Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza, single, university student, and member of the Socialist Party, was arrested on September 30, 1973, at his home in the town of Padre Las Casas. The arrest was carried out by Carabineros who arrived in an institution van and belonged to the staff of the "Padre Las Casas" police station.

Only two of the officers entered the home; they told his parents that they needed him for a brief conversation with Lieutenant Ramón Morales and that he would soon be back home. This occurred around 5:00 PM.

At 8:00 AM the following day, his parents went to the police station, and the aforementioned Lieutenant told them that there was an accusation against their son and that, based on the investigation, it was likely he would be released the following day.

However, when they returned the next day, the Lieutenant indicated that there were new complaints and that he had decided to place him at the disposal of the Air Force Intelligence Service. He was subsequently transferred to the Maquehue Air Base, where he was seen in a precarious physical condition.

However, his detention was never acknowledged at that facility. Since then, they never had any news of their son, despite consulting various State agencies about his situation; the authorities always denied his detention.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On April 2, 1979, his case was included in the filing regarding forcibly disappeared persons after September 11, 1973. For the cases of the disappeared persons from the Department of Temuco, among whom the victim is included, the Temuco Court of Appeals appointed a Visiting Judge, Alfredo Meynet González, to investigate case 2-79.

In the order to investigate issued by the case, carried out by the Investigative Police, the Court was informed of the existence of a sworn statement made by Mr. José Calderón Ortega and Mrs. Gladys Otaíza Tapia, and a friend of theirs, Mr.

José Manuel Henríquez Flores—the first two being the parents of the disappeared—in which the circumstances of the arrest and subsequent disappearance of the affected party are set forth. On June 19, 1979, Mr.

José Calderón appeared before the Court, stating that once he was informed that his son would be placed at the disposal of Air Force Intelligence in Maquehue, he went to that location and spoke with a Lieutenant whose name he did not know, who told him that his son had not been taken to that military unit.

However, he learned unofficially from a Sergeant Major named Heriberto Rivas that he had indeed arrived at the Air Force base and that he had received him. On July 5, 1979, Ramón Emilio Morales Cravero, a Captain of the Carabineros, appeared before the court and stated that while he was indeed the head of the Padre Las Casas police station on September 11, 1973, he did not remember Jorge Calderón Otaíza.

On October 25, 1979, the Visiting Judge declared himself incompetent to continue hearing the case and referred the records to the IV Military Court of Valdivia, on the grounds that all the persons whose disappearance was being investigated were arrested on different occasions by Carabineros, the Army, or the Air Force, in various patrols, acting unequivocally in the line of duty, concluding that it is reasonable to presume some sort of responsibility for the disappearance of these persons on the part of the uniformed personnel who proceeded with their confirmed arrest.

In December of that year, the Military Court accepted jurisdiction over the facts and ordered the Cautín Military Prosecutor's Office to investigate case 1192-bis-79. Before this Military Prosecutor's Office, in June 1980, the retired FACH (Chilean Air Force) Sergeant Heriberto Rivas Delgado appeared, stating that he was indeed serving at the Maquehue Air Base on September 11, 1973, but stated absolutely that he lacked any information related to Jorge Calderón Otaíza, whom he claimed not to know, just as he did not know his father, José Calderón Ortega.

On October 24, 1980, the Military Judge dismissed the case totally and definitively by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law.

Source: (Corporation Report)

The extraordinary visiting judge for human rights violation cases in the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, indicted former Air Force officer Leonardo Reyes Herrera and Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco, a former civilian employee of the same institution, for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza, perpetrated starting on September 30, 1973, at the Maquehue Air Base in the commune of Temuco.

By Darío Núñez The victim, 28-year-old Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza, was an employee of the National Public Employees Fund, a Commercial Engineering student at the University of Temuco, and a member of the Socialist Youth.

He was arrested by Carabineros from the Padre Las Casas police station on September 30, 1973, at his home in the Padre Las Casas sector, where he lived with his family on Calle Sarmiento. After his arrest, he was taken to the Maquehue Air Base of the Chilean Air Force, a facility used as a detention and torture center, where he was seen by witnesses in a deteriorated physical condition.

According to the judicial investigation, immediately after the military coup, the commander of the No. 3 Helicopter Group of the Maquehue Air Base, Colonel Andrés Pacheco Cárdenas (now deceased), assumed command of the so-called CAJSI (Jurisdictional Action Command for Internal Situations), whose office was located at the No. 8 'Tucapel' Infantry Regiment in the city of Temuco.

For this reason, he delegated the operational command of the Air Base to the second-in-command, Benjamín Fernández Hernández (now deceased); however, he never formally relinquished command of the unit, attending that location daily to determine the actions to be taken.

