During the morning, the Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police (PDI) began the transfer to the Valparaíso Court of Appeals of the last 14 individuals indicted for the disappearance of the English priest Miguel Woodward, who was also subjected to torture aboard the Chilean Navy training ship Esmeralda and subsequently disappeared.

It should be noted that on August 26, Minister María Eliana Quezada ordered the indictment of these fourteen former uniformed officers. The events date back to the first days of the military dictatorship, when the Chilean Navy implemented "Plan Cochayuyo," designed to repress social organizations and control the area following the military coup.

After 11:00, the retired Carabineros and Navy officials involved in this human rights case began arriving at the Fifth Region Court of Appeals so that the magistrate could notify them of their indictment and pretrial detention.

The indicted individuals are retired Carabineros Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, and Enrique Corrales Díaz, all colonels; as well as Major Luis Araya Maureira, Captain Nelson López Cofré, and Second Sergeant Jorge Leiva Cordero.

Also indicted were former Navy officers: Captain Pedro Abregó Diamanti; and retired Marine Corps non-commissioned officers Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Bertalino Castillo Soto, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

With this development, the number of people indicted in this case—an emblematic human rights matter in Valparaíso—has reached 33.

Source: Radio Universidad de Chile, August 30, 2010

NAVY AND CARABINEROS PERSONNEL INDICTED IN WOODWARD CASE DETAINED

In Valparaíso and the surrounding area, they were arrested by the Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police and placed at the disposal of Judge Eliana Quezada. Under the command of the head of the Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police, Commissioner Sandro Gaete, officers from this brigade detained 14 officers and non-commissioned officers today in Valparaíso and the surrounding area.

All are retired former agents of the Navy and Carabineros who were indicted on Friday by the magistrate of the Court of Appeals of that port, Eliana Quezada, as co-perpetrators of the kidnapping and disappearance of the priest Miguel Woodward following the military coup.

The detainees were taken by police to the courthouse at Plaza Sotomayor to be notified of their prosecution by the judge. Upon entering the Court after midday, the arrestees were met by family members of the victims of the dictatorship and members of the Group of Friends of Woodward, who were waiting with banners and shouting.

Once notified of the indictment by Minister Quezada, those belonging to the Navy were transferred to the Marine Corps barracks opposite the Las Salinas beach resort in Viña del Mar, where they will serve their pretrial detention until the judge—and subsequently a chamber of the port city's Court of Appeals—rules on their provisional release while the proceedings continue.

These individuals are Captain Pedro Abregó Diamanti and Marine Corps senior non-commissioned officers Juan Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Bertalino Castillo Soto, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

Also detained and placed at the disposal of the minister were the following former Carabineros agents: Colonels Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, and Enrique Corrales Díaz; Major Ricardo Araya Maureira; Captain Nelson López Jofré; and non-commissioned officer Jorge Leiva Cordero.

They were held in custody at a police facility on Cerro Playa Ancha. The only indicted individual who was not detained, due to his health condition, was Marine Corps non-commissioned officer Manuel Leiva Valdivieso.

All of them, in their capacity as intelligence agents, were part of the team of interrogators and torturers that operated after the military coup at the Naval War Academy (AGN) in Valparaíso, located on Cerro Playa Ancha, through which hundreds of prisoners passed. 33 indicted To date, Judge Quezada has issued indictments against 33 officers and non-commissioned officers in this case, all of whom are now retired.

Of these, 25 belong to the Navy and 6 to the Carabineros. This is the first time the magistrate has indicted members of the uniformed police for this crime. The figure of 33 is currently reduced to 31, due to the death last year of Rear Admiral (Ret.), former commander of the AGN of Valparaíso and DINA agent, Sergio Barra von Kretschmann, and the revocation of the indictment of Captain (Ret.) Luis Holley de la Maza.

The death of the priest The priest Miguel Woodward was arrested on September 16, 1973, by a Navy patrol at his home on Cerro Los Placeres in Valparaíso and taken to the Federico Santa María Technical University, where he was interrogated and tortured for several hours.

