21 years old, single, university student, forcibly disappeared on September 23, 1973, in Los Angeles. Juan de Dios Sepúlveda González was detained that day at the Plaza de Armas in Los Angeles by military personnel.

He has remained disappeared since that date. During his secondary education, he had been an active student leader, and at the time of his detention, he was a member of the Partido Socialista. According to statements from family members and witnesses, he was detained by soldiers on September 23 while he was with other young people in the city square of Los Angeles.

Efforts made by his relatives allowed them to ascertain that he was being held at the Regimiento de Infantería de Montaña No 17 in that city. His captors even received the clothing and personal effects sent to him through a Red Cross office.

However, the detention was subsequently denied, and all procedures carried out, including a writ of amparo filed on his behalf, were useless in determining his fate or whereabouts. According to information gathered by the Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación and by this Corporation, the Regimiento de Infantería de Montaña Nº 17 of Los Angeles was the main detention center in the area.

Between September 12 and October 5, 1973, twelve detainees who were being held at that location disappeared. Considering the evidence gathered and the investigations carried out by this Corporation, the Superior Council reached the conviction that Juan de Dios Sepúlveda González, while being held by State agents, was made to disappear.

By virtue of this, he was declared a victim of human rights violations.

Source: (Corporation Report)

Former member of Patria y Libertad sentenced for the crime against a student leader.

The resolution was announced by the special judge for human rights cases, Carlos Aldana, who is investigating the defendant's participation in other cases related to crimes against humanity committed during the military government.

Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres, better known as ‘El Pato Abarzúa', will spend five years and one day in prison after the Special Minister for human rights cases, Carlos Aldana, notified him of his sentence for the crimes of kidnapping and disappearance of Juan de Dios Sepúlveda González (‘Calula’), committed during the military regime.

The convicted man, a former member of the Patria y Libertad group, is also being prosecuted for other cases related to human rights violations perpetrated after the democratic collapse of 1973, in addition to the crimes against the student leader and member of the Juventudes Socialistas of Los Angeles.

Mauricio Aedo, of the Bío Bío branch of the Agrupación Memoria Viva, said that during the Unidad Popular government, ‘Pato Abarzúa’ infiltrated the ranks of the secondary student movement after enrolling as an evening student and established himself as a prominent student activist, even becoming a leader of the Student Centers.

To the surprise of many classmates, on September 11, 1973, he appeared leading a group of civilians from Patria y Libertad and detained leftist militants. Later, according to the testimony of countless witnesses, he participated as an interrogator and torturer inside the Regimiento de Los Ángeles.

There, according to the statements, he was "working in a suit and tie, with a short submachine gun slung over his shoulder and with command over the conscripts and troops of that military unit, despite being a civilian." In any case, it was not the cruel interrogations and torture to which he allegedly subjected countless political prisoners that led to his arrest.

Until 2003, Abarzúa Cáceres "appeared as a respectable and prosperous merchant, but on that date, his activity as a drug trafficker was discovered, which forced him to go into hiding to evade the action of justice.

He lived for two years in absolute clandestinity, moving between farms adjacent to the provincial capital, until the police managed to capture him on October 8, 2005," recalls Aedo. Alleged Responsibility His criminal record includes charges for other crimes related to human rights violations.

Among the most representative is the case for the kidnapping and disappearance of Juan Heredia Olivares, a member of the Juventudes Comunistas. This case is being handled by Minister Joaquín Billard, Judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals.

On February 19, Abarzúa testified before Minister Carlos Aldana himself, an occasion on which he admitted to having participated in the kidnapping of Jaime Araya Palominos (Capulo), a university leader at the Universidad de Concepción, Los Ángeles branch, and also a leader of the MIR in September 1973.

The defendant confessed that Jaime Araya Palominos was murdered in the riding arena of the Los Angeles regiment, a facility to which he had been transferred after being captured. Confronted during this procedural proceeding with Osvaldo Rojas, a former political prisoner in that same military unit, "he denied knowing him, despite the fact that Rojas reminded him that he himself had saved him from death when he was being led to the riding arena to be executed by firing squad along with his comrade Luis Ángel Ariel Cornejo Fernández.

According to Rojas's words, Abarzúa Cáceres pulled him away from the riding arena where they executed Cornejo Fernández, an accounting student and president of the Student Federation of the Universidad de Concepción, who was a member of the Juventudes Comunistas and whose body remains disappeared to this day," emphasizes Aedo.

According to what was expressed by the spokesperson for Memoria Viva in Bío Bío, "the trial for the kidnapping and homicide of Jaime Araya Palominos and Oscar Wenten, two young and beloved militants of the MIR, from Los Angeles and Santa Bárbara, respectively, has allowed for the discovery of the network of murderers and torturers who, inside the current Regimiento Reforzado de Infantería Nº 17 of Los Angeles, sowed terror in that city and its surroundings, in a close symbiosis of rebellious military personnel and militants of Patria y Libertad." According to information gathered by the Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación and by the organization Memoria Viva, the Regimiento Nº 17 was the main detention center for opponents of the Military Regime in the area. The Rettig Report notes the fact: "Between September 12 and October 5, 1973, twelve detainees who were being held at that location disappeared."

Source: http://paginapolicial.blogspot.com, July 26, 2007

Date: 07-26-2007