 23, 2009 EFE

Date: 23-01-2009

Villa Grimaldi: Prosecution against DINA extended

The main members of the DINA leadership have added a new indictment for the qualified kidnapping of two victims whose trail was lost after they were detained at Villa Grimaldi. Ministers The victims are Jorge D'Orival Briceño, who was last seen on October 31, 1974, and Jacqueline Binfa Contreras, disappeared since August 27 of the same year.

The indictments were issued yesterday by Judge Alejandro Solís and affect the former director of the intelligence agency, Manuel Contreras, the head of the metropolitan brigade, César Manríquez, and Marcelo Moren, Miguel Krassnoff, Basclay Zapata, and Orlando Manso.

Meanwhile, for the disappearance of D'Orival, Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, head of the José Domingo Cañas barracks, was indicted as the author of the kidnapping, while for the kidnapping of Jacqueline Binfa, Army officer (ret.) Ciro Torre Sáez and Osvaldo Romo Mena were indicted.

PROSECUTION

According to the indictment, Jacqueline Binfa was 28 years old when she was detained on August 27, 1974, in front of the "Gobelinos" store on the corner of Compañía and Ahumada streets. The young woman was single, a former Social Work student, and a militant in the MIR.

At the time of her detention by a group of DINA agents led by Osvaldo Romo, she was running bank errands. After her detention, she was taken to the clandestine center José Domingo Cañas and subsequently to Cuatro Álamos.

According to the judge's ruling, "on various occasions, she was taken back to José Domingo Cañas for torture and interrogation sessions, disappearing without any news of her whereabouts to this date, with no record of her entering or leaving the country, and without any record of her death." In the case of Jorge D'Orival Briceño, he was detained on October 31, 1974, from the home of his partner's parents, located in the San Miguel commune, by DINA agents who were traveling in two vehicles.

The young man was a MIR militant, was 26 years old, and was a veterinary medicine graduate.

Source: mercurioantofagasta.cl, January 10, 2006

Date: 10-01-2006

Judge indicts DINA leadership for qualified kidnappings of opponents

Judge Alejandro Solís indicted nine former members of the military dictatorship's repressive agency as authors of the disappearance of social worker Jacqueline Binfa and veterinarian Jorge D'Orival, both occurring in 1974.

The judge ordered the arrest of two of the accused. Investigating judge Alejandro Solís indicted the leadership of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) as authors of the qualified kidnappings of dictatorship victims Jacqueline Binfa Contreras and Jorge Humberto D'Orival Briceño.

The list of those indicted is headed by General (ret.) Manuel Contreras, former director of the repressive agency, and the head of the Intelligence Brigade, César Manríquez Bravo. Also indicted were Brigadier (ret.) Miguel Krassnoff, head of the DINA's Falcon Group, and retired Brigadier Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, former director of the Army Secret Service.

Likewise, former Colonels Marcelo Morén Brito and Orlando Manso, former head of the Cuatro Álamos detention center, and Ciro Torré Sáez, husband of San Miguel Court minister Gabriela Hernández, face charges.

Meanwhile, only for the kidnapping of D’Orival Briceño was sub-officer (ret.) Basclay Zapata Reyes indicted by Judge Solís. The judge also ordered the immediate arrest of Ciro Torré and Orlando Manso, since all the other accused are already in prison, convicted or indicted in other human rights violation cases.

Binfa Contreras and D'Orival Briceño were arrested in 1974 by members of the repressive agency and passed through various political imprisonment centers of the dictatorship until their trail was lost. In the case of D'Orival Briceño, who was accused of an alleged closeness to the then-secretary general of the MIR, Pascal Allende, he was transferred at different times to "Cuatro Álamos," "José Domingo Cañas," and "La Venda Sexy." However, his trail was lost at the "Cuatro Álamos" detention center, and there was no information about his whereabouts until he appeared on the list of 119 Chileans, members of the MIR, reported dead in Argentina and Brazil through fictitious publications.

