José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, 20 years old, an assistant to a street market vendor with no political affiliation, was detained by Carabineros (police) traveling in a grey police vehicle on October 17, 1973, at approximately 3:00 p.m., at the intersection of Oriental and Ictinos streets in the Peñalolén sector of the Ñuñoa commune. He has been forcibly disappeared since that date.

Three young men were detained on that occasion: José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, and José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino. The first two have been missing ever since. José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino was released because he was suffering from scabies, which caused aversion among the Carabineros.

José Sepúlveda immediately communicated these events to the families of the two detainees. José Adrián Ramírez was an illiterate young man, a member of a family of eleven siblings, and wore his hair long, for which he was nicknamed "El Hippie."

In those years, it was common for young men with long hair to be detained and forcibly shaved or have their hair cut in an irregular manner to force them to wear short, military-style hair.

The detention was carried out by officers from the 13th Carabineros Precinct, including Bernardo Pérez Arriagada and Carlos Contreras Guzmán, who were identified later.

José Adrián Ramírez's family waited several days for the young man's return, but when he did not appear, José's grandmother, Mrs. Idamia del Carmen, began making inquiries and visited the National Stadium—which was a prison camp at the time—the Legal Medical Institute, and the Investigative Police.

All these efforts were fruitless and did not lead to the location of the disappeared young man. José Adrián's brother, Juan Manuel Ramírez Díaz, continued making inquiries at detention centers, but he was detained at the Estadio Chile and had to remain imprisoned for several months. Given these events, the family stopped making efforts to locate José Adrián.

The detention was initially denied by the Carabineros, but they later acknowledged it, reporting that they had released the detainees on October 16 at 1:00 a.m., during the curfew period that strictly prohibited circulation on the streets.

Since his detention on October 17, 1973, which was finally acknowledged by the Carabineros, José Adrián Ramírez Díaz remains forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

José Adrián Ramírez Díaz's family did not dare to take any action before the courts, given the detention suffered by Juan Manuel Ramírez, the brother of the victim, when he made inquiries at the detention centers of the time.

However, Mrs. Juana Godoy, mother of the other disappeared minor, Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, who was only 15 years old, carried out numerous and lengthy efforts before the courts to find her son's whereabouts. She filed a writ of amparo and subsequently filed a complaint for a possible disappearance.

During the process, the Carabineros who participated in the detention were identified and summoned to testify, without being able to clarify the fate of the minors.

The case was definitively dismissed by virtue of the provisions of Decree Law 2191 of 1978, which established amnesty for persons who had committed criminal acts during the period between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978.

The plaintiff argued that this decree law was not applicable in this case because the disappearance of persons is a continuous crime and, although its effects regarding the sanctioning of the guilty are not realized, the crime itself does not disappear and must be investigated.

In May 1978, the case was temporarily dismissed and was reopened in June of the same year. In September 1978, it was dismissed again.

On March 30, 1979, the file was transferred to the Visiting Judge Servando Jordán, who was appointed to investigate cases of forcibly disappeared persons that were in various proceedings.

It was requested to summon the involved Carabineros, Carlos Contreras and Manuel Trujillo Ramos. It was also requested that the 13th Precinct be officially notified to provide details of the detention, times, personnel involved, etc.

On December 13, 1979, the Visiting Judge, Servando Jordán, declared himself incompetent, and the records were sent to the Second Military Court, where it was filed in January 1980. There, the investigation was expanded to include this disappeared young man, José Adrián Ramírez, who was detained along with Pedro Pérez.

This case was processed by the Third Military Prosecutor's Office as case roll 13-80, filed against N.N. for the alleged disappearance of Pedro Pérez Godoy and José Ramírez Díaz.

By that date, the person detained along with the two disappeared men had been identified: José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino; he could not be found to provide testimony in the process.

A request was made to examine the logbook of the 13th Carabineros Precinct, but it was reported that it had been incinerated, in accordance with service regulations.