To lead and control repressive activities, as well as the interrogations and management of the political prisoners held at the Air Base, Fernández Hernández organized a special group to handle intelligence and political prisoner matters.

This group, under the command of this officer, included the then-captain Leonardo Reyes Herrera, lieutenants Ángel Hernán Campos Quiroga and Jorge Humberto Freygang Campaña (both deceased), Sergeant Orlando Garrido Riquelme (deceased), and several members of the permanent staff, including Luis Alberto Soto Pinto, Heriberto Pereira Rojas, Luis Osmán Yáñez Silva, Jorge Aliro Valdebenito Isler, Jorge Eduardo Soto Herrera, and Enrique Rebolledo Sotelo, among others, in addition to the civilian employee Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco, who had a nursing specialty.

From that date on, this group stopped performing the functions proper to their specialty to focus on the tasks assigned to them by the high command of the Maquehue base, acquiring a special status, as they did not wear uniforms and appeared on daily attendance as being on an institutional service commission.

The special group received the alternating and sporadic collaboration of line and reserve officers who, out of their own interest or by superior order, sometimes joined patrols intended to raid homes and arrest people, or witnessed and collaborated in the interrogations of the detainees held inside the base.

The people arrested in the various operations were kept in the guardhouse, the infirmary, two offices located in the Administrative or Command building, in an old wooden tower that previously served to store unused material and which, after September 11, was enabled as a detention center, and on some occasions, they were moved to a hangar located inside the base.

The detainees remained held at the Maquehue base for a period of no less than a week, during which time they were interrogated and tortured by the aforementioned officers and non-commissioned officers, in addition to being administered drugs, in certain cases, to make them confess to their alleged crimes.

Such drugs were administered by the base nurse. Also during that time, the detainees were taken out to the unit's courtyard during the day to rest a little or were taken to the bathrooms, an opportunity during which they were seen and attended to by conscript soldiers who were able to verify the deteriorated physical state in which these people were found.

Some of these conscripts knew the prisoners from before and had to perform sentry duties to guard the place where those detainees were held. Some of these officials and conscripts knew Jorge Calderón Otaíza well, as they were neighborhood neighbors, schoolmates, belonged to the same soccer club, or had various family relationships, so some of them tried to intercede for him and asked Reyes Herrera about the possibility of his friend being released, receiving a threat from the officer in response.

Another conscript saw a couple of members of the so-called intelligence group bringing his friend into the infirmary in a calamitous state, where they were received by Ferrada Carrasco. From that moment on, nothing more was heard of Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza.

In the resolution (case file 114.033), the extraordinary visiting judge resolved that, because the defendants are currently serving sentences in a different case, preventive detention will not be ordered against them for now.

In this regard, it states: "(...) given the merits from which it is clear that the freedom of the defendants constitutes a danger to the security of society; taking into account, also, the probable legal sanction for the crime in which they are attributed participation, and having seen the provisions of article 363 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, they will not be granted the benefit of provisional release.

Given the fact that the defendants Leonardo Reyes Herrera and Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco are serving sentences at the Colina I Penitentiary Compliance Center of the Chilean Gendarmerie, the application of the preventive detention precautionary measure is suspended for now," the resolution states.

Source: resumen.cl, December 22, 2022

Date: 12-22-2022

Minister Álvaro Mesa prosecutes retired FACh captain and nurse for aggravated kidnapping of university student

The extraordinary visiting judge for human rights violation cases, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, issued processing No. 135 on the matter and indicted retired Air Force officer Leonardo Reyes Herrera and civilian Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza.

The crime was perpetrated starting on September 30, 1973, at the Maquehue Air Base in the commune. The extraordinary visiting judge for human rights violation cases in the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, issued processing No. 135 on the matter and indicted retired Air Force officer Leonardo Reyes Herrera and civilian Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza.

The crime was perpetrated starting on September 30, 1973, at the Maquehue Air Base in the commune. In the resolution (case file 114.033), the extraordinary visiting judge resolved that, because the defendants are currently serving sentences in a different case, preventive detention will not be ordered against them for now. "(...) given the merits from which it is clear that the freedom of the defendants constitutes a danger to the security of society; taking into account, also, the probable legal sanction for the crime in which they are attributed participation, and having seen the provisions of article 363 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, they will not be granted the benefit of provisional release. Given the fact that the defendants Leonardo Reyes Herrera and Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco are serving sentences at the Colina I Penitentiary Compliance Center of the Chilean Gendarmerie, the application of the preventive detention precautionary measure is suspended for now," the resolution states. Human rag During the investigation stage of the case, Judge Mesa Latorre managed to gather sufficient evidence to establish the following facts: "

A.-

That immediately after the military pronouncement on September 11, 1973, the commander of the No. 3 Helicopter Group of the Maquehue Air Base, Colonel Andrés Pacheco Cárdenas (deceased), delegated the operational command of the base to the second-in-command Benjamín Fernández Hernández (deceased) in order to assume functions in the CAJSI (Jurisdictional Action Command for Internal Situations), whose office was located at the No. 8 'Tucapel' Infantry Regiment in the city of Temuco.