After the military coup, that university served as a detention and torture center in the hands of the Navy. Later, Woodward was taken to the Naval War Academy (AGN) on the port's Cerro Playa Ancha, where he was likewise tortured.

Subsequently, on September 21, 1973, he was removed from the AGN and transferred to the training ship Esmeralda, which also operated as a place of detention and torture after the military uprising. The investigation has confirmed that Woodward died aboard the Esmeralda as a result of the torment.

His body was removed from that ship and taken to the Naval Hospital, which was located on Cerro Playa Ancha at that time. It is during that period that all trace of his body was lost, although the judicial investigation established that Navy personnel took his body to be buried in the Playa Ancha Cemetery, from where it has remained disappeared to this day.

Source: La Nación, August 30, 2010

Supreme Court of Chile ratifies dismissal of charges against 19 military personnel involved in priest's disappearance

The Supreme Court of Chile (CSC) ratified this Thursday the dismissal of charges against 19 retired military personnel who are accused of the disappearance of the British-Chilean priest Miguel Woodward during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), reports TeleSUR.

This resolution by the high Chilean court was made after it rejected the appeals filed by the Ministry of the Interior, the State Defense Council (CDE), and the plaintiffs who sought to annul the ruling.

The ruling issued by the ministers of the Second Chamber of the highest court—Nibaldo Segura, Jaime Rodríguez, Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, and acting lawyer Alberto Chaigneau—states that the judges did not commit a serious error or abuse in ordering the dismissal.

Last May, the CSC ruled that the following citizens were perpetrators of the crime committed against Woodward: Luis Francisco Pinda Figueroa, Carlos Alberto Miño Muñoz, Guillermo Carlos Inostroza Opazo, José Manuel García Reyes, Marcos Cristián Silva Bravo, Nelson Roberto López Cofre, Jorge Leiva Cordero, Manuel Atilio Leiva Valdivieso, Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, and Héctor Fernando Palomino López.

In another ruling, the judicial body established a partial and temporary dismissal for: Guillermo Aldoney Hansen, Juan Mackay Barriga, Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, Carlos Costa Canessa, Víctor Valverde Stelenlen, José Yañez Riveros, Pedro Vidal Miranda, Alfredo Mondaca Salamanca, Claudio Cerezo Valencia, Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, Enrique Corrales Díaz, Luis Araya Maureira, Pedro Abregó Diamantti, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

The determination in favor of those mentioned was established because the participation of those individuals in the event was not fully proven. The priest Miguel Woodward was arrested on September 19, 1973, by members of the Chilean Navy in a town in Valparaíso on the central coast of Chile.

Shortly after, he was transferred to the Federico Santa María University in that city, where he was subjected to all kinds of torture. Finally, he was taken to the Naval War Academy, where he received more torture until he was taken to the training ship Esmeralda, where he finally died and his body was never found.

The latest report from the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, known as the Valech Commission report, raised the number of victims during the dictatorship to more than 40,000.

Source: contrainjerencia.com, September 30, 2011

Supreme Court rejects appeals and maintains sentences in Woodward case

The highest court backed the decision of the port city's Court of Appeals, which determined the dismissal of charges against 19 people in the investigation into the aggravated kidnapping of the priest Miguel Woodward, which occurred beginning in September 1973.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals filed against the resolutions of the visiting minister Julio Miranda Lillo and the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, which determined the dismissal of 19 people in the investigation into the aggravated kidnapping of the priest Miguel Woodward.

In a unanimous ruling, ministers Nibaldo Segura, Jaime Rodríguez, Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, and acting lawyer Alberto Chaigneau rejected the filings made by the Ministry of the Interior, the State Defense Council (CDE), and the plaintiffs who sought to annul both rulings.

The Supreme Court's sentence determines that the judges in question did not commit a serious error or abuse in ordering the dismissal, considering that participation in the crime, which occurred beginning in September 1973, was not proven.