On December 14, 1981, the plaintiff's lawyer summarized the findings:

a) That the detention effectively occurred on October 17, 1973. The detainees were Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, José Ramírez Díaz, and José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino. The apprehenders were Carabineros Carlos Contreras Guzmán and Bernardo Pérez Arriagada.

Contreras and Pérez Arriagada maintain that they detained the minors on suspicion of extremism, but there is no evidence to support this. b) The minors were taken to the 13th Precinct; Sepúlveda Merino was released, and the aforementioned Carabineros claim not to know what happened afterward.

But the logbook of the Macul Guard Post indicates that at 1:00 a.m., the detainee Pedro Pérez left with Carabinero Bernardo Pérez A. "There is a signature, Pedro H. Pérez Godoy, in very irregular handwriting." c) There is a statement from Carabinero Gabriel Maturana Concha testifying that the detainee was removed by Pérez at one in the morning.

He requested to summon the five Carabineros on duty that day whose names are known. A confrontation of these Carabineros was requested, as some statements agree with the logbook and others are contradictory.

The case was dismissed, but on February 9, 1983, an appeal was granted before the Court Martial. The subsequent status of this case is unknown.

The anthropomorphic records of José Adrián Ramírez Díaz 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 expert identification reports are pending.

Source: Corporation report

The events occurred in Peñalolén in 1973. The repressors were traveling in a pickup truck that had been illicitly requisitioned from Miriam Contreras Bell, personal secretary to former President Salvador Allende.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals in cassation filed against the sentence that convicted four retired Carabineros officers from the then-13th Precinct of Los Guindos for their responsibility in the crimes of abduction of a minor, aggravated kidnapping, and homicide, crimes perpetrated in October 1973 in the current commune of Peñalolén.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 20.937-2018), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, and the ad hoc lawyer María Cristina Gajardo—confirmed the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced Juan Gregorio Paredes Rodríguez to 10 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of José Adrián Ramírez Díaz; plus 3 years and one day in prison for the abduction of the minor Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy.

Meanwhile, Francisco Fernando Contreras Torres must serve a single sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of Héctor Manuel Peña Catalán and Luis Armando Vergara González; Pedro Alejandro Lorenzo Herrera Mossuto must serve a single sentence of 7 years as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of Héctor Manuel Peña Catalán and Luis Armando Vergara González; and Bernardo Segundo Pérez Arriagada was sentenced to 7 years in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of José Adrián Ramírez Díaz.

In the investigation of the case, conducted by visiting minister Leopoldo Llanos, the following facts were established: "Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, single, 15 years old, primary school student, with no political affiliation, whose address was located at Manzana 10, Sitio 20, Villa Los Guindos in the commune of Ñuñoa; and José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, single, 20 years old, assistant to a street market vendor, with no political affiliation, illiterate, member of a family of eleven siblings, residing at Manzana 17, Pasaje 152, house 6882, Villa Pedro Lagos in the commune of Peñalolén, on October 17, 1973, were walking along a street near their homes, together with a friend, José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino.

At the moment they reached the intersection of Los Orientales and Ictinos streets, Ñuñoa commune, currently Peñalolén, at approximately 3:00 p.m., they were detained, without cause or any administrative or judicial order, by officers belonging to the 13th Carabineros Precinct of Ñuñoa (...) The young men were forced to climb into the back of the pickup truck.

The truck where José Ramírez Díaz and Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy remained deprived of their liberty was driven from the police post to the premises of the Viña Cousiño Macul, where the vehicle stopped and the detainees were made to get out, and were forced to walk to the banks of the San Carlos canal. It was at this site that, from a few meters away, they were shot with firearms."

In the case of Vergara and Peña, it was established that "on October 15, 1973, Luis Armando Vergara González, married, father of one child, 22 years old, laborer, with no political affiliation, and whose address was located in Villa Lautaro, Manzana E, Sitio 18, Población Lo Hermida of the Ñuñoa commune, was apprehended without legal cause in its vicinity, at approximately 9:15 p.m., by two Carabineros officers belonging to the 13th Precinct of Los Guindos in Ñuñoa, who were traveling in a red pickup truck that had been illicitly requisitioned from Miriam Contreras Bell, personal secretary to the former President of the Republic, Salvador Allende.

