Jorge Aillón Lara, married, father of 3 children, an employee of the Agricultural Commerce Company (ECA) in Lonquimay and a member of the Communist Party, was detained for the first time on September 11, 1973, around 12:00, by Carabineros from Lonquimay who were under the command of a Lieutenant surnamed Torres.

He was taken to the local Carabineros station, where he remained for 3 days, during which time his spouse, María Medina Uribe, came to bring him food and personal effects. He was then transferred to the Victoria Prison, where he remained until September 27, the date on which he was released.

That same day, he proceeded to travel to his home in Lonquimay, for which he boarded the train. Upon arriving at the station in his destination city, he was detained again, this time by military personnel from the Lautaro Regiment, who subsequently handed him over to Air Force personnel.

The latter transferred him to the Curacautín Carabineros station and later to the Maquehua Air Base located in Temuco.

His spouse, Mrs. María Medina Uribe, was prevented from going to the train station to meet her husband, as her house was surrounded by Carabineros from Lonquimay, blocking her path and making it impossible for her to witness the events.

The aforementioned Lieutenant Torres was in command of this police contingent. Since that date, Mrs. María Medina has carried out numerous efforts aimed at discovering the fate of her husband following his detention and subsequent disappearance.

The capture of Jorge Aillón was witnessed by many neighbors of Lonquimay, as the events were public. Furthermore, on that same date and in that same locality, the teacher María Arriagada Jerez, a member of the Communist Party, was detained by FACH (Chilean Air Force) personnel, who transported her by helicopter, along with another detained teacher surnamed Durán, to Curacautín and then to the Maquehua Air Base, from where she also disappeared.

The circumstances of the arrest of Jorge Aillón Lara are set forth in a sworn statement by Mrs. María Ernestina Medina Uribe, in which she also notes that she has made multiple efforts trying to locate her spouse.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On April 2, 1979, the Temuco Court of Appeals referred the records of Aillón Lara to the Curacautín Criminal Court, thus complying with the order of the Supreme Court to initiate the corresponding summary proceedings for the disappearance of persons after having been detained by military, police, or security agencies.

The highest court made this resolution after becoming aware of a petition to that effect requested by the Bishops to the judicial authority.

On April 5, the Curacautín Court initiated case 11.548, requesting and adding to the process the filiation records of Aillón Lara and María Arriagada Jerez. In the investigation order carried out by the Investigations police, it was reported that it was only possible to establish that the victim was an ECA official and that María Arriagada was a teacher at the Chilpaco School, "both being leaders and agitators of the Communist Party." On May 17, the Lonquimay Carabineros Sub-station reported that Jorge Aillón was indeed detained on September 11, 1973, at 12:30, and remained there until the 13th of the same month, being sent by train at 17:00 to Victoria as a detainee at the disposal of the Victoria Military Court. The Carabineros report adds that the head of the station at the time of the events was Lieutenant Luis Hernán Ahumada Torres. On July 6, 1979, Mrs. María Ernestina Medina Uribe appeared before the Court and ratified the circumstances surrounding her spouse's detention.

On August 29, Lieutenant Colonel Patricio Varela Saldías, Commander of the "La Concepción" Regiment of Lautaro, informed the Court that there were no records or knowledge in that unit related to the affected person.

On September 3, a new investigation order was reported, this time carried out by the Lonquimay Carabineros Sub-station, in which two witnesses were interviewed who said they knew Aillón Lara and María Arriagada, considering them dangerous due to their membership in the Communist Party. These two witnesses subsequently appeared before the Court, ratifying their statements.

On September 3, the Angol Military Prosecutor's Office, which operated in the city of Victoria in September 1973, informed the civil Court that there was no record in that Prosecutor's Office that Jorge Aillón Lara had been placed at the disposal of that Court by the Lonquimay Carabineros, nor was there any record that would allow for the presumption that he had been convicted or prosecuted.

