Date of Birth: 07-02-47, 26 years old at the time of his detention. Address: Valentina Lepe 10823, La Florida, Santiago Marital Status: Married, 1 daughter Occupation: Hydraulic Engineer at the SERCOTEC plant Political Affiliation: Left-wing militant Date of Detention: September 20, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Jorge Carlos Romualdo Ruz Zúñiga, married, one daughter, a Hydraulic Engineer, was detained on September 20, 1973, around 3:30 PM at his workplace, the Technical Cooperation Service (SERCOTEC), located at Rivas Vicuña 365, Maipú.

The apprehension was carried out by a group of soldiers belonging to the No. 18 "Guardia Vieja" Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Los Andes, who were stationed at the FISA compound in Maipú. From this facility, he was transferred to the Estadio Nacional, along with two coworkers from the same company, José Nobrega Araujo and Gonzalo Lagos Puccio.

From the Estadio Nacional detention center, he was taken out by Carabineros on the night of September 20, along with four other detainees, and driven to the Cajón del Maipo area, where they were executed. Two of them survived the firing squad by jumping into the river. Jorge Ruz's body was never returned to his family, nor was his death acknowledged by the relevant authorities.

Background information on the events was provided to the justice system by his father, Raúl Ruz Vega. In one of his statements, he expressed: "On the morning of September 20, 1973, my son Jorge Carlos Romualdo Ruz Zúñiga, who lived in my house with his wife, the Soviet citizen Viera Brinchinina, and their daughter born in this country, left for his work at the Technical Cooperation Service, located at Rivas Vicuña No. 365 in Maipú.

That same day, engineers Hernán Morales and Eduardo Moya, and civil constructor Germán Contreras, arrived at my house, telling me that during the day my son had been detained by military personnel who had appeared at the SERCOTEC facility... The soldiers who detained him were presumably from the Andean Regiment, which had its base at the FISA compound."

"My son received his professional degree after studying in the Soviet Union. He told me he feared being detained, but he did not attach great importance to that fact. I learned through rumors that my son had been at the Estadio Nacional and that he had subsequently been taken to the Cajón del Maipo."

Numerous witnesses from the Technical Cooperation Service corroborated this statement. Víctor Morales Vega stated: "On September 20, several uniformed men arrived at the site and made all the employees and workers go out to the gardens. Apparently, they found some small firearms. Subsequently, they detained Ruz Zúñiga. Then they displayed two pistols and said they had found them during the raid."

Another official from the company, civil constructor Germán Contreras, testified in similar terms: "A few days after the military coup, Army personnel under the command of a man who claimed to be an Army Officer, leading about 30 people, proceeded to detain 3 people.

I only knew the personal details of the aforementioned Ruz; one of the others was Brazilian and the other was Chilean. That officer added that he was in charge of guarding the Cerrillos industrial belt... Even though I was a friend of Ruz, he never expressed any political position, and he once told me that he was an enemy of takeovers and violent actions."

For his part, Eduardo Moya Roa, who also worked at the company, noted... "between 3:30 PM and 4:00 PM, between 30 and 40 military personnel appeared at the laboratory in combat gear, with no distinction between the uniforms of officers and soldiers...

From what I learned later, a gardener found small arms in one of the building's gardens, under a paving stone; he notified the management, and they notified the service's Prosecutor, who at that time was the Government Delegate... the Prosecutor requested that those weapons be removed, hence the presence of the military.

The soldiers gathered all the staff in the courtyard... I saw them taking 3 staff members: Jorge Ruz Zúñiga... José Nobrega, a Brazilian, and also Gonzalo Lagos."

Julio Carrasola R., a civil engineer, added: "...I remember the soldiers read names from a list while we were in the courtyard; they made the people on the list lie 'face down' and beat them... I would say the soldiers took Jorge Ruz, among other people... He declared himself a communist-Marxist, but he did not participate."

Reaffirming this version, Leonardo Giavio C., a civil engineer, declared: "They made all the staff evacuate the building and formed them in the front garden; even the Government Delegate, Fernando Sepúlveda, was downstairs.

