This Tuesday, August 4, the visiting judge for Human Rights cases of the Chillán Court of Appeals, Claudio Arias Córdova, subjected 16 former repressive agents, both civilian and military, to prosecution as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Rolando Gastón Angulo Matamala, Ogán Esteban Lagos Marín, and Bartolomé Ambrosio Salazar Veloz.

These crimes were perpetrated between April 27 and 28, 1974, in the Ñuble province.

The three victims were militants of the MIR in the region. Rolando Angulo was 26 years old and a social worker; Bartolomé Salazar was 31 years old and a high school teacher; Ogán Lagos was 20 years old and an agronomy student at the Universidad de Concepción (Chillán campus); he was the first of three brothers murdered by the dictatorship.

Those prosecuted are former DINA agents and former army officers: Fernando Gómez Segovia, head of the DINA Southern Brigade; Mario César Romero Godoy, military prosecutor at the time of the events; Osvaldo Enrique Ortega Echeverría; and DINA agents Froilán Enrique Aguilera Domínguez, Luis Enrique Troncoso Verdugo, Pedro Blas Vergara Mieres, Hugo Enrique Villamán Salazar, Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana, Humberto Artemio Olmedo Álvarez, Arturo Manuel Alarcón Navarrete, Fanor Eduardo Aguilera Pizarro, Luis Alberto Toledo Espinoza, and civilian employees Sergio Francisco Bustos Baquedano, Lincoyán Lagos Tortella, and Héctor Soto Hermosilla.

According to the background information gathered during the investigation stage, Judge Arias was able to establish that:

«On April 19, 1974, through a minor who arrived at the home of Rolando Gastón Angulo Matamala, a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), where he lived with his spouse on Calle Isabel Riquelme in this city, near the Municipal Market, and who delivered a message for him to go to a person who knew him, he was detained by State Agents and subsequently transferred to a detention site located in the vicinity of San Carlos and from there to the Regimiento de Infantería de Montaña N° 9 in Chillán, from where he was taken on April 27 of the same year to an unknown destination.

His corpse was found on April 28, 1974, in the Camilo Bravo Canal of the Fundo Mutupín, located 7 kilometers east of San Carlos, with bullet impacts on his body inflicted by third parties, thus configuring the crime of qualified homicide.»

Regarding this event and according to the ruling, «sufficient and well-founded presumptions arise to estimate that the accused have had culpable participation as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Rolando Gastón Angulo Matamala: Mario César Romero Godoy, who served at the date of the commission of the crime as the Military Prosecutor of Chillán and from whom the orders to detain persons linked to the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR) emanated; Osvaldo Enrique Ortega Echeverría, in his capacity as an official of the Regimiento de Infantería N° 9 of Chillán, in charge of the "Registry and Control Office"; Fernando Gómez Segovia, Froilán Enrique Aguilera Domínguez, Luis Enrique Troncoso Verdugo, Pedro Blas Vergara Mieres, Hugo Enrique Villamán Salazar, Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana, Humberto Artemio Olmedo Alvarez, Arturo Manuel Alarcón Navarrete, Fanor Eduardo Aguilera Pizarro, Luis Alberto Toledo Espinoza, all of whom served at the time of the occurrence of the investigated events as State Agents belonging to the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) and the Central de Inteligencia Regional (CIRE); and Sergio Francisco Bustos Baquedano, Lincoyán Lagos Tortella, and Héctor Soto Hermosilla, who were part of the Servicio de Inteligencia Civil (SIC) in the city of San Carlos, who collaborated directly with the person in charge of the DINA in the Region, facilitating information and the means for the detention of persons linked to the MIR.»

Regarding the homicide of Bartolomé Salazar, Judge Arias also considered it proven that:

«on April 17, 1974, around 19:00 hours, Bartolomé Ambrosio Salazar Veloz, a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), met for a few moments with his spouse in the Plaza de Armas of this city, to whom he stated that he was going to meet with a person to carry out an errand, for which he waited, but he never returned.