Immediately, the apprehenders, together with the detainee, went to the home of Hernán Manuel Peña Catalán, married, father of two children, 20 years old, who worked as a driver, with no political affiliation.

Although his address was located in Villa El Duraznal, Manzana 7, Sitio 5, Población Lo Hermida of the Ñuñoa commune, he could not be found by the police at that location. However, after a search deployed in the vicinity of his home, Peña Catalán was detained, and together with Vergara González, they were taken to the aforementioned Precinct."

Source: elciudadano.cl, November 25, 2021 Date: 11-25-2021

The soccer match that ended with four forcibly disappeared persons and one homicide in 1973

A few weeks after the coup, a group of Carabineros took revenge for a fight at a soccer match in the Población La Faena. On International Human Rights Day, we tell this story, which is part of the podcast Ñuñoa tiene memoria, which narrates stories of places where dictatorship crimes occurred in the commune.

In September 1973, two soccer teams from the Población La Faena faced each other on the San Carlos field. The match was between neighbors of the neighborhood: on one side was the Unión Victoria team, made up of residents from the west of Ictinos street; on the other, the Club Deportivo Cordillera, made up of those who lived to the east.

The ball rolling across the dirt field kept the eight players on each side distracted from the enormous crisis that was being experienced at that time. None of them knew yet that the country's cruel destiny would intersect with the outcome of that match.

On International Human Rights Day, at El Desconcierto, we remember this story, which is part of the Ñuñoa tiene Memoria Podcast by Ñuñoa tu Radio in co-production with the National Stadium Corporation, National Memory, which tells the stories of places in the commune where there were human rights violations during the dictatorship, but in many cases are not recognized today.

What happens on the field does not stay on the field

There were only a few days left until the coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet. However, in this sector of the capital, which at that time belonged to Ñuñoa, the concern was how Unión Victoria could overcome the difference with Deportivo Cordillera. The enthusiastic soccer players were young. The youngest was 15 years old, the oldest 22.

A kick or simply a mockery—time has made these details fuzzy—strained the atmosphere, and the insults led to punches. Héctor Vásquez Sepúlveda, a neighbor of La Faena who switched from Unión Victoria to Cordillera, got into a fight with Francisco Contreras Torres, who belonged to his former team and was a Carabinero of the 13th Precinct "Los Guindos" (currently the 18th Precinct of Ñuñoa).

The intensity of the fight rose. Juan Manuel Veloso Ortiz, also a Carabinero of the 13th Precinct, a coworker and teammate of Francisco Contreras, joined the brawl to support him. On the rival side, Hernán Peña Catalán, Luis Vergara González, José Ramírez Díaz, and Pedro Pérez Godoy got involved.

The San Carlos field was the scene of a pitched battle, although nothing different from what is experienced in hundreds of matches that happen every weekend in the neighborhoods of Santiago.

"What happens on the field stays on the field," some commented after the fight, but it was not so. "The match was between them, two teams, a normal match. My dad's team was winning and, I don't know, they got annoyed and started punching.

My dad hit him, because he was good with his fists. Then the coup d'état happened and the cop took it upon himself to go look for him. I think that was an abuse of power," recalls José Barahona Ulloa, son of Héctor Vásquez.

Abuse of power The laborer Luis Vergara González was heading to his house in Villa Lautaro a few minutes after 9 at night, the time defined by the Military Junta for the curfew that day, October 15, 1973. It had been a little over a month since the bombing of La Moneda and with it the seizure of power by the Armed Forces.

Luis was a few blocks from his house when a red pickup truck approached him, which until a few weeks earlier had belonged to Miria Contreras Bell, personal secretary to the late President Salvador Allende.

But the 22-year-old worker did not know that and only saw a vehicle from which Francisco Contreras, the policeman with whom he had fought on the San Carlos field, got out. Together with another Carabinero, they subdued him to take him into custody. The car quickly set off: he would not be the only one.