An Officer, or at least the person in charge of the troops, called 5 or 6 staff members whose names he had written on a piece of paper... I remember 3 people who worked with us: Gonzalo Lagos, Jorge Ruz, and José Nobrega...

The person in charge of the troops spoke, emphasizing the fact that weapons had been found in the laboratory, which was an attack against the Armed Forces; then they took the 3 mentioned people." "I remember that the people in the operation were uniformed and a young Officer was from the Guardia Vieja Regiment of Los Andes."

Thus, the detention by the military personnel stationed in Maipú at the time was proven in the proceedings.

Regarding this, the Government Delegate at SERCOTEC at the time of the events, Luis Sepúlveda Alamos, noted having learned from information provided by the laboratory staff that a package of weapons had been found on the grounds of that office. "I reported it to the Ministry of Economy...

I was ordered to report the fact to hand over the weapons and for an investigation of those involved to be conducted. In compliance with the order, it was reported to the head of a Regiment that was stationed at the FISA premises in Maipú...

Because of the notice, numerous military personnel arrived under the command, apparently, of an Officer, whose rank and name I do not know because he did not identify himself. The military personnel were in several vehicles and wore war uniforms, without visible ranks.

After an investigation, 2 people were detained on that occasion. Among the detainees was Mr. Jorge Ruz, which I became aware of at the very moment of his detention. A package of large-caliber Russian-made pistols was found, according to the classification made by the military personnel to whom the package was handed over.

Mr. Ruz and others, whose names I do not know, were identified by the military personnel."

The FISA compound in Maipú had been occupied before September 11, 1973, by soldiers from the Guardia Vieja Regiment of Los Andes.

The former general manager of the National Agriculture Society, Patricio Guzmán Mira, stated that "after the military coup, the compound was occupied by Army personnel, whose purpose was to guard the industrial belts, as I understand it. I knew that the personnel of the Guardia Vieja Regiment were installed there, and I had to deal with the then-Commander Prüssing, whose aide was Captain Penroz."

The former administrator of that compound, Luis Eduardo Guzmán Forster, acknowledged having handed over the FISA compound to military personnel of the No. 18 Guardia Vieja Regiment of Los Andes on September 7, 1973, under the command of Captain Guajardo.

He added in his statement, "I know for a fact that in the days following September 11 of the same year, it was used to hold detainees, but only in transit, while they were being transferred to a more definitive place at the Estadio Nacional."

The presence of the No. 18 Guardia Vieja Infantry Regiment, which was stationed at the FISA compound starting September 11, 1973, was proven in the proceedings. It was part of the "Maipú" sub-grouping, commanded by Colonel Luis Prussing Schwartz, a group initially formed by forces from the Army, Air Force, Carabineros, and Investigations.

It was further stated that "the results of the operations carried out daily were reported to the CAJSI (Santiago)"—an intelligence coordination agency—"upon the Regiment's return to its garrison, all documentation and Control Books were handed over to the CAJSI." This agency later ceased to exist, and according to what the Santiago Army garrison reported to the Court, the documentation was incinerated "in accordance with the provisions in force regarding the processing and use of documentation."

According to the statement of Army Lieutenant Colonel Ramón Guajardo B., the detainees were in transit and spent no more than a few hours at the FISA compound, "to be immediately handed over to the Civil Police or Carabineros, who used the routine procedure to place them at the disposal of the courts."

Two important statements regarding the detention, the transit of the detainees, and their final destination are the testimonies of those detained alongside the victim, Gonzalo Luis Lagos Puccio and José Nobrega Araujo.

Gonzalo Lagos stated that once they were detained, they were loaded onto a dump truck and forced to lie on the floor. They were taken to a place located at FISA. There, they were interrogated about weapons and severely beaten. "On 3 occasions, I was subjected to mock executions." After a few hours, they loaded the 3 detainees along with others onto a truck, in which they were transported during the curfew to the Estadio Nacional.