However, he never formally relinquished command of the aforementioned unit, attending that location daily to determine the actions to be taken.

B.-

That starting that same day, the new local authority called several Air Force reserve officers, who were civilian pilots, to active duty, as well as other retired officers who joined the Maquehue Base contingent and who, according to their rank, began to perform the same operational functions as the rest of the line officers and non-commissioned officers, at least during the most critical period of September and October 1973, according to the testimony of Berthold Erwin Bohn Sauterel.

These functions included joining patrols intended to enforce curfew, guarding public service facilities and bridges, participating in operations of varying magnitude whose purpose was to raid homes and arrest people opposed to the new regime or supporters of the outgoing administration, joining helicopter crews for the purpose of moving detainees from one point to another in the region, crewing private light aircraft to monitor the coastal area, and performing rounds or guard officer shifts inside the air base.

These shifts could have been between 12 and 24 hours. It should be noted that a large part of the Air Force reserve officers were also appointed as intervenors in different state companies, so they had to reconcile both activities during the aforementioned period, without ceasing to fulfill these tasks, since each branch of the armed forces and order present in the city designated an intervenor per company, so the activities in the intervened companies were always well covered, according to the testimonies of Pablo Aquiles Alister Contreras.

C.-

That given the need to systematize and coordinate the activities intended for the arrest of people and their transfer to the Maquehue air base for subsequent interrogation, the second-in-command Benjamín Fernández Hernández organized a specially selected group to handle intelligence and political prisoner matters, a group that was under his command and that included lieutenants Ángel Campos Quiroga (deceased), Jorge Freygang Campaña (deceased), Captain Leonardo Reyes Herrera, Sergeant Orlando Garrido Riquelme (deceased), several members of the permanent staff of different ranks including, among others, Luis Alberto Soto Pinto, Heriberto Pereira Rojas, Luis Osmán Yáñez Silva, Jorge Aliro Valdebenito Isler, Jorge Eduardo Soto Herrera, and Enrique Rebolledo Sotelo; and a civilian employee who had a nursing specialty named Crisóstomo Hugo Ferrada Carrasco. From that date on, this group gradually stopped performing the functions proper to their specialty to focus on the tasks assigned to them by the high command of the Maquehue base, acquiring a special status, as they did not wear uniforms and appeared on daily attendance as being on an institutional service commission, according to the testimony of Nelson Luis Agustín Seckel Catalán.

D.-

This special group received the alternating and sporadic collaboration of line and reserve officers who, of their own volition or by an express order received, sometimes joined patrols intended to raid homes and arrest people, or witnessed and collaborated in the interrogations of the detainees held inside the base.

The people arrested in the various operations were kept in the guardhouse, the infirmary, two offices located in the Administrative or Command building, in an old wooden tower that was previously used to store unused material and which, after September 11, was enabled for the indicated purposes, and on some occasions, they were moved to a hangar located inside the base.

E.-

Many of these detainees remained held at the Maquehue base for a period of no less than a week, during which time they were interrogated and tortured by the aforementioned officers and non-commissioned officers, in addition to being administered, in certain cases, drugs such as pentothal, to make them confess to their alleged crimes.

Such drugs were administered by the base nurse. Also during that time, the detainees were taken out to the unit's courtyard during the day to rest a little or were taken to the bathrooms existing in the unit, an opportunity during which they were seen and attended to by conscript soldiers who were able to verify the deteriorated physical state in which these people were found.

Some of these conscripts had to perform sentry duties to guard the place where the detainees were held. Finally, the aerial operations carried out in helicopters sometimes consisted of transporting army troops to locations in the IX region whose mission was to arrest people opposed to the military regime.

These people were transported to the Maquehue air base and also to the No. 8 'Tucapel' Infantry Regiment of this city, with the aircraft transporting them landing at both units, as the case may be. Likewise, detainees were transferred by land from the Maquehue air base to the Tucapel regiment, which was carried out by members of the special group described above and also on occasion by reserve officers who received an order to that effect.

That Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza, 28 years old, employee of the National Public Employees Fund, Commercial Engineering student at the University of Temuco, and member of the Socialist Youth, was arrested at his home located at Calle Sarmiento No. 455 in Padre Las Casas, where he lived with his family, by Carabineros from the Padre Las Casas police station on September 30, 1973, and was subsequently transferred to the Maquehue Air Base of the Chilean Air Force, a facility in which he was seen in a deteriorated physical condition, according to the testimony of Heriberto Rivas Alarcón, a Chilean Air Force official who knew Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza because they were neighbors and friends on Calle Sarmiento in Padre Las Casas, since he also maintained a romantic relationship with Calderón Otaíza's sister, named Mónica, and they also played soccer together.

F.-

That as indicated in the preceding Consideration 38, Heriberto Rivas Alarcón, in statements in September 1973, after the 11th, saw Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza detained and lying on the grass in front of the Administrative Pavilion, who looked very thin and with a tired face.

Because of this, and since he could not talk to him, he secretly gave him small squares of sugar. After this, he did not see his friend again, so he requested to speak with Lieutenant Leonardo Reyes, who was in charge of the base's intelligence group together with Lieutenant Schmied and the reserve officer Sandoval Poo (deceased).

It was thus that Leonardo Reyes Herrera authorized him to talk to him, also asking Reyes Herrera if there was any possibility of releasing his friend Calderón Otaíza, to which Lieutenant Leonardo Reyes Herrera replied that it was his life or Calderón Otaíza's, after which he withdrew quickly and never asked about Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza again.

G.-

That, on the other hand, Héctor Gutiérrez Palma, a second corporal in the Chilean Air Force starting August 1, 1973, as stated in declarations, had known Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza since high school, as he was known for being a sympathizer of Salvador Allende's government.

It is the case that while Gutiérrez Palma was waiting for dental care in the air base infirmary, two officials from the air base suddenly entered, making everyone who was inside the infirmary leave, while he remained inside the infirmary, despite the commotion that formed.

The officials were holding a bloodied man with many bruises on different parts of his body, whom he was able to identify as Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza, who was convulsing, at which moment the door of the infirmary opened and he was received by the nurse Ferrada, of whom he is not sure if he was still a second corporal or already a civilian employee with officer rank, from which moment he knew nothing more of Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza.

H.-

That Héctor Gutiérrez Palma adds that when he saw Calderón Otaíza, he was a human rag; that he thought he was dead; he moved like jelly, due to a reflex act that the body maintains, regardless of brain activity; he could not fend for himself, and that it was very difficult to recognize him, even though he knew him very well; that those who took him to the infirmary did so from the place where they were interrogating him, which was about 30 meters from the infirmary; they carried him in the air, he could not walk, and those who took him were officials from the same air base, whose identities he does not remember. That he, by chance, stayed there for no reason, and that those who took Calderón Otaíza together with the nurse Ferrada must have seen him, but they did not ask him anything nor did they make him leave; that he was like invisible to them, also pointing out that he and Ferrada entered the institution together, which is why he knew him well.

I.-

That to this date, no public official of the Armed Forces, especially the command of the Chilean Air Force that served at the time of the events, has provided any information to the respective authority in relation to what happened to Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza and the location of his body, maintaining to this day the concealment of all types of information regarding the events that have been mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

Likewise, according to the records of the process, there was no investigation instruction regarding the events that surrounded the arrest and aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Eduardo Calderón Otaíza."

Source: pjud.cl, December 21, 2022

Date: 12-21-2022

Temuco awards posthumous degrees to young victims of the dictatorship

In a solemn and emotional ceremony, family members of twenty young university students who were forcibly disappeared and political execution victims from Temuco received posthumous professional degrees.

The activity, which contributes to the rescue of historical memory and recognition of the political participation of young people committed to their social reality, is the first in the country to award degrees to students from what were the Technical University of the State and the University of Chile, Temuco branch; currently merged into the Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO).

The event, organized by the Communist Party Youth, the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared and Politically Executed Persons of the Araucanía Region, the Center for Research and Promotion of Human Rights, and the Communist Party of Chile, had the support of the UFRO, the higher education institution that certified the validity of the degrees through a university decree.

The graduates were: Carmen Díaz Darricarrere, Muriel Dockendorff Navarrete, Jacqueline Drouilly Yurich, Luis Almonacid Dumenes, Jorge Calderón Oteíza, Patricio Calfuquir Henríquez, José Campos Cifuentes, Nelson Curiñir Lincoqueo, Juan Antonio Chávez Rivas, Eulogio Espinoza Henríquez, Santiago Faúndez Bustos, Luis Maldonado Ávila, Pedro Mardones Cofré, Amador Montero Mosquera, Javier Parada Valenzuela, Dixon Retamal Cornejo, Juan Carlos Ruiz Mancilla, José Salazar Aguilera, Marcelo Salinas Eytel, and Daniel Sepúlveda Contreras.

Source: indh.cl, May 31, 2011

Date: 05-31-2011