A couple of streets away, in Villa El Duraznal, was the house of Hernán Peña, a 20-year-old driver who had also participated in the match. In his home, they only found his two children and other relatives, so the police decided to do a "sweep" of the neighborhood until they found him. They took him too. The destination was the "Los Guindos" Precinct.

"They were detained in a civilian car, which curiously had been taken, had been confiscated, from President Allende's secretary. It belonged to 'La Payita'," relates Alejandro Ancalao, doctor in history and head of the Heritage Department of the Ñuñoa Municipality, an organization that is investigating the victims of the dictatorship in the commune.

"Is 'Beto' there?" Ancalao narrates that two days later, the police repeated the routine with "Pedro Pérez Godoy, who was a 15-year-old boy, and José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, who was a 20-year-old young man, a seventh-grade student, who worked as a market assistant. They were detained on Ictinos street."

These two young men were taken to the same place as their teammates from Deportivo Cordillera; however, it was already overwhelmed by the number of detainees, so they were transferred to the Quilín Police Post, dependent on the 13th Carabineros Precinct.

At 1:00 a.m., they were taken out of the police facility and transported in "La Payita's" red pickup truck to the premises of the Viña Cousiño Macul.

The vehicle stopped before a panoramic view of Santiago under curfew. Carabineros, under the instructions of Lieutenant Pedro Herrera Mossuto, made the amateur soccer players from the La Faena neighborhood get out and forced them to walk to the banks of the San Carlos canal.

In that place, the officers drew their firearms and shot them. The wounds caused the death of José Ramírez, while the whereabouts of Pedro Pérez remain unknown to this day.

"Is 'Beto' there?" was heard only hours later on October 18, 1973, in front of Héctor Vásquez's house. The young man from Deportivo Cordillera was bathing, and his siblings received the two Carabineros dressed in civilian clothes who were asking for him, Francisco Contreras and Juan Manuel Veloso.

The officers were known to the family because they lived in the neighborhood. It seemed like a simple visit from some neighbors.

When Héctor came out of the bathroom, they asked him to accompany them because he had to provide a statement at the precinct regarding the fight at the soccer match. The police took him away in a public bus, where they coincidentally ran into the young man's mother, who became worried when she saw the scene.

The Carabineros told her not to worry, that they only needed to take his testimony and he would be back home soon. Since that day, Beto has been a forcibly disappeared person, just like Luis Vergara and Hernán Peña, of whom no further information was had since their kidnapping.

Héctor Vásquez's girlfriend at the time, Mercedes Ulloa Almonacid, who was expecting a child with him at the time of his kidnapping, recalls: "I found out because his sister told me that he had been lost, that some people had taken him, but they didn't know if they were Carabineros because they weren't dressed as Carabineros; that he had been lost and then two, three, or four days passed (...) His sister started looking for him later.

A week passed and he didn't appear. They had told us that his mother had seen him."

13th Carabineros Precinct during the dictatorship Historian Alejandro Ancalao explains that the case of the young men from the La Faena neighborhood brings to light that the crimes of the dictatorship were against the entire population and not just directed at a political sector. "The objective was not only political people, with political participation, but it was the whole society.

To implant terror, fear, in the whole society, and that was done indiscriminately," he argues.

The head of the Heritage Department of the Ñuñoa Municipality adds that many of these abuses were carried out thanks to "the henchmen, those who accuse or denounce neighbors due to problems between them, and we end up with cases of forcibly disappeared persons who had absolutely no political relationship, but were simply due to the arbitrariness of public officials."

"Between 1973 and 1990, all the precincts in the country were places of detention. All of them. There is none that did not have detainees, that did not have forcibly disappeared persons within them, or where there was no torture within one.

All are recognized, and some were destroyed in the final days of the dictatorship to be able to erase some cases," the expert concludes based on official reports.