At the stadium, they remained one next to the other on the ground, "until I was called to be interrogated. In this interrogation, I was stripped and beaten again so that I would acknowledge the weapons, which were on top of my interrogator's desk, next to the 3 identity cards; that is, Ruz's, Nobrega's, and mine." Once the interrogation was over, he was taken back to the line of people on the ground and then they were moved toward the tunnel, where they were again forced to lie on the ground. "I was in the front and Nobrega and Ruz were among the last.

Shortly after, I heard the voice of a soldier saying: 'the last three, stand up,' and I saw them taking Nobrega and Ruz, plus a third person I do not know." "I never heard from them again at the stadium."

For his part, another detainee, José Nobrega, recounted in similar terms what the detention and transfer to the FISA compound and subsequently to the Estadio Nacional were like.

Regarding his time at the stadium, he recounted being led to some hallways and then to an underground area where there were many detainees leaning against the wall or face down on the floor. While in that place, they were led by a soldier to another room.

There, Jorge Ruz was interrogated, and then the declarant. In that place, the Officer sat at a small table. He took the personal documents he had and began to interrogate him. He took a folder he had under other papers where he claimed to have all the background information on Brazil.

Immediately, he left the room and spoke with another person who was outside, next to the door. This person spoke almost in Portuguese with the Officer and had an accent from the Rio de Janeiro region. Subsequently, the Officer led him back to the hallway where Jorge Ruz was also located.

At one point, a group was formed consisting of the declarant, the victim, a young man of about 23 years old who wore glasses, and 2 workers; one dark-skinned and one blond. For about 40 minutes, they remained there, watched by the soldiers who pointed their weapons at them.

He continues in his statement: "Afterward, a group of Carabineros with a bellicose appearance approached, which, due to their brutal gestures, gave me a bad feeling. They took us and led us to a Mercedes Benz bus, painted green...

Once on the bus, the Carabinero Officer who commanded the group distributed us lying on the floor. We started the trip, and during the journey, I could perceive that they were taking us out of Santiago.

On several occasions, the bus had to stop to identify itself to the patrols that were on the road. After traveling for nearly an hour, the bus stopped and the Carabineros made us get off... The Carabineros took us, now without ties, and made us kneel in front of the bus, which illuminated us, on the narrow road that separates the Maipo River from an abrupt mountain, in the Cajón del Maipo.

My first reaction to this difficult situation was to stand up immediately and tell the Officer who commanded the Carabineros that I was a foreigner and had done nothing to be executed. The Officer who commanded the Carabineros, a tall and strong guy who wore a yellow epaulet typical of generals' aide officers, shoved me and made me return to the group.

I attempted this attitude a second time, which had already caused confusion at the checkpoint by the Carabineros. All that happened in a fraction of a second. This second attitude caused the Carabineros to start firing in a disorganized manner. My first naturally instinctive measure was to jump forward... Believing me dead, the Carabineros threw the bodies of the others..."

Another survivor, Manuel Antonio Maldonado Gatica, also provided important background information regarding the same situation. Maldonado Gatica was detained on September 18, 1973, by soldiers from the Peldehue Parachute School, along with his father, Manuel Segundo Maldonado Miranda, and they were transferred to the facility that this Military Unit has in Peldehue; his brothers Víctor Joaquín and Juan Domingo were also held there.

From this place, he was transferred—along with his brothers—to the Estadio Nacional, where they were also subjected to torture. His father remained detained at the Peldehue facility.

In the early hours of the 19th, he, his brother Víctor Joaquín, Juan and Paulino Ordenes Simón, and another person who was also brought from Peldehue were taken by Carabineros in a bus of that institution to a vacant lot in the Macul commune and were executed.

Manuel Maldonado Gatica managed to survive and, moments later, was detained again during curfew hours by a military patrol. He was taken to a Carabinero station in Macul, where he was brutally beaten, and they returned him to the Estadio Nacional.

On September 20, he was taken out of that detention center by Carabineros around midnight to be executed. Along with him, they took 4 men, two of whom seemed to know each other, as they were talking to each other.