Subsequently, on April 27, 1974, his body was found lifeless in the vicinity of Quinchamalí, Comuna de Chillán, on the banks of a river, dead from bullet impacts inflicted by third parties, thus configuring the crime of qualified homicide of Bartolomé Ambrosio Salazar Veloz, provided for and sanctioned in article 391 N° 1 of the Penal Code, perpetrated in this jurisdiction.»

For this event, the document adds «That, from these same antecedents and from the statements of the accused Mario César Romero Godoy, who belonged to the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) and exercised the leadership of said Entity for the Seventh and Eighth Regions; and of Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana, who served at the time of the occurrence of the investigated events as head of the Central de Inteligencia Regional (CIRE) in this city; sufficient and well-founded presumptions arise to estimate that they have had culpable participation as authors of the crime specified in article 15 N° 1 and 3 of the Penal Code.»

Finally, and in relation to the homicide of Ogán Lagos, the visiting judge considered it proven that: «in the early hours of March 15, 1974, from the house of a sister of the partner of Ogan Esteban Lagos Marín, a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), located in Chillán Viejo, around 02:30 hours, a commando of approximately eight people, agents of the Carabineros and the Army, all in civilian clothes, raided the home, detaining him along with a brother, putting them into a green pickup truck, and being transferred to the Cuartel de Investigaciones of Chillán.

From there, they were taken blindfolded to the Regiment where they were interrogated and subsequently transferred to the Public Jail of this city; from there he was taken on April 25, 1974, to an unknown destination by a group of Agents, his corpse being found near a house on the Fundo La Dehesa de Tanilvoro, as a result of bullet impacts inflicted by third parties on the 27th of the same month and year, thus configuring the crime of qualified homicide of Ogán Esteban Lagos Marín, provided for and sanctioned in article 391 N° 1 of the Penal Code.» For this crime, an indictment was issued against «Fernando Gómez Segovia, Mario César Romero Godoy, Arturo Manuel Alarcón Navarrete, and Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana, as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Ogán Esteban Lagos Marín, provided for and sanctioned in article 391 N° 1 of the Penal Code, perpetrated in this jurisdiction on April 27, 1974.»

Judge Arias ordered the preventive detention of the 15 prosecuted individuals, for which he issued an order to the Investigative Brigade of Crimes Against Human Rights of the Investigative Police of Santiago and the Investigative Prefecture of this city.

In this regard, it should be noted that Fernando Gómez Segovia is serving a sentence in the Punta Peuco Prison for other human rights crimes.

Source: resumen.cl, August 7, 2015

Former DINA agent Fernando Gómez Segovia has died. Friend of the San Carlos residents Mario Romero Godoy (deceased), Lincoyan Lagos (deceased), Héctor Soto Hermosilla, Ser

Fernando Gómez Segovia at the Prison and Torture House located on Plot 31 of the Fundo Pomuyeto, owned by Lincoyan Lagos Tortella (deceased).

The news was delivered by the Multigremial FACIR through its Twitter account: “We announce the sensitive passing of Army Colonel (R) Mr. Fernando Gómez Segovia, R.I.P. We express our condolences to the Chilean Army, his comrades at Punta Peuco, and his family. May the Lord receive him in his holy kingdom and may he receive the justice that this world denied him,” the statement concluded.

Fernando Gómez Segovia was transferred on December 20, 2017, from the Punta Peuco Prison to a house in the commune of San Carlos, located on Plot 31 of the Fundo Pomuyeto, which served as a center for political imprisonment and torture and was owned by Lincoyan Lagos Tortella (deceased), to participate in the reconstruction of scenes to clarify the death of three young MIR members.

The proceedings were directed by the visiting judge for extraordinary cases of human rights violations of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana.

The death of Gómez Segovia adds to the passing of the former military prosecutor Mario Romero Godoy, which occurred on January 11 at 05:45 hours at the Clínica Las Condes. His funeral was held "privately" on January 12 of this year, and the location where he was buried was not reported, according to the obituary published in the printed newspaper El Mercurio.

Likewise, the passing of Lincoyan Lagos Tortella in May 2017, after suffering from bile duct cancer. In the seventies, he was an active militant of the Frente Nacionalista Patria y Libertad, a Chilean far-right paramilitary movement with a nationalist ideology.

Lagos Tortella was subjected to prosecution for the death of Rolando Angulo Matamala, a young militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), murdered on April 27, 1974.