In 2017, the Supreme Court sentenced former Carabineros Francisco Contreras Torres and Pedro Herrera Mossuto to seven years in prison for the disappearance of Héctor Vásquez. In addition, in 2021, the highest court determined 10 years and one day in prison for officer Juan Paredes Rodríguez for the aggravated homicide of José Ramírez Díaz and the abduction of the minor Pedro Pérez Godoy; another 10 years and one day for Francisco Contreras Torres for the aggravated kidnappings of Hernán Peña and Luis Vergara, the same crime for which it sentenced Pedro Herrera Mossuto to 7 years in prison.

Likewise, Bernardo Segundo Pérez Arriagada was sentenced to 7 years in prison for the murder of José Ramírez Díaz.

Héctor Vásquez's son, José Barahona, maintains that "it was little that they gave the cop" and says, almost 50 years after the event: "I have little hope that he is alive; what I have hope for is that his bones might appear."

Despite the sentences, those close to the victims and neighbors of the precinct know very little information about the case. For example, Mercedes Ulloa states that she knew the other victims besides Héctor Vásquez, her boyfriend at the time. "But I didn't know that the same thing had happened to them, that they had taken them, that they had killed them," she says.

Ñuñoa tiene memoria is a work by Edgar Pfennings de la Vega on the script and research, Felipe Zenteno on the music, and Rodrigo Montanter and Fernando Pereira on the sound.

Other sites in the commune that are remembered in this podcast are the current 18th Precinct "Los Guindos," the old East Campus of the University of Chile, and the Investigative Headquarters at Obispo Orrego No. 241, in addition to the partially recognized National Stadium and José Domingo Cañas.

Source: eldesconcierto.cl, December 11, 2022 Date: 12-11-2022

SML identifies five victims associated with the Patio 29 case with samples from deceased relatives

This Wednesday, December 4, and Thursday, December 5, the Legal Medical Service (SML) announced the confirmation and new identities of victims of human rights violations associated with the Patio 29 case, whose identification was possible thanks to genetic analyses performed on samples provided by relatives who have already passed away (posthumous samples).

Minister Leopoldo Llanos, together with the national director of the SML, Patricio Bustos, and representatives of the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, met with relatives of William Ramírez Barría, Luis Alberto Gutiérrez Merino, Jorge Orlando Riquelme Guzmán, and Miguel Ángel Tapia Rojas to inform them about the identities of their loved ones through genetic analyses of autosomal STRs, Y-chromosome STRs, and mitochondrial DNA performed at the laboratories of the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) in the United States, and that of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Bosnia, whose identities were confirmed with 99.9% accuracy.

At the same time, they reported a new identification. It concerns José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, which was possible through genetic analyses from the UNTHSC laboratories and the GMI of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Innsbruck, in Austria.

So far, the SML has taken 47 posthumous samples since 2012, which has allowed for the expansion of the family network of the victims of the dictatorship and the performance of the necessary forensic examinations for the confirmation of their identities. With this, the forensic agency continues to work in order to provide new identifications and consolidate the database of relatives' samples.

Williams Osvaldo Ramírez Barría, 23 years old, single, member of the Presidential Guard (GAP), militant of the Socialist Party. He was detained by Carabineros on September 11, 1973, outside the Santiago Intendencia, subsequently taken to the Sixth Precinct, and on September 13, to the Investigative Headquarters, from which he disappeared.

Luis Alberto Gutiérrez Merino was 19 years old, worked in construction, and was single. He was killed on September 18, 1973, in Santiago.

Jorge Orlando Riquelme Guzmán, 25 years old, single, student, killed on October 24, 1973, in Santiago.

Miguel Ángel Tapia Rojas, 17 years old at the time of his detention, with no political affiliation, was detained on September 26 on a public street, in the Franklin sector. He was taken to the 4th Carabineros Precinct and from there (on the 28th or 29th) was executed at the stop 1 of Gran Avenida.

José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, 20 years old, assistant to a street market vendor, with no political affiliation, was detained by Carabineros on October 17, 1973, at the intersection of Oriental and Ictinos streets, from where he disappeared.