On May 12, visiting minister Julio Miranda Lillo declared the summary phase closed in the investigation into the kidnapping of the priest Miguel Woodward, issuing two resolutions in the process. In the first, he accused Luis Francisco Pinda Figueroa, Carlos Alberto Miño Muñoz, Guillermo Carlos Inostroza Opazo, José Manuel García Reyes, Marcos Cristián Silva Bravo, Nelson Roberto López Cofre, Jorge Leiva Cordero, Manuel Atilio Leiva Valdivieso, Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, and Héctor Fernando Palomino López as perpetrators of the illicit act.

Meanwhile, in the second, he ordered a partial and temporary dismissal in favor of Guillermo Aldoney Hansen, Juan Mackay Barriga, Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, Carlos Costa Canessa, Víctor Valverde Stelenlen, José Yañez Riveros, Pedro Vidal Miranda, Alfredo Mondaca Salamanca, Claudio Cerezo Valencia, Héctor Tapia Olivares, Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, Enrique Corrales Díaz, Luis Araya Maureira, Pedro Abregó Diamantti, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Jaime Lazo Pérez, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Carlos Líbano Riquelme, and Sergio Hevia Febres.

Source: soychile.cl, September 29, 2011

The elegant condominium of high-ranking Carabineros officers who do not pay property taxes

Active and retired Carabineros generals, relatives of officers involved in human rights cases, the rector of a private university, and a businessman convicted of trafficking ephedrine to Mexico make up the group of owners of an elegant condominium in Peñaflor, whose 5,000 m2 plots are not regularized and do not pay property taxes.

One of them is General Director Bruno Villalobos, and another is General (ret.) Fernando Cordero Rusque, former head of the police force, whose children are involved in irregular bidding processes within the Carabineros. An angry Villalobos stated at La Moneda that his house in Peñaflor was in order, but now a report by Radio Cooperativa confirms what CIPER reported.

At the end of the San Javier Larraín alley, which begins at the Malloco junction of the Autopista del Sol and borders the San Alfonso estate, it is common to see Carabineros vehicles patrolling. "It's because of the 'pacos' [cops'] condominium," explains one of the neighbors in the Peñaflor commune.

There are few houses visible in that alley. Most of the land consists of agricultural plantations. But after traveling a little over a kilometer and a half from the highway, a condominium with large houses and well-kept gardens appears: El Tranque San Javier.

Although everyone in the area associates its ownership with uniformed officers, few know that the current General Director of Carabineros, Bruno Villalobos Krumm, owns a large residence there.

They also do not know that of the 18 plots—of 5,000 square meters each—that make up the condominium, 16 are in an irregular situation and do not pay the corresponding property taxes. They are also unaware that among the residents who do not pay their taxes, in addition to General Villalobos, are a former General Director of Carabineros, Fernando Cordero Rusque; General (ret.) Ricardo Solar, who recently left the institution; other former members of the police high command; a rector of a private university; and a businessman convicted of trafficking ephedrine to Mexico: Mario Vásquez.

Among that select group of neighbors at El Tranque San Javier was also General (ret.) Gerardo González Theodor, who has already sold his property. Furthermore, former Carabineros officers involved in human rights cases have owned or currently own plots in that condominium, such as Ángel Lorca and Pedro Bobadilla; a sister of the former DINA operations chief, Ricardo Lawrence, who remains a fugitive from justice; and a civilian who in 1970 was prosecuted as an accomplice to the assassination of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, René Schneider: Julio Antonio Bouchon Sepúlveda.

General Villalobos acquired the land in 2011 for $29 million, an operation that was registered that year at the Peñaflor Real Estate Registrar and whose registration was reviewed by CIPER. He built a house there, with a pool, a barbecue area, and gardens.

But he has not yet regularized his property. At the Works Directorate of the Municipality of Peñaflor, his land has no record of a building permit or final inspection. In short, the top police chief has a residence that is not legalized. Consequently, he does not pay the property taxes he should be paying.