On October 11, 1979, Mr. Zenón Segundo Olate Astudillo, spouse of María Arriagada, appeared before the Court and recounted the circumstances of his wife's arrest. On the 24th of that month, Carabineros Captain Luis Ahumada Torres appeared via writ, stating that he was indeed the head of the Lonquimay Carabineros station in September 1973, and that on the 11th, the affected person was detained due to his status as a Communist and his work as an "ECA agent" in Lonquimay; he added that the detainee was placed at the disposal of the Victoria Military Court with the corresponding report for violation of the State Internal Security Law. He also pointed out that a military detachment with officers and about 200 men was installed in the town; searches were carried out with the object of looking for weapons, and in one of them, the ECA premises were raided. Finally, he stated that it was not true that the Carabineros had agreed with the military to isolate Aillón's spouse and that he did not witness the military's arrest of the affected person and only learned of it through comments from the townspeople.

On October 30, 1979, Judge María Nélida Romero Iturra temporarily dismissed the case on the grounds that the evidence gathered did not justify the perpetration of a crime. On November 22, the Temuco Court of Appeals approved said resolution, despite the fact that there is no record in the proceedings that the contradiction between the information provided by the Carabineros and the Angol Military Prosecutor's Office had been clarified, nor was any action taken to identify the officer in charge of the military detachment installed at the scene of the events.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The flag of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Persons was raised this Thursday, September 5, on the front of the Lebu Municipality, acceding to a request made by the organization itself, within the framework of the commemoration activities for the 46th anniversary of the coup d'état.

Participating in this ceremony were the acting mayor, Jorge Ravanal, councilman Aldo Molina, María Medina of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Persons, as well as representatives of the Provincial Coordination of PRAIS Users, the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Lebu, and the PRAIS team of the Arauco Health Service.

On behalf of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Persons, María Medina shared emotional memories regarding the detention of her husband, Jorge Aillón Lara, detained on September 27, 1973, in Lonquimay, with no news of his whereabouts to this day.

She recalled the hard struggle for truth and justice, the snitching in the days following the coup d'état, the illusion of some that the dictatorship would be brief, and highlighted the tireless struggle of the Association in the present against indifference and oblivion, for which reason she highly valued the ethical gesture of the Lebu Municipality.

With this significant ceremony, the activities commemorating the 46th anniversary of the coup d'état that overthrew the Constitutional Government of President Salvador Allende Gossens began in the province.

Among the scheduled activities are a tribute to the victims in the Esteban Yevilao Community, in Puerto Choque, adjacent to where the detention and torture center operated on the Santos Jorquera property. This activity will take place at 11:00 on Tuesday the 10th.

That same day, but at 15:00, in Los Álamos, the Association of PRAIS Users will hold a tribute act to the victims of the dictatorship at the Santa Isabel headquarters in Cerro Alto.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, September 11, at 15:30, at the historic Miners' Union of Curanilahue, the Provincial Act for "Always Human Rights and Memory" will be held in tribute to the victims of the dictatorship in the Arauco province.

Source: tribunadelbiobio.cl, September 6, 2019

Date: 09-06-2019

(R) FACh officer convicted for crime against Mapuche in 1973

The appellate court revoked the ruling of visiting minister Fernando Carreño and imposed a sentence of five years and one day in prison for Heriberto Pereira Rojas.

The man who was identified as the leader of the "savage patrol," a well-known group from the Maquehua air base in Temuco that practiced detentions, interrogations, and torture after the 1973 military coup, was convicted again.

(R) FACh officer Heriberto Pereira Rojas was sentenced last Monday by the Court of Appeals of that city to serve a sentence of five years and one day in prison as an accomplice to the murder of the young Mapuche Nelson Curiñir Lincoqueo.

With this ruling, the appellate court of the IX Region revoked the ruling of visiting minister Fernando Carreño, who dismissed Pereira's authorship and participation in the case of the qualified homicide of the former militant of the Communist Youth (JJCC), who was detained and taken from his home to torture centers on October 5, 1973.

However, the Court maintained that he had a degree of participation in the crime and also ordered compensation for the Curiñir family.

Three months earlier, the same investigating judge convicted Pereira as the author of other crimes committed at the Maquehua air base. That time, Judge Carreño sentenced the (R) officer—along with other FACh non-commissioned officers—to serve eight years behind bars for the qualified kidnapping of two Communist Party (PC) militants: the worker Jorge Aillón Lara and the teacher María Arriagada Jerez.