In the investigation directed by the Instructor Judge Claudio Arias of the Chillán Court of Appeals, Lincoyan admitted to having provided his house “to be able to keep the political prisoners that Mario Romero wanted to be interrogated” at the request of his “friends from Patria y Libertad,” he stated.

Biological Impunity

Regarding the death of Fernando Gómez Segovia, it is worth remembering the statements made by the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared of Ñuble, after learning of the news of the death of former Military Prosecutor Mario Romero Godoy: "We have been witnesses to how they have limited justice through the Chillán Court of Appeals and currently the Concepción Court of Appeals when it comes to clarifying the kidnapping and homicide of so many victims, and how the justice system has conspired against the substantive progress that would allow us to know what happened to our relatives and who is responsible for their disappearance and execution."

"The so-called justice in this country has led to the perpetrators being declared incapacitated due to dementia or biological impunity in this case. Violating every right of the relatives."

Visiting judge for extraordinary cases of human rights violations of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana.

Fernando Gómez Segovia was prosecuted for different cases associated with human rights violations in the Ñuble Region.

Among them, the crime of three young MIR members, an event that occurred on April 27, 1974. “They were members of the MIR Regional Committee, they were detained by this group of torturers, who are being confronted with Gómez Segovia, being taken to San Carlos to the Pomuyeto sector, owned by Lincoyan Lagos, to then be murdered, and their bodies were dumped in different parts of the province,” according to what Jorge Vera, a member of the Truth and Justice Committee of Chillán, stated to Diario El Itihue in April 2015.

APRIL 2015 - CHILLÁN COURT OF APPEALS

Froilan Aguilera Domínguez, army corporal (DINA); Pedro Vergara Mieres, army corporal (DINA); Luís Troncoso Verdugo, army corporal (DINA Linares); Luis Toledo Espinoza, army corporal (DINA Linares), and Héctor Soto Hermosilla were confronted in the Chillán Court of Appeals.

According to the information provided by Jorge Vera, a member of the Truth and Justice Committee of Chillán, the confrontation held this morning at the Chillán Court of Appeals is to “clarify the death of three comrades of the MIR who were detained on April 7, 1974, by this group of six torturers along with Fernando Gómez,” and subsequently murdered.

“These young people were detained by the SIC of San Carlos (Civil Intelligence Service). The function that this repressive body fulfilled in the first days of the coup d'état was: to detain, persecute, and raid the homes of figures of the Unidad Popular and mainly of the MIR.”

SIC - DINA

The SIC and the DINA—once the DINA was installed in Chillán, the Michimalongo Brigade, the DINA's South-Central Brigade, was formed, commanded by Fernando Gómez Segovia and a Carabineros sergeant surnamed Espinoza (currently deceased).

The prosecutor Mario Romero Godoy called on the SIC to collaborate with the DINA and provide it with all its support and collaboration in terms of infrastructure; this means that the SIC provided vehicles, properties, and farms so that the DINA could begin to operate between Linares and Chillán.

Héctor Soto Hermosilla, a resident of San Carlos, was the head of the SIC. He constantly visited the house that served as a center for political imprisonment and torture located on the Pomuyeto farm of Lincoyan Lagos in the city of San Carlos.

Soto Hermosilla received reports from the executioners who were there: army corporal Vergara, army corporal Troncoso, and the army corporals from the Linares artillery regiment, Toledo and Olmedo.

Jorge Vera highlights that all of them “are being confronted with their supreme boss; all of them implicate Fernando Gómez Segovia, who had seen the three MIR comrades alive before they were murdered: Ogan Lagos Marín, 22 years old, an agronomy student from Chillán; Rolando Angulo Matamala, 26 years old, a social worker at the Chillán Governorate; Bartolomé Salazar Veloso, a teacher at the Liceo de Niñas in Chillán.

All were executed on April 27, 1974.”

Héctor Soto Hermosilla was head of the SIC from 1973 to 1974, along with Sergio Gómez Vera, and the rest of the members of the SIC, Lincoyan Lagos and Sergio Bustos Baquedano.

Source: diarioelitihue.blogspot.com, March 28, 2021