On June 18, 1974, MIR militant Jorge Enrique ESPINOZA MENDEZ was detained on a public street in downtown Santiago. That same day, hours later, plainclothes agents raided the detainee's home. Jorge Enrique Espinoza was seen by witnesses at the Londres 38 detention center and disappeared while in the custody of the DINA, and no further news of him has ever been received.

The Commission is convinced that his disappearance was the work of State agents, who thereby violated his human rights.

Source: Rettig Report

The highest court rejected appeals of cassation in cases involving four aggravated kidnappings perpetrated in July 1974 in the communes of Estación Central and San Joaquín. The Supreme Court rejected the appeals of cassation on the merits filed against the sentence that convicted 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping (forced disappearance) of Enrique Segundo Toro Romero, Eduardo Enrique Lara Petrovich, and José Caupolicán Villagra Astudillo, perpetrated in July 1974 in the communes of Estación Central and San Joaquín within the framework of the so-called "Operation Colombo." In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and minister María Teresa Letelier—confirmed the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crimes. Meanwhile, the following must serve 10 years and one day in prison: Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, José Enrique Fuentes Torres, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza, Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, Leonidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, and Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas. The highest court dismissed the errors of law argued by the defense attorneys of the convicted. "In summary, this Court considers that there has been no erroneous application of the law that would have meant the imposition on any of the appellants of a penalty more severe than that designated by law; and that the allegations of the defense—all analyzed in light of the factual hypothesis contained in the ruling—are not admissible, as they do not constitute any grounds for annulment; all the appeals analyzed are dismissed in their entirety," the ruling states. During the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet, which lasted for 17 years, 3,200 murders and at least 1,192 cases of forced disappearance were recorded. Various human rights organizations have spent years requesting that the investigation of crimes committed during the military dictatorship be accelerated and continue to demand the annulment of the Amnesty Law that served to exempt hundreds of military personnel from guilt—something that has been debated in Congress for years.

Source: cooperativa.cl 22/10/2022

Date: 22-10-2022

45 years after the Coup: U. de Chile to award another 11 posthumous and symbolic degrees to executed and disappeared students

Those distinguished on this occasion will be the political executions victims José Modesto Amigo Latorre, Tatiana Valentina Fariña Concha, Sócrates Augusto Ponce Pacheco, and Frank Randall Teruggi Bombatch; and the forcibly disappeared Clara Elena Canteros Torres, Bernardo de Castro López, Jorge Humberto D'Orival Briceño, Jorge Enrique Espinosa Méndez, Néstor Alfonso Gallardo Agüero, José Fernando Romero Lagos, and Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez.

This Tuesday, September 11, the University of Chile will grant posthumous and symbolic degrees to 11 new students, who will join the other 100 who already received them earlier this year, as part of an institutional commitment to memory, reparation, truth, and justice.

As reported by the institution, the list will continue to grow as they are analyzing other cases based on various sources and archives, in an open process. As an institutional memory process, open and in constant development.

This is how the decree that officialized the awarding of university distinctions of posthumous and symbolic degrees and posthumous and symbolic academic degrees to students who were forcibly disappeared and political executions victims of this university was defined since its announcement in 2017.

That is why this Tuesday, September 11, within the framework of the official ceremony commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Coup d'État, the Casa de Bello will present this recognition to 11 students in the hands of their relatives, who will participate in this meeting to be held at the institution's Casa Central, an activity open to the entire community.

Those who will be distinguished join the other 100 students who received their degrees and licentiates on April 11 of this year, a list that will continue to grow in the coming months since, as reported by the institution, they continue to receive cases and background information that they are studying and analyzing, in a process that has been supported by associations of relatives and human rights organizations.

Those distinguished on this occasion will be the political executions victims José Modesto Amigo Latorre, Tatiana Valentina Fariña Concha, Sócrates Augusto Ponce Pacheco, and Frank Randall Teruggi Bombatch; and the forcibly disappeared Clara Elena Canteros Torres, Bernardo de Castro López, Jorge Humberto D'Orival Briceño, Jorge Enrique Espinosa Méndez, Néstor Alfonso Gallardo Agüero, José Fernando Romero Lagos, and Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez.

An institutional commitment Since the return to democracy, the University of Chile has been developing initiatives to clarify and disseminate the consequences of the dictatorship on the first public university in the country, among which are the closure of degree programs and the disappearance, persecution, and death of members of its university community.

To work on the awarding of posthumous and symbolic degrees, the university established the Committee for Posthumous Degrees, which includes the Human Rights Chair and the Andrés Bello Central Archive of the Vice-Rectorate for Extension and Communications, the Legal Directorate, and the Vice-Rectorate for Academic Affairs, organizations supported by the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared and the Association of Relatives of Political Executions Victims.