Another was a student from the State Technical University, with black hair, who wore glasses and who complained constantly about the pain resulting from the torture. The last person was a man of about 22 years old who had nothing to do with political activities and who, apparently, had been prosecuted for rape.

They were taken to the Cajón del Maipo area, where they were taken off the Carabinero bus. In a fraction of a second, Manuel Maldonado threw himself into the Maipo River and heard the Carabineros begin to fire. In this way, he managed to escape the execution again, outside of any legal process, at the hands of the Carabineros.

Subsequently, while at a relative's house, he was informed of the death of his father and his brother Víctor, whose bodies were found at the Legal Medical Institute. The same fate befell the brothers Juan and Paulino Ordenes Simón.

Due to the description of the circumstances surrounding the execution on September 20, this event would be linked to the detention and death of Nilson Hernando Vallejos Aguilera, a student of Food Technology at the State Technical University and a primary education teacher, who was detained between September 19 and 20, 1973, by Carabineros from the 7th Precinct, and whose body was found in Puente Alto with multiple gunshot wounds, and with the detention of the forcibly disappeared Jorge Carlos Romualdo Ruz Zúñiga.

The administrative authority officially denied the detention at all times, in the repeated inquiries that the Court made to find his whereabouts, and therefore his death has never been able to be regularized.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On September 21, 1976, his father, Raúl Ruz Vega, filed a complaint for Presumed Misfortune before the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago, which was registered under No. 78679-3.

The judge issued official letters to the Ministry of Defense, the Minister of the Interior, and the Legal Medical Institute, and witnesses to the detention were summoned to testify. The Minister of the Interior at the time, General Raúl Benavides Escobar, denied the detention, and the rest of the inquiries yielded no results regarding his whereabouts.

The official letter sent to the Ministry of Defense was returned to the Court because "arrests carried out by virtue of the powers conferred by the State of Siege are carried out in accordance with centralized powers of the Ministry of the Interior."

New official letters were sent to the Commander of the Los Andes Regiment to report on the authority responsible at the time of the events and background information on the detention. This letter had to be reiterated due to the lack of response.

On September 27, 1977, a Criminal Complaint was filed for the crimes of kidnapping or illegal arrest, which was added to case file 78679-3.

All the official letters sent to the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), the Immigration Office, the Investigative Police, cemeteries, Military Prosecutor's Offices, the Ministry of the Interior, the Military Court, and the Civil Registry were negative regarding the location of the affected person.

Regarding the Court's inquiries to obtain the name of the Commander of the Andean Regiment of Los Andes in September 1973, the Joint Chiefs of Staff requested that they address the Ministry of the Interior for the information, and the latter Ministry responded that, as it was a matter under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Defense, the note received should be forwarded to that department.

On April 27, 1978, the judge declared the summary closed, given the nature of the Amnesty Law. The Court of Appeals rejected this resolution and ordered the investigation to continue.

For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández F., informed the Court that during 1973, Colonels Orlando Ibáñez A. and Luis Prussing Schwartz served as Commanders of the No. 18 "Guardia Vieja" Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Los Andes.

Colonel Ibáñez declared that he had no connection to the events as he was serving, at the time of the events, as Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Santiago garrison, and General Luis Prussing denied any participation of the "Guardia Vieja de Los Andes" Regiment in the investigated events.

New official letters were sent to the Aviation Prosecutor's Office, the detention camp under the State of Siege, prisons, hospitals, and the Ministry of the Interior; all of them also yielded no results.

In the meantime, a group of Chilean bishops made a presentation to the President of the Supreme Court and the Minister of the Interior reporting cases of forcibly disappeared persons. The Plenary of the

The Court accepted the filing, designating Minister in Visitation Servando Jordán for this purpose.

On May 9, 1979, Minister Jordán declared himself incompetent to continue hearing these records, as the participation of military personnel had been established in the proceedings, and he referred the records to the Institutional Military Court on duty, as it corresponded to its jurisdiction.