Source: biobiochile.cl, 12/5/2013 Date: 12-05-2013

Former Carabineros prosecuted for case of victims illegally buried in Patio 29

The prosecuted individuals were held in preventive detention, a measure they must fulfill in one of the Carabineros detention centers determined by the police institution.

Visiting Minister Alejandro Solís Muñoz issued indictments in four cases of forcibly disappeared persons and political executions, whose remains were found illegally buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery.

The magistrate prosecuted seven retired members of the Carabineros de Chile for the events that occurred in October 1973 and that led to the disappearance of a 15-year-old minor and three adults—between 18 and 22 years old—in the south-eastern area of Santiago (current commune of Peñalolén).

Minister Solís submitted to prosecution for the abduction of the minor Pedro Pérez Godoy and the aggravated kidnapping of José Ramírez Díaz, the former members of the police unit Carlos Contreras Guzmán, Bernardo Pérez Arriagada, Juan Paredes Rodríguez, Pedro Herrera Mossuto, and José Tito Alveal.

According to the background information that exists so far in the process, "Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, single, born on September 3, 1958, as of October 17, 1973, was 15 years, one month, and 22 days old, primary school student, with no political affiliation, whose address was located at Manzana 10, Sitio 20, Villa Los Guindos of the Ñuñoa commune, and José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, single, 20 years old, assistant to a street market vendor, with no political affiliation, illiterate, member of a family of eleven siblings, residing at Manzana 17, Pasaje 152, house 6882, Villa Pedro Lagos of the commune of Peñalolén, on October 17, 1973, were walking along a street near their homes, together with a friend, José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino. At the moments they reached the intersection of Los Orientales and Ictinos streets, Ñuñoa commune, currently Peñalolén, at approximately 3:00 p.m., they were detained, without cause or any administrative or judicial order, by Bernardo Pérez Arriagada and Carlos Contreras Guzmán, officers belonging to the 13th Carabineros Precinct of Ñuñoa, who were traveling in a grey vehicle and were dressed in civilian clothes. They were taken to the premises of said Precinct but could not be admitted to it because the cells were full, for which they were transferred to the Quilín Police Post, a unit dependent on the 13th Precinct. However, in said police unit, there is no record of the entry of the victims but there is of the exit of Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, who was removed, together with José Ramírez, from the Post, at 1:00 a.m. in the morning, during the curfew, by Carabinero Bernardo Pérez Arriagada, to a red pickup truck that was parked outside the police facility in which Carabineros Juan Paredes Rodríguez and the aforementioned Contreras Torres were waiting. The latter had received the order to accompany Pérez Arriagada to this procedure from the Suboficial Mayor José Tito Alveal, who in turn was under the command of Herrera Mossuto. The young men were forced to climb into the back of the pickup truck. The truck where José Ramírez Díaz and Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy remained deprived of their liberty was driven from the Post to the premises of the Viña Cousiño Macul, where the vehicle stopped and the detainees were made to get out, and were forced to walk to the banks of the San Carlos canal. It was at this site that, a few meters away, they were shot with firearms, as a result of which the multiple wounds received caused their death; immediately their bodies were thrown into the current of the canal, a maneuver that according to the witness Sepúlveda had been suggested from the very moment of the detention, which had had no reason to be carried out, by Corporal Contreras: 'Let's kill them and throw them into the canal!'. However, the remains of the victims were found illegally buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery and, due to the lack of accurate scientific methods of the time, could not be correctly identified in the process filed in the 22nd Criminal Court; in effect, although some of the recovered bones were attributed to the young Pérez Godoy, finally with the genetic DNA method it was verified that they corresponded to another person, and regarding Ramírez Díaz, the recognition of his remains is pending. Consequently, for none of the detainees has their death been legally and reliably verified; we only know that those deprived of liberty have not made contact with their relatives, nor carried out administrative procedures before State agencies, without registering entries or exits from the country," says the ruling.