Source: January 9, 2006 El Mostrador.cl

Date: 09-01-2006

Impunity by bureaucracy: reports of fake dementia for prisoners in Punta Peuco

Through medical reports of dubious technical quality, those accused of crimes against humanity seek to evade sentences by alleging mental or physical illness. A "forensic report" carried out on former agent Raúl Iturriaga Neumann by Hugo Lara Silva – former leader of Chilean Nazism – states that the sentence is "revenge." On March 3, 2000, at 10:25 in the morning, a plane from London landed at the airport of the Chilean Air Force's Group 10 in Pudahuel.

From the aircraft descended, in a wheelchair, the then-designated senator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, after spending 503 days detained in London. To the surprise of those present – and the entire world – the former dictator, released for not being fit to face trial, stood up and walked toward the Commanders-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. "Dead man walking," ironically headlined the weekly The Clinic.

Indeed, the sudden "resurrection" of the sick man raised serious doubts regarding his real state of health, paving the way for a legal strategy that would be used in the future by other military personnel convicted of human rights violations in Chile.

The concept today has a name and points to all those accused of crimes against humanity who seek to escape the reach of Justice by simulating physical or psychological pathologies through reports of dubious technical quality.

The term is "biological impunity," and it also applies to cases that have not been able to be resolved judicially, despite long years – in some cases decades – passing, due to the death of witnesses and perpetrators.

The latter, following the same idea, prevents ensuring due process and ends up guaranteeing impunity, especially in those cases where high-ranking officials were involved, who are the most elderly. Figures on this indicate that, as of April 2024, according to the latest Human Rights Report from the UDP, 457 former agents died at some stage of the judicial process.

Although the passage of time continues to be a determining factor in burying cases without those responsible, the preparation of reports that allude to incipient dementia or some other psychiatric or mental health pathology has grown exponentially over the last three years. "The fever of reports," is what human rights lawyers who have to deal with these strategies call it.

Simulation Apart from Pinochet, another paradigmatic case is that of Edwin Dimter Bianchi, a retired Army colonel known as "The Prince" – accused of the homicide of Víctor Jara and the director of the Prison Service during the Popular Unity, Littré Quiroga Carvajal – who remained out of prison due to a series of reports that diagnosed him with mental alienation.

The Investigative Unit of El Mostrador accessed one of the forensic reports that confirm the diagnosis made of the former Army officer. The document indicates that the methodology used includes "an interview, reading of the case file, and case analysis 'for one hour'." The report concludes that Dimter suffers from a major neurocognitive disorder of a progressive and unrecoverable course. "Such cognitive deficits interfere with autonomy and daily activities," the report explains.

Despite the damning conclusions of the document, the proceedings requested by investigating judge Paola Plaza proved that Dimter not only went frequently to the supermarket to do his household shopping, but that he traveled to the location driving his own vehicle.

The investigation, in short, allowed for the dismissal of the reports prepared by the Legal Medical Service and the Dr. José Horwitz Psychiatric Institute. "The Prince" (as they called him at the National Stadium), sentenced to 25 years in prison, entered Punta Peuco on October 17 of last year.