The 2nd Military Court of Santiago rejected the jurisdiction, and Minister Jordán initially continued the investigation of the facts. On November 5 of the same year, the Minister ruled on the resolution that had been deferred, thus creating a jurisdictional dispute with the 2nd Military Court.

On December 10, the Supreme Court declared the 2nd Military Court of Santiago competent to continue hearing these records. The investigation fell to the 1st Military Prosecutor's Office, and the case was registered under No. 9-80.

The Ministry of the Interior denied the detention of Jorge Ruz Zúñiga and the other two detainees, Gonzalo Lagos and José Nobrega. For his part, the former Military Delegate at the SERCOTEC industry, Local Police Judge Fernando Sepúlveda Alamo, testified.

In his statement, he acknowledged the participation of military personnel stationed at the FISA-Maipú facility and the detention of the affected party following a report of the presence of weapons at the service.

All official requests aimed at locating his whereabouts again yielded negative results, according to the responses from the Carabineros Intelligence Directorate, the Air Force, the National Intelligence Center (CNI), the Military Institutes Command, SENDET, the Ministry of the Interior, etc.

The Acting Chief of Staff, Colonel Rigoberto Majmud, replied that he had no records regarding military personnel who may have participated at the location and date mentioned. On August 17, 1982, the Prosecutor declared the summary closed because the investigation was exhausted and "because it had not been possible to reliably prove that any military officer bears responsibility for the alleged kidnapping of Jorge Ruz," and the case was dismissed.

This resolution was approved by the Military Judge, and the Court Martial revoked the resolution on January 27, 1984, returning the case to the summary stage so that pending proceedings and others derived from them could be carried out.

Two key witnesses who remained detained alongside the victim did not appear before the Court because they were out of the country. Furthermore, there are judicial statements from two former FISA officials.

One of them, Patricio Guzmán, a former manager, states that the FISA was occupied by military personnel a few days before September 11, 1973. "The premises were occupied by Army personnel from the Guardia Vieja Regiment, among whom were Commander Prüssing and his assistant, Captain Penroz." For his part, the former administrator of the FISA, Luis Guzmán F., claims to have handed over the FISA-Cerrillos premises to the Guardia Vieja Regiment No. 18 of Los Andes.

Complementing this, official requests were sent to the Guardia Vieja Regiment of Los Andes and the Army Personnel Directorate. Thus, on May 11, 1984, Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Rojas declared in writing and acknowledged that personnel from the Guardia Vieja Infantry Regiment "were stationed at the FISA premises on the date of the reported events." Following this report, Lieutenant Colonel Ramón Guajardo B. and another military officer who did not appear were summoned to testify.

An official request was sent to the CAJSI to report on the investigated facts, as this body centralized the documentation and control books, receiving a negative response from the General Command of the Santiago Army Garrison, "since the documentation was incinerated." On July 30, 1984, the Prosecutor closed the summary and the case was temporarily dismissed "until new elements of conviction are presented." This resolution was approved by the Military Court; the plaintiff's lawyer appealed.

On January 6, 1988, the Court Martial definitively dismissed the case by virtue of the Amnesty Decree Law, with a dissenting vote from Minister Enrique Paillás. Faced with this, the lawyer for the plaintiff filed a complaint with the Supreme Court for the lack or abuse of the Ministers of the Court Martial, since "a definitive dismissal cannot be decreed until the investigation has been exhausted in which an attempt has been made to prove the corpus delicti and to determine the identity of the perpetrator." "The effects of the kidnapping continue to occur until the victim is found, a matter which has not happened." On March 28, 1988, the complaint was rejected by the Supreme Court. Once the work of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation was concluded, it forwarded the records it had gathered regarding this case to the Criminal Court of Puente Alto on duty. The case was filed in the First Court of Puente Alto and registered under No. 41.032-M. At the end of 1992, the case was in the summary stage. The anthropometric records of Jorge Carlos Romualdo Ruz Zúñiga 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. Preliminary information indicated that one of the bodies corresponds to the victim.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

A "Memorial for Justice and Dignity of the Cordillera Province" will be inaugurated on December 10 at 11:00 a.m. at Balmaceda and Irarrázaval, Puente Alto. The Memorial is a tribute and recognition to the forcibly disappeared and politically executed persons in the Cordillera Province.

