The Supreme Court issued a final judgment regarding the qualified homicides of Enzo Muñoz Arévalo, Héctor Patricio Sobarzo Núñez, Juan Manuel Varas Silva, and Ana Alicia Delgado Tapia, crimes perpetrated on July 2 and 3, 1984, in various locations within the Metropolitan Region.

Enzo Muñoz, 30 years old, was a merchant, originally from the province of Arauco, and a militant of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR); Héctor Sobarzo, 31, was a teacher, a native of Lebu, and a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR).

Both had been friends since their years living in the south. For his part, Juan Varas was a militant of the MIR, and Ana Delgado was a member of the FPMR.

In a split decision (case file 27178-204), the Second Chamber of February—composed of ministers Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Ricardo Blanco, and Andrea Muñoz—sentenced the former army officers and agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI): Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, former lieutenant colonel, currently serving a sentence at the Punta Peuco Prison; Pedro Javier Guzmán Olivares, former colonel; Juan Eduardo Rubilar Ottone, former lieutenant colonel; Reimer Eduardo Kohlitz Fell, former army major; and former army non-commissioned officers Hernán Antonio Vásquez Villegas, alias "Pablito," and Jorge Eduardo Hernández Espinoza, alias "Oscarito," to 15 years and one day of imprisonment for their responsibility in the homicides of the 4 victims.

At the time the homicides occurred, Corbalán was serving as head of the Anti-Subversive Division of the CNI, which operated out of the Cuartel Borgoño in the capital; the other convicted individuals were all members of the Brigada Verde, a unit tasked with the persecution of the PC and the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez.

The first-instance ruling, issued in January 2012 by investigating judge Joaquín Billard, had sentenced Corbalán to 15 years in prison, Kohlitz Fell and Vásquez Villegas to 6 years, Rubilar Ottone and Hernández Espinoza to 3 years, and had acquitted Guzmán Olivares.

The repeated practice of staged shootouts

According to the evidence gathered during the investigation phase, investigating judge Joaquín Billard was able to prove that the four victims were murdered by the agents, debunking the official version that labeled them as having died in shootouts with security forces.

"Based on the merits of the evidence analyzed and legally weighed, it has been established that, contrary to the official version, on July 2, 1984, at approximately 11:00 PM, personnel from the so-called Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), traveling in a car from south to north, intercepted a private vehicle that was stopped on Avenida José Pedro Alessandri, three hundred meters before reaching the Rotonda Departamental.

At the moment one of the occupants of the private vehicle went to a public telephone booth located in front of No. 6132 of that avenue, CNI personnel riddled the driver of the vehicle, who was inside it, with bullets at that location.

After placing the other subject into a utility van, they proceeded to execute him in the vicinity of the 'Zanjón de la Aguada,' a few meters from the site of the detention, an illicit act constituting the crime of qualified homicide against the persons of Enzo Muñoz Arévalo and Héctor Patricio Sobarzo Núñez," the ruling states.

The resolution adds: "Based on the merits of the aforementioned, it is considered justified in the case records that, on the night of July 2, 1984, agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), who made up the anti-subversive apparatus and whose headquarters were located at the Cuartel Borgoño in this city, proceeded to detain a man and a woman in the vicinity of the Rotonda Departamental, the place where a supposed shootout between personnel of the former CNI and alleged extremists had taken place, to subsequently transport them both to the Cuartel Borgoño located in this city, where they were interrogated in the basement. Later, in the early hours of the morning, both detainees were removed from that location and transported to the vicinity of Callejón Lo Ovalle and Calle San Petersburgo in the commune of San Joaquín, where, around 6:00 AM, under the pretext of an armed confrontation, both detainees were executed by members of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), with the official version being provided that the victims in the case had been killed in an armed confrontation in the vicinity of Callejón Lo Ovalle, acts constituting the crime of qualified homicide perpetrated against the persons of Juan Manuel Varas Silva and Ana Alicia Delgado Tapia."

The Supreme Court's final decision was adopted with the dissenting votes of ministers Dolmestch and Künsemüller, who were in favor of applying the statute of limitations. This attitude is almost customary for these two judges, who, for ideological reasons, favor granting undue benefits to criminals, even while contravening international commitments that oblige the Chilean State to adopt specific measures against impunity and privileges in crimes against humanity and human rights violations.

Source: resumen.cl, August 10, 2015

Chile: AFEP launches campaign to locate fugitives of human rights violations

The Association of Relatives of Political Executions (AFEP) recently launched a campaign featuring photographs of human rights violators who are currently fugitives in Chile. They are: Juan Carlos Orellana Morales, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, Pedro Javier Guzmán Olivares, and Reimer Eduardo Kohlitz Fell.

The president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions (AFEP), Alicia Lira, met last July with leaders of the Confederation of Chilean Students (Confech) to present the campaign, which seeks to locate the dictatorship's criminals who have been sentenced by the courts and are currently fugitives.

Alicia Lira spoke at the Confech plenary session before the 19 university federations that were present. There, she stressed the importance of making the campaign widespread so that justice can be made effective. "I presented the campaign we are promoting and told them about all the efforts we have made so that there is no more impunity in the country, such as the meeting we had with the director of the PDI," the AFEP president noted.

The leader added that "our concern is to make the campaign widespread because there is a cover-up by several institutions, especially the Army, in the case of the fugitives. For example, Ricardo Lawrence has been a fugitive since 2014." Alicia Lira assured that Confech committed to distributing the campaign posters and issuing a statement to assume a commitment to truth and justice.