The property was included by General Villalobos in the Declaration of Assets that authorities are required by law to submit, and whose update is dated last Friday, March 31. In 2016, the digital newspaper El Ciudadano requested Villalobos's Declaration of Assets under the Transparency Law, but the Carabineros provided it with the information regarding his properties redacted.

Faced with a ruling from the Council for Transparency that mandates making such data public, the general filed a claim with the Court of Appeals. Finally, with the entry into force of the new Probity Law, he was forced to make the information public a few days ago.

In his newly released declaration, Villalobos identified his house in Peñaflor with tax roll number 03920-001 and assigned it a fiscal valuation of $130 million. But that information is incorrect. According to the files of the Internal Revenue Service (SII), there are no properties in Peñaflor associated with the tax roll declared by the general.

The correct tax roll for Villalobos's property is 0339-00276, which, when checked with the SII, reveals the irregular situation of the property: it remains identified as a plot for agricultural use, and not with the residential purpose it effectively has.

Therefore, due to a tax benefit intended to stimulate agricultural production, it is exempt from paying taxes. Furthermore, in that registry, the property was still listed under the name of the previous owner until the day this report was published.

Official SII information assigns Villalobos's property a fiscal valuation of $4.7 million, far below the $130 million the general declared. Although the fiscal valuation is normally lower than the commercial price, in this case, the amount assigned by the Internal Revenue Service is completely detached from reality.

CIPER consulted real estate brokers specializing in the purchase and sale of properties in that area, who indicated that a house with the characteristics of the one owned by the police chief is sold for between $200 and $300 million.

The background on this property of General Villalobos emerged during an investigation conducted by CIPER into the assets of the officers who make up the Carabineros high command. This comes amid the crisis shaking the police force due to the theft of more than $16 billion from the budget allocated for the payment of salaries, allowances, and severance pay for Carabineros personnel.

An illicit act committed by a group of officers whose superior was General Flavio Echeverría, the institution's Director of Finance, who is in preventive detention.

Almost all the owners of the condominium are in the same irregular situation as General Villalobos. Of the 18 plots that make it up, only two effectively maintain agricultural plantations, which is why they are up to date on tax matters.

In 14 plots, there are various structures—such as houses, pools, courts, barbecue areas, and parking lots—but only four have initiated procedures at the municipality to regularize their construction, although none have completed the process.

Of the total, only two pay property taxes—one for $140,000 and another for $137,000 quarterly—because they are listed in the SII as "vacant lots" and not as agricultural land. The remaining 12 that have structures do not pay taxes.

GENERAL VILLALOBOS'S HOUSE

When Bruno Villalobos arrived at the Notary Office of Elena Torres Seguel (located on Paseo Bulnes, steps away from the Carabineros institutional building) on April 18, 2011, to finalize the purchase of lot 7, he paid $29 million in cash with a Banco Estado check, as recorded in the transaction deed (see a transcript of that document here).

On the land, there is currently a large, one-story white house with asphalt shingles, Etruscan slate on one of its walls, and a porch that can serve as a parking space.

The construction is surrounded by fruit trees, a lawn, and a pool. Thanks to satellite images provided by Google Earth, a second structure can be seen next to the pool. There is no information about these structures at the Municipality of Peñaflor.

The Director of Works for the municipality, Hernán Espina, confirmed to CIPER that no building permit application corresponding to the land belonging to the General Director has been filed. There are no blueprints for the buildings because they have not been regularized.

General Bruno Villalobos received CIPER and admitted that the house built on his land in Peñaflor is not registered. That plot—he explained—was purchased in 2011 for $29 million, and he began construction of the property the following year with the company of Omar Urrutia.

The construction company, he noted, was supposed to take care of all regularization procedures. But, according to his account, Omar Urrutia passed away in 2013, and the task was left pending. He said he had tried to communicate with the company to obtain the blueprints for the residence and move forward with the process, but it has not been possible.