It is made with rocky materials from our Andean hills bordering Puente Alto and San José de Maipo. It is built from granite rocks extracted from the quarry of the border hill Cerro Blanco; it also features ceramics with the faces of the Cordillera victims and the chained anchor of the former Railway Regiment (a place of deaths and torture).

The Memorial is an educational reference for the universal values that link human rights with the rescue of historical memory. It will also contribute to healing and overcoming the pain of the unresolved mourning of families from working-class sectors by registering and disseminating the names of those executed and disappeared during the dictatorship.

Their names have been confirmed, investigated, and qualified by the State, human rights organizations, and the Salvador Allende Human Rights Cultural Center. Following the coup d'état, more than 45 people were executed in the Cordillera Province, and 16 were kidnapped, swelling the long list of forcibly disappeared persons.

In total, more than 61 people. In the Cordillera Province, more than 2,000 former political prisoners suffered unspeakable torture. Also, nearly 4,000 were dismissed for reasons of political persecution, several thousand had their homes raided, were detained in citizen protests, and many had to go into exile due to the hatred unleashed against the humble.

The Memorial constitutes a monument, a cultural work, and a collective social recognition to preserve historical memory. Throughout the national territory, memorials have been built to rescue and remember the history of comrades who gave their lives for a better Chile.

Participants will include the "Memorial Trio," the payador "El Manguera," human rights groups, social organizations, the Undersecretariat and Human Rights Program, and the families and comrades of those honored.

Source: cronicadigital.cl 12/9/2016

Date: 12-09-2016

Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of Santiago

Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of Santiago, between Avenida México to the north, Avenida O’Higgins to the east, Calle Los Copihues to the south, and Los Maitenes to the west; in the Commune of Recoleta. Metropolitan Region.

One of the first indications of this situation is the information that reached the Vicariate of Solidarity in November 1979 regarding the existence of at least 200 graves with illegal burials and the existence, in the same place, of at least six bodies of victims from Paine.

A complaint was filed with the Minister of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, and efforts were made to prohibit the cemetery authorities from burying, exhuming, incinerating, or moving the remains of people buried as "NN" (unidentified).

Later, the magistrate declared himself incompetent and referred the case to the military justice system. That court ratified the order not to carry out any movement in Patio 29. After the return to democracy, the case returned to the ordinary justice system.

In September 1991, mass excavations of the "NN" graves began—a first exhumation had already been carried out in January of that year. These procedures originated from a lawsuit for illegal burial of corpses filed by the Vicariate of Solidarity on August 22, 1991. 107 graves were exhumed, in which 125 sets of remains were found, which were sent to the Legal Medical Service for examination.

The handovers took place gradually between 1993 and 2002, and a total of 96 people were identified through anthropometric examinations, one of whom was also identified by mitochondrial DNA analysis (genetic code of maternal inheritance).

After the year 2000, advances in judicial investigations allowed for new information to be known about the events that occurred with some victims, the itinerary they had experienced, and their probable final destination.

This information contradicts the identification in the General Cemetery of several victims from the town of Paine in the operation of October 16, 1973, as well as others detained at the Palacio de la Moneda on September 11.

In 2004, the wife of a victim of the Paine operation, Patricio Loreto Duque Orellana, requested mitochondrial DNA tests to confirm identity, to which the court agreed. The tests concluded that, genetically, the remains provided do not correspond to Duque Orellana, as the analysis results were "exclusive." Along with the above, the Minister of the Court of Appeals, Sergio Muñoz, who had taken over the judicial investigation regarding Patio 29, ordered new proceedings to review the examinations performed and to complement the genetic information related to the victims.