Regarding the entry of the former uniformed officer into prison, this media outlet published a note reporting the fact, requesting a statement from the Judiciary, which responded that "special care will be taken in these matters, arranging corroboration measures in the face of any diagnosis that deserves doubts, in order to provide certainty that the judicial decisions adopted are based on irrefutable evaluations." Despite the good intentions of those in charge of administering justice, the ability of former intelligence agents to simulate is a subject that still worries human rights lawyers. "If the person effectively has a mental health situation, there is nothing to be done. Justice cannot complain, but if the person is simulating, that would imply getting out of prison through bureaucracy and constitutes a form of impunity through fraudulent motivation," explains lawyer Francisco Bustos. The former executive secretary of the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior and former INDH councilor Francisco Ugás expressed the same point of view in a recent opinion column published in this media outlet. "The measures directed toward a correct examination must be extreme and rigorous, taking into consideration, first, that a large part of the agents have specialization in intelligence and have been trained to simulate... they seek to evade and abstract themselves from the action of Justice, simply by lying regarding their state of health," he noted. Multidisciplinary teams There are judicial sentences that also delve into the analysis of reports presented by perpetrators. In the case of the homicide of agricultural worker Pedro Curihual Paillán, committed in September 1973 in the Pitrufquén commune, Carlos Moreno Mena was sentenced to 12 years in prison, despite the fact that the exams from the Legal Medical Service pointed to the existence of a diagnosis of dementia in the first outpatient care of the former Carabineros lieutenant. The problem, the document adds, is that "it does not appear in the following evaluations, nor is it consistent with the current clinical examination." This type of inconsistency in forensic reports, according to psychologist and lawyer Natalia Roa, is due to the inaccuracy of the diagnoses. "To diagnose, one must perform the minimum exams; it is not enough to say that the person suffers from some pathology based on a couple of interviews or impressions. There are cases where not even one test is passed to certify a diagnosis. Therefore, the concern we have is that there exists a minimum standard to justify a legal consequence as relevant as a dismissal or alternative fulfillment of a sentence," she asserts. Another of the deficits detected in the reports is the participation of only one doctor in the diagnosis. In the case of César Manríquez Bravo, head of the DINA's Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, convicted as one of the authors of the disappearance of social worker Jacqueline Binfa and veterinarian Jorge D'Orival in 1974, one of the reports that diagnosed him with mental alienation, on January 10 of this year, was signed by only one psychiatrist from the Legal Medical Service. For neuropsychiatrist Luis Fornazzari – consultant to the Memory Clinic and the Geriatric Psychiatry Program of St. Michael's Hospital in Canada and one of those in charge of the forensic reports on former dictator Augusto Pinochet – forensic reports in these cases must be multidisciplinary. "Currently, all the care centers where we evaluate patients with any type of dementia do so with multiprofessional teams with the objective of having a multiple vision of the cognitive disorder and analyzing it from several angles," he explains. Regarding the diagnoses, some specialists assert, there is another factor not always well-weighted: not every cognitive disorder is synonymous with a change in precautionary measures, nor does it correspond to an incurable disease. "There are cases where delirium is diagnosed, but since the conclusion is not based on exams, a distinction that is very relevant is not made: the disease can be treated with medication and it passes. Dementia, on the other hand, by definition, is not reversible. So, being able to differentiate both conditions is very important," explains Natalia Roa. Fornazzari even goes beyond the inaccuracy of the diagnosis. "Culpability does not expire because they are older. We must not forget that these are crimes against humanity that have two sides: respect for the victims, on one hand, and that patients can be treated inside prisons, with a good quality of life, even if they have dementia. This is not about revenge; it is about justice. And crimes against humanity do not prescribe," he states. The report of the former neo-Nazi leader There are reports for all tastes, and some – without fear of exaggeration – are truly unclassifiable. This is the case of the neurological forensic report carried out on Raúl Iturriaga Neumann at the Military Hospital, in the middle of this year, by the doctor and judicial expert Hugo Lara Silva, in the context of the investigation into the qualified kidnapping of Jorge Herrera Cofré, which is being investigated in the San Miguel Court of Appeals. The conclusions of the document rule out any type of mental disability, asserting that from a neurological point of view, the former military