The ruling establishes that, at the time the events occurred, Pereira did not have the status of a FACh conscript, so he performed duties as a second corporal at the aforementioned air base.

STAIN ON HIS FACE

He himself, according to the ruling, declared that he had belonged to a special group that, with the collaboration of some civilians, had the mission of detaining and transferring opponents of the military regime to the Maquehua base.

Several witnesses declared in the file that the man who arrested Curiñir was a man who had a horrible stain on his face alluding to a severe burn, which corresponds to a characteristic of the accused.

Other testimonies indicate that the repressive group to which Pereira belonged not only had the mission of detaining opponents but also of carrying out interrogations and applying torture.

For this reason and other evidence, judges Leopoldo Llanos and Álvaro Mesa reached the conviction that "the participation of the accused in the events that led to the qualified homicide of Curiñir was not accidental nor by virtue of mere compliance with orders."

In the opinion of the magistrates, the retired officer was fully aware that he was executing foreseeable acts that would "objectively" lead to the murder of the victim.

The ruling also established that the Curiñir family should be compensated for moral damages, since it was only in 1990 that they managed to learn the whereabouts of their son, who was found as a John Doe (NN) in the Nueva Imperial cemetery with two bullet wounds to the skull. The state treasury must pay $200 million, after accepting the lawsuit.

Source: mapuche.info, September 4, 2008

Date: 09-04-2008

8-year prison sentence for FACH officers for 1973 kidnappings

Magistrate Fernando Carreño Ortega convicted the FACH group commander and head of the Maquehua Base, Leonardo Reyes Herrera, and the squadron commander, Luis Soto Pinto, as co-authors of the two qualified kidnappings.

The justice system sentenced seven retired officers and non-commissioned officers of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) to eight years in prison this Monday as co-authors of the kidnapping of two leftists in 1973.

The conviction, in the first instance, was issued by judge Fernando Carreño Ortega, who ordered the immediate detention of the accused, who at the time were serving in the FACH Maquehua Air Base in the city of Temuco.

The magistrate convicted the FACH group commander and head of the Maquehua Base, Leonardo Reyes Herrera, and the squadron commander, Luis Soto Pinto, as co-authors of the two qualified kidnappings.

Also convicted were officer Heriberto Pereira Rojas and non-commissioned officers Jorge Soto Herrera, Luis Yáñez Silva, Jorge Valdebenito Isler, and Enrique Rebolledo Sotelo.

In his investigation, the magistrate established that the military personnel participated as co-authors of the kidnapping of Jorge Aillón Lara, 33, father of three children, an employee of the Agricultural Commerce Company and a member of the Communist Party, who, after being detained by FACH personnel, disappeared without his whereabouts being known to date.

The other victim is the teacher María Arriagada Jerez, 40, with three children, a teachers' union leader and also a communist, who was last seen at the Maquehua Air Base.

According to the Rettig Report, which documented the human rights violations committed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), more than 3,000 Chileans lost their lives during that period, of whom about 1,290 are forcibly disappeared.

Source: elmostrador.cl, June 10, 2008

Date: 06-10-2008

7 former FACH members convicted for kidnappings

Judge Fernando Carreño sentenced seven former officials of the Chilean Air Force to eight years in prison for the qualified kidnapping of two people after the 1973 military coup in the Curacautín area, east of Temuco in the foothills of the Araucanía Region.

Leonardo Reyes, Jorge Valdebenito, Luis Soto, Eriberto Pereira, Jorge Soto, Luis Yáñez, and Enrique Rebolledo were convicted for the qualified kidnapping of the teacher María Arriagada Jerez—a forcibly disappeared person in the Cautín province—and of Jorge Aillón Lara, both communist militants.

The woman was apprehended before witnesses at her workplace on September 27, 1973, by Air Force and Carabineros personnel, and taken along with another teacher, in an Air Force helicopter, to the Lonquimay sub-station. The following day she was taken to Curacautín and then to the Maquehua air base in Temuco.

Since then, her whereabouts have been unknown. Aillón, an official of the Agricultural Commerce Company, had been detained by Lonquimay Carabineros personnel on the same day as the military coup (September 11).

Source: La Nacion, June 7, 2008

Date: 06-07-2008