Meanwhile, for the aggravated homicides of Hernán Peña Catalán and Luis Vergara González, Minister Alejandro Solís indicted the former policemen Juan Veloso Ortiz, Francisco Contreras Torres, and Pedro Herrera Mossuto.

Regarding this case, in the process, the magistrate has managed to determine that: "On October 15, 1973, Luis Armando Vergara González, married, father of one child, was 22 years old, laborer, with no political affiliation, and his address was located in Villa Lautaro, Manzana E, Sitio 18, Población Lo Hermida of the Ñuñoa commune, upon being detained in its vicinity, at approximately 9:15 p.m., since without legal cause, he was apprehended by Carabineros officers belonging to the 13th Precinct of Los Guindos of Ñuñoa, Francisco Contreras Torres and Manuel Veloso Ortiz, who were traveling in a red pickup truck that had been illicitly requisitioned from Miriam Contreras Bell, personal secretary to former President Salvador Allende. Immediately, the apprehenders, together with the detainee, went to the home of Hernán Manuel Peña Catalán, married, father of two children, 20 years old, who worked as a driver, with no political affiliation. Although his address was located in Villa El Duraznal, Manzana 7, Sitio 5, Población Lo Hermida of the Ñuñoa commune, he could not be found by the police at that location. However, after a search deployed in the vicinity of his home, Peña Catalán was detained, and together with Vergara González, they were taken to the premises of the aforementioned Precinct."

Both victims were definitively identified by DNA tests, performed at the Legal Medical Service after 2003.

The prosecuted individuals were held in preventive detention, a measure they must fulfill in one of the Carabineros detention centers determined by the police institution.

In addition, Magistrate Solís determined that: "Given the significance of the statements made by Francisco Fernando Contreras Torres (on October 31, 2003, from fs. 658 to 660 of Volume II, Roll 15.607); Luis Arturo Mora Vera (fs. 880 to 881 dated April 21, 2004, Roll 15.607); Bernardo Segundo Pérez Arriagada (fs. 202 to 203 vta. dated September 9, 2003, fs. 878 to 880 of November 23, 2010, both Roll 9.731); Juan Gregorio Paredes Rodríguez (fs. 294 dated May 17, 2004, and 236 of January 5, 2004, both of Case Roll 9.731); Carlos Alfredo Contreras Guzmán (fs. 883 to 885 dated November 24, 2010, fs. 567 of March 7, 1980, and fs. 557 of December 10, 1979, all of Case Roll 9.731); Pedro Alejandro Lorenzo Mossuto (fs. 709 of November 13, 2003, fs. 881 of November 23, 2010, both of Roll 9.731), Juan Manuel Veloso Ortiz (fs. 1059 of August 18, 2006, of Case Roll 15.607) and the confrontation proceedings of fs. 283, 284 (without prejudice to 'exhorting them to tell the truth' in a new statement), fs. 269, fs. 304, fs. 305; 306; 329; 727 of Case Roll 9.731 and 839 of Case Roll 15.607, leave an authorized photocopy of them and keep them in a Separate File, in custody."

Likewise, it is ordered, "Without prejudice to what has been resolved, continue the investigation regarding the repressive situation that affected Sergio Alberto Gajardo Hidalgo in the same period in which the crimes subject to this resolution were committed."

Source: elmostrador.cl, December 7, 2012 Date: 12-07-2012

Patio 29: Behind the Iron Cross (BOOK)

Bustamante, Javiera; Ruderer, Stephan

Patio 29 used to be intended for the burial of the indigent, psychiatric patients, and people who died without being identified (NN). However, between September 1973 and January 1974, its graves were used to hide victims of repression as NN.

Javiera Bustamante and Stephan Ruderer reconstruct the painful history of the place, using testimonies from the relatives of the forcibly disappeared, letters, documents, and other sources. The book also accounts for the arduous process of identification and delivery of the bodies, as well as the irregularities that characterized these proceedings.

The powerful photographs that illustrate the volume were taken by visual artist Mara Daruich.

Source: ocholibros.cl, no date