The spokesperson for the No + AFP Coordinator, Luis Mesina, who was also invited by Confech to speak, joined the truth and justice campaign to make the faces of the fugitive criminals visible and invited AFEP to participate in the coordinator's future mobilizations.

Source: afepchile.cl; August 10, 2017

Fugitive arrested for the crime of Patricio Sobarzo

Reimer Eduardo Kohlitz Fell, a fugitive from justice convicted of crimes against humanity, was arrested on Saturday, the 4th, during an anti-drug operation near the village of Curarrehue, about 800 kilometers south of Santiago. Carabineros detected a person in the border area entering through an unauthorized crossing from Argentine territory, who subsequently boarded two vehicles.

Carabineros made several arrests and identified Kohlitz among the members of the implicated gang. Kohlitz Fell, a former agent of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), was sentenced in 2015 by the Supreme Court to 15 years for the crimes of the homicide of Enzo Muñoz Arévalo and Héctor Patricio Sobarzo Núñez, a human rights defender and Executive Secretary of CODEPU, events that occurred on July 2, 1984.

Kohlitz had been sentenced for the first time in 2012. However, he appealed the sentence, claiming that Sobarzo and Muñoz were "terrorists" who were killed during a shootout. But his final prison sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Chile in August 2015, the date since which he had been a fugitive.

The facts*

At 11:30 PM on July 2, 1984, Patricio Sobarzo Núñez and Enzo Muñoz Arévalo parked the Daihatsu car they were traveling in on Avenida José Pedro Alessandri, a few meters from the Rotonda Departamental and in front of the Don Camilo housing complex.

Patricio Sobarzo crossed the street toward a telephone booth to make a call, while Muñoz Arévalo remained in the vehicle with the lights on. At that moment, the vehicle was surrounded by armed civilians. One of the repressive agents fired a burst of machine-gun fire at Enzo Muñoz, and his body fell out of the driver's door, remaining lying on the side of the car.

Patricio Sobarzo, Executive Secretary of CODEPU, was brutally beaten and fell to the ground. They then forced him to stand up with his hands raised. He was searched, and no items were found on him. He was put into a vehicle painted as a taxi, only to be taken out by force and put into another vehicle, this time a white utility van.

The van traveled a hundred meters toward Avenida La Aguada, and in front of some power lines, Patricio Sobarzo was killed. He became the first worker of a human rights defense organization to be murdered. Some time later, the repressive apparatuses would commit the crime against José Manuel Parada, who worked at the Vicaría de la Solidaridad.

A fake shootout staged by the dictatorship had taken the life of Patricio Sobarzo, a teacher, MIR militant, human rights defender, poet, father of Simón Ernesto, and partner of fellow teacher Inés Castillo. A fake shootout cut short the life of someone who had dedicated his own life to saving others.

A few days earlier, a command of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez carried out an armed propaganda action in front of the army's intelligence brigade in the heart of Santiago. One member of the command was seriously wounded, and his companions sought medical attention.

After several doors were closed to them, they turned to CODEPU, and it was Patricio Sobarzo who made the arrangements to provide them with humanitarian aid. He went to the house where the wounded man was.

His health condition was serious. Patricio and the wounded man's fellow militant got into the Daihatsu vehicle, leaving the house quickly in search of a place where he could receive effective medical attention or take him to an embassy if necessary, as time was of the essence. Both were murdered.

After the crime, the members of CODEPU and all those who frequented its offices received the news shocked and pained. They immediately put all their teams on alert. Fabiola Letelier, along with democratic figures, denounced the assassination of the Executive Secretary in a press conference.

The legal team, for its part, made contact with witnesses and filed a complaint against those responsible. CODEPU, accustomed to legally defending those persecuted by the regime, had to multiply its efforts, this time to file legal appeals, denounce, and pursue the criminals who attacked a prominent member and faithful representative of the spirit that animated the institution.

Judicial ruling ratifies CODEPU's complaint*

28 years after the crime of the Executive Secretary of CODEPU occurred, investigating judge Joaquín Billard released the first-instance sentences against the Brigada Verde of the Central Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) for the murder of teacher Patricio Sobarzo and Juan Varas Silva, Ana Delgado Tapia, and Enzo Muñoz Arévalo on that day in 1984.

The facts, according to the judicial ruling issued in 2014, confirm what CODEPU had pointed out from the first day: a militant of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez was in a clandestine clinic located in the commune of Macul, under the care of a paramedic.

When his condition worsened, they chose to ask CODEPU for help, and they designated Patricio Sobarzo to take charge of the case. Upon verifying the health status of the wounded Rodríguez militant, Sobarzo and Muñoz Arévalo left the place to make a phone call to try to locate a doctor or, failing that, to take him to an embassy.

They stopped near the Rotonda Departamental to make a phone call, at which moment the crime against both occurred.

The ruling then provides details of what happened in the precarious clinic: the leftist militants who were there heard the shots and began to leave the place due to the danger of a raid on the home. Among the people who left the house were Juan Varas Silva and Ana Delgado Tapia, who were detained in the vicinity of the house and taken to the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño, where they were harshly interrogated and tortured, and then, in the early hours of the morning, they were taken from that place and transported to the vicinity of Callejón Lo Ovalle and Calle San Petersburgo, in the commune of San Joaquín. There, around 6:00 AM, both detainees were executed by the CNI.

The official versions of that time, repeated by the two main press chains, spoke of shootouts. The initial investigation by CODEPU, and what the long judicial process proved, is that there was no shootout. There were crimes.

CODEPU... suffered the same as those who were persecuted...

Source: codepu.cl, November 6, 2017