Added to the awarding of this distinction is the declassification of the summary proceedings from the dictatorial period, open to the general public, which had as one of its results the publication of the book "The Dictatorship of the Summary Proceedings (1974-1985).

University of Chile intervened." Finally, the U. de Chile issued a call to the national community that those who have information linked to this topic can send it in to continue with this process of memory and justice.

Source: elmostrador.cl 10/9/2018

Date: 10-09-2018

Supreme Court confirms second conviction against Osvaldo Romo

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction against former DINA civilian agent Osvaldo Romo Mena for the aggravated kidnapping of MIR militant Jorge Espinoza Méndez.

In the resolution, the highest court rejects the appeal of cassation filed by Romo's defense, in which he requested that amnesty and the statute of limitations be applied in his favor. However, the Second Chamber rejected the appeal and ratified the thesis that kidnapping is a permanent crime. "That from the aforementioned facts it is not possible to deduce, as the appellant claims, that Espinoza Méndez did not survive his captivity, nor even less that by June 1974 he was dead," the court noted.

Along with this, it insisted that "since the deprivation of liberty of Espinoza Méndez, his whereabouts have been unknown, so it cannot be concluded that the course of consummation of the crime of kidnapping for which he has been convicted has ceased." Espinoza Méndez was 24 years old and a philosophy student at the University of Chile when he was detained on June 18, 1974, by DINA agents.

The seven-year sentence for Romo, issued in the first instance by the First Criminal Court and confirmed by the Court of Appeals and now by the Supreme Court, is the second to become final against the former agent. The first sentence against him that became final is the one imposed for his participation in the aggravated kidnapping of MIR journalist Diana Aron.

Source: August 2, 2006 El Mercurio

Date: 02-08-2006

Judge issued convictions in three cases of the forcibly disappeared

The head of the First Criminal Court of Santiago with exclusive dedication to human rights cases, Joaquín Billard, sentenced former CNI operational chief Álvaro Corbalán Castilla to ten years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnapping and resulting death of Juan Luis Rivera Matus, recorded in December 1975.

Along with Corbalán, and for the same sentence, the former member of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), Sergio Díaz López, was convicted. Meanwhile, in the capacity of accessories after the fact, the head of the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA), Freddy Ruiz Bunger, and Carlos Madrid Hayden received sentences of 600 days of remitted prison time.

The notification, for Corbalán's case, was made this morning at Punta Peuco. Sources close to the case indicated that the Army would have preferred not to transfer him to the court in order to avoid problems following his recent outings.

Juan Luis Rivera Matus was named in the first report of the Dialogue Table as one of the victims of the repression who had been thrown into the sea, along with 131 other people. However, in 2001 his remains appeared on the grounds of the "Justo Arteaga Cuevas" Fort in Peldehue.

For many, this fact destroyed the credibility of that body. Rivera Matus was a militant in the PC and was a union leader at Chilectra. He was detained on November 6, 1975, at the corner of Santo Domingo and San Antonio by about five people in plainclothes who put him into a white Peugeot station wagon without license plates.

On the same day of his kidnapping, a writ of amparo was filed in his favor before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which, like almost all similar actions filed during the military regime, was rejected without further processing by the appellate court, following a negative report on the detention issued by the Ministry of the Interior.

On May 26, 1976, the case had been temporarily dismissed. Other cases But this was not the only sentence issued by the magistrate. He also convicted former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena for the crime of aggravated kidnapping in the person of Jorge Espinoza Méndez, nicknamed "Abel" or "Juancho," whose last traces date back to June 18, 1974.

According to the Rettig Report, Espinoza Méndez was seen by witnesses at the Londres 38 detention center and disappeared while in the custody of the DINA, and no further news of him has ever been received.

The magistrate also convicted former DINA agents Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren Brito, Basclay Zapata, and Osvaldo Romo to ten years and one day for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against former MIR militants Elsa Leuthner, María González, Hernán González, and Ricardo Troncoso Muñoz.

The case of Troncoso Muñoz is particular. Before his detention, he had remained in asylum at the Mexican Embassy in Santiago from October 10, 1973, until March 1, 1974, the date on which he left the asylum, desperate due to the delay in being granted a safe-conduct.

Fifteen days later he was detained by DINA agents. The magistrate is still investigating the case of Juan Suil Faúndez, who was made to disappear by SIFA agents in the mid-seventies. The other two cases the magistrate had, one of them for Operation Colombo, were attached to the file being processed by special judge Juan Guzmán Tapia.

With the convictions in these three cases, the path is opened for the Supreme Court to unify the criteria regarding the application of the Amnesty Law. In 1997, the criteria of the Second Penal Chamber of the highest court changed, where the application of that legal body was modified and the theory of permanent kidnapping was established.

Source: May 4, 2004 El Mostrador

Date: 04-05-2004