officer – sentenced to a total of 515 years in prison for various crimes – can be charged normally in any criminal case. However, the report extends into a series of sociopolitical reasonings foreign to the tenor of this type of forensic report. One of these points concludes that Iturriaga Neumann is essentially a victim: "An 87-year-old senior citizen, a pensioner, who does not represent any danger to society or to the left, because 09/11/73 became history a long time ago (more than 50 years), now he is not a soldier, he is an elderly former soldier, the current sentence being clear revenge." Then, the report continues to delve into the role that the former officer had in the sociopolitical history of the country. "He is not a criminal, he is a former soldier of the fatherland... who complied with the regulations in force in his time and place, for his institution and for the Republic, within the context of his work as a specialized military officer and in a period of irregular war (typical of international Marxism), based on a clear breakdown of the rule of law by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende," the neurological report explains textually. Next, the document poses some concerns that the doctor tries to highlight: "Is it that the Military and Carabineros who saved Chile from a Marxist assault on power through a flagrant violation of the constitution and who avoided a Civil War are objects of Hatred and Revenge, and the Red murderers of Military and Carabineros are deserving of Pardons and Benefits by these 8 governments including that of 'PIÑERA and BORIC'?" (sic). Hugo Lara Silva also explains that "the international legislation of deconstruction, of the so-called 'crimes against humanity'" should not be applied with retroactive effects and that "for equal justice applied by the United Nations, it would have to be done with retroactive effect also in the former USSR, China, Cuba, Cambodia, North Korea, Viet-Nam, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc." (sic). All these strategies, according to Lara Silva, have condemned Iturriaga Neumann to an "odious death by imprisonment." "It is a political and medical problem that involves a military political prisoner, whether or not he participated in a detention of Marxist subversives, a thing that it is not my place to judge as a neurologist expert. A detention that does not have any evidence or witnesses according to what the Major General reports, because he never detained anyone, and it is what is stated in his service record, which for the Armed Forces is of essential veracity," he states textually. Before finishing the report, the expert assures that the document written was done "without hatreds of any kind, without hatreds of Marxist revenge, which examines not a criminal with mild to moderate medical disability but a Major General (ret.) who acted in special times of Irregular War against International Marxism by order of the legitimate Government of the Republic, which restored the Rule of Law" (sic), he ends. It is worth mentioning that Hugo Lara Silva took over in 1997 as leader of what was one of the main neo-Nazi groups in Chile, the National Socialist Workers' Movement (MNSO), and that in the trial against the neo-Nazis who in 2006 murdered the young Tomás Vilches at the Persa Bío Bío, one of the accused, Héctor Herrera, recounted the conversation they had that day with Lara, whom they met in a store: "Esteban greeted him and asked about his daughter, commenting that they hadn't seen each other for a long time, since the National Socialist meetings [sic]. They also talked about other neo-Nazi meetings. Dr. Lara gave him a business card, indicating that if they wanted, they could go to the Lili Marlen restaurant, which important people, like powerful businessmen, went to. The greeting between Esteban and Dr. Lara was very particular; they held hands and greeted each other with a kiss," said Herrera (who received a six-year sentence), in reference to Esteban González, better known as "Tito van Damme." El Mostrador contacted the Legal Medical Service, seeking to clarify the concerns raised in this report, but the agency assured that they would not make statements on the matter. by Claudio Pizarro Sanguesa

Source: elmostrador.cl, September 15, 2025

Manuel Contreras adds new sentence for qualified kidnapping of Jacqueline Binfa

The Supreme Court issued a final sentence in the investigation into the qualified kidnapping of Jacqueline Binfa Contreras, which occurred starting August 27, 1974, in Santiago. In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the country's highest court determined to issue the acquittal of the persons identified below, who had been convicted by investigating judge Alejandro Solís and the Santiago Court of Appeals: Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Marcelo Moren Brito, César Manríquez Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Ciro Torré Sáez.

Ministers Nibaldo Segura, Rubén Ballesteros, and Julio Torres were in favor of accepting the appeal for cassation filed against the first and second instance sentences and applying the principle of the statute of limitations for criminal action. Meanwhile, ministers Jaime Rodríguez and Hugo Dolmestch were in favor of rejecting the appeals for cassation filed and confirming the sentence.

Source: elciudadano.com