He ordered the exhumation of 30 previously identified remains that were buried in other cemeteries in the country and abroad to subject them to new examinations. The results were made known to the families' groups on April 19, 2006.

The SML report regarding the mitochondrial DNA analyses of 89 victims, for whom samples from relatives were available, showed that in 48 cases the results were "exclusive" (the previous identification does not correspond to the identified victim), 37 cases were "non-exclusive" (the maternal lineage of the identified victim is not ruled out, but it coincides with other victims), and 4 cases were inconclusive (the maternal lineage is neither affirmed nor ruled out).

These results led to the designation by President Michelle Bachelet of a special advisory and supervisory body on human rights matters for the SML: the Presidential Commission on Human Rights Policies.

This body continues to work on the issue of identifying the victims of Patio 29, in coordination with the civil and institutional actors involved. Since then, various actions have been carried out aimed at installing an identification system in accordance with international standards and protocols, and regarding the victims of Patio 29, the advice of international experts and the performance of genetic tests in foreign laboratories.

In mid-2008, bone and blood samples from the reference victims of the relatives were sent to the University of North Texas for new DNA analyses, which is expected to incorporate relevant information into the judicial investigation regarding Patio 29.

An episode that caused consternation in the world of human rights defense was the appearance of a "false victim" who appeared qualified in the Report of the National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation; this was Germán Cofré Martínez, who also appeared on the list of people from Patio 29.

The case of this man, who appeared alive in Santiago in November 2008 after living in Argentina, although it sparked enormous controversy in public opinion and confrontation between various political sectors, served to deepen the debate on the rigor of investigations into human rights violations and to strengthen institutional and citizen resolve to continue the search for truth and justice.

To date, in 2012, the genetic tests performed have allowed for the identification of 55 victims among those exhumed from Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. Pablo Ramón Aranda Schmied, 20 years old, 3rd-year medical student, member of the Communist Youth, student delegate to the Federation of Students of the University of Chile (FECH).

Detained on September 17, 1973. Enrique Armando Carvallo Lira, 21 years old, no record of detention. Carlos Alfonso Cruz Zavalla, 32 years old, member of the GAP, militant of the Socialist Party. Detained on September 11, 1973.

Luis Herminio Dávila García, 18 years old, street vendor, no political affiliation. Detained on October 15, 1973. Juan Carlos Díaz Fierro, 27 years old, employee, secretary of the Casa García union, and militant of the Communist Party.

Detained on September 19, 1973. Sergio Fernando Fernández Pávez, 18 years old, loader at the Vega Central. Detained on October 5, 1973. Carlos Fonseca Faúndez, 24 years old, arc welder, no political affiliation.

Detained on September 17, 1973. Raúl René Fuentes Vera, 42 years old, loader at Matadero Franklin, no political affiliation. Detained in late September 1973. Raúl Luis Jiménez Barrera, 25 years old, worker at the CALAF industry.

Detained on October 4, 1973. Ricardo Octavio López Elgueda, 15 years old, street market vendor, no political affiliation. Detained on September 20, 1973. Oscar Osvaldo Marambio Araya, 25 years old, caretaker of a commercial site.

Detained on September 11, 1973. Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuan, 24 years old, worker, militant of the Communist Youth. Detained on September 23, 1973. Carlos Enrique Miranda González, 33 years old, sympathizer of the Socialist Party.

Detained on October 22, 1973. Iván Octavio Miranda Sepúlveda, 28 years old, lathe mechanic, union leader. Edmundo Enrique Montero Salazar, 21 years old, member of the Personal Guard of President Salvador Allende (GAP).

Detained on September 11, 1973. Waldemar Segundo Monsalve Toledo, 26 years old, industrial mechanic, worker at the Politec industry, militant of the MIR. Detained on October 12, 1973. Nelson Omar Muñoz Torres, 20 years old, shoeshiner.

Miguel Angel Núñez Valenzuela, 23 years old, popular singer. Jorge Manuel Pavez Henríquez, 25 years old, farmer, treasurer of the El Patagual Settlement. Detained on October 13, 1973. Hernán Peña Catalán, 20 years old, driver, no political affiliation.

Detained on October 15, 1973. Donato Quispe Choque, worker of Bolivian nationality. Detained on September 23, 1973. Daniel Eliseo Rodríguez Lazo, 15 years old, no profession, militant of the Communist Youth.

Detained on September 25, 1973. Abraham José Romero Jeldres, street vendor, 29 years old, militant of the Socialist Party. Jorge Carlos Romualdo Ruz Zúñiga, 26 years old, hydraulic engineer at the SERCOTEC plant, leftist militant, detained on September 20, 1973.

Simón Eladio Sánchez Pérez, 17 years old, primary student, no political affiliation. Adrián del Carmen Sepúlveda Farías, 29 years old, worker at the SUMAR textile factory, staff delegate, leftist sympathizer.

Detained on September 23, 1973. Eduardo Emilio Toro Vélez, 42 years old, traveling salesman, militant of the Radical Party. Detained in October 1973. Jorge Reinaldo Torres Aránguiz, 19 years old, assistant at a street market.

Detained on September 29, 1973. Ernesto Traubmann Riegelhaupt, 39 years old, public relations officer for the National Mining Company (ENAMI), militant of the Communist Party. Detained on September 13, 1973.

Juan Segundo Utreras Beltrán, 23 years old, street vendor. Detained on September 17, 1973. Juan José Valdevenito Miranda, 26 years old, car body repairman, militant of the Communist Party. Detained on September 20, 1973.

Héctor Orlando Vicencio González, 24 years old, construction worker, no political affiliation. Detained on September 20, 1973. Benjamín Jaime Videla Ovalle, 28 years old, employee of the Schiaffino S.A. industry.

Detained on October 6, 1973. Francisco Arnaldo Zúñiga Aguilera, 22 years old, waiter, no political affiliation. Detained on September 12, 1973. Carlos Ramón Reyes Ávila, 19 years old, casual worker. Detained in September 1973 in Santiago.

Luis Francisco Pascual Núñez Álvarez, 21 years old, driver. Died on October 12, 1973. Mario Eduardo Casanova Pino, 34 years old. Died on September 24, 1973. Jorge Espinoza Farías, 19 years old, worker.

Detained on October 7, 1973. José Alfredo Vidal Molina, 27 years old, worker. Detained on September 23, 1973. José Miguel Valle Pérez, 15 years old, high school student. Detained since October 17, 1973.

Orlando Miguel Ponce Quezada, 16 years old. Died on October 8, 1973. Luis Vergara González, 22 years old, worker. Detained on October 15, 1973. Enrique Renato Guerrero Muñoz, 30 years old, employee. Detained on September 21, 1973.

Gregorio Mimica Argote, 22 years old, university student, student leader at the Technical University, militant of the Communist Party. Detained on September 14, 1973. José Luis Astudillo Celedón, 16 years old, student.

Detained on October 17, 1973, in Santiago. Pedro Juan Garcés Portigliati, 20 years old, member of the Presidential Guard of President Salvador Allende (GAP), detained on September 11, 1973, in Santiago.

Ramón Bernardo Beltran Sandoval, 24 years old, street market vendor. Died on September 27, 1973. Jorge Osvaldo Orrego González, 29 years old, student, member of the Presidential Security detail (GAP), militant of the Socialist Party.

Detained on September 11, 1973, in Santiago. Luis Alfredo Gamboa Pizarro, 19 years old, member of the GAP. Died on September 19, 1973. José Rafael Muñoz Contreras, 24 years old, street vendor. Died on September 20, 1973. Raúl Antonio Muñoz Muñoz, 50 years old, employee, union leader. Detained on September 29, 1973. Source: museodelamemoria.cl 2012

Source: Patio 29 is a sector of the General Cemetery of Santiago, located in the northern area of this graveyard. After the 1973 coup d'état, it was used to bury, as "NN," the bodies of detained persons illicitly, following their passage through the Legal Medical Service.