The General Director of Carabineros also explained that it was a mistake on his part to have put a fiscal valuation of $130 million in his declaration of assets. He did so, he said, because he found that the valuation the SII assigned to his property ($4.7 million) was too low for its current commercial value.

He also stated that before making his declaration public at the end of March, he went to the Works Directorate of the Municipality of Peñaflor to find out what documents are required to regularize his property.

PURCHASES BY A GENERAL DIRECTOR

One of Villalobos's neighbors is the former General Director and former designated senator, Fernando Cordero Rusque, who acquired four lots (15, 16, 17, and 18) for $1.6 million each. He made the acquisition in 1990, when the condominium had just been subdivided. He currently only retains two, so he has a 10,000-square-meter plot (lots 16 and 17).

Fernando Cordero was promoted to general in 1989 and bought the land in Peñaflor a year later. By that time, he had served as Director of Education and Director of the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications (TIC).

Years later, his children became suppliers for the TIC and were mentioned in a CIPER investigation into irregular purchases in that Carabineros department. A company owned by Cordero's children, Sectrade, represented an Italian firm that benefited from multi-million dollar contracts via direct negotiation with the institution.

In 2013, the State Defense Council (CDE) filed a lawsuit against those responsible for potential irregularities in those transactions.

Municipal and tax records analyzed by CIPER indicate that Cordero also does not pay taxes for his plot, even though it is also rented out for family or corporate events. Cordero's plot has two large structures: a main one (two stories, clay tiles, fireplace, and balconies) and a secondary one.

The land has a pool (with areas for adults and children), a tennis court, and a soccer field. The secondary structure is the one used for events. On Facebook, there are children's parties listed on December 8 and 18, 2016, and another on January 14 of this year; as well as an event for the company Manager held last November 18.

Cordero's lands are listed in the SII as agricultural properties, each with fiscal valuations of $4.7 million. The Municipality of Peñaflor informed CIPER that the former General Director has not regularized his structures, although he has carried out procedures at that office.

Between 2007 and 2008, he paid a little over $1.5 million to obtain the certificate of prior information (necessary to begin construction) and a permit to begin construction, which he paid in three installments.

Only on March 29 did Cordero make a new request to the municipality: he requested a number certificate (which assigns the exact address of a property), but the regularization process has not yet finished.

A few days before he carried out that procedure, CIPER had inquired at the municipality about the condominium's lands. During the course of this investigation, we realized that two journalists from the municipality were partners of Cordero in the Sociedad de Comunicaciones y Publicidad.

One of them indicated that they withdrew from it in 2008 and that they maintain no ties with the retired general. She also stated that she had not informed Cordero of the CIPER investigation.

In 1992, Cordero sold lot 18 to Ingreed Vásquez Carvajal for $4.5 million. She and her father, Mario Vásquez Núñez, have sold and repurchased it among themselves. A huge house was built on the land, occupying almost a quarter of the 5,000 m2 plot.

Mario Vásquez Núñez was arrested in 2009 for the illegal trafficking of ephedrine, a precursor for the production of drugs, which he sent to Mexico. He is a partner in the postal company Postrack, which appeared as the sender of that illegal shipment, simulating it to be a substance similar to sugar, as reported by La Tercera at the time.

The Investigative Police (PDI) caught him red-handed entering eight canisters of ephedrine into the company Biotonic. On October 13, 2009, he was sentenced to four years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree and the payment of 30 UTM, in addition to another 20 UTM for illegal possession of weapons.

Cordero sold lot 15 in 2010 to Sociedad de Ingeniería Limitada for $25 million. Now the property is listed under the name Agrícola Los Carozos (created after a division of Servicios de Ingeniería).

CIPER tried to contact Fernando Cordero and left a message with one of his children, but there was no response.

THE REST OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Also listed as an owner in the condominium was General (ret.) Gerardo González Theodor, who left the institution in 2012 when irregularities were being investigated in the purchases of the TIC, which was under his line of command. In May of that same year, he acquired lot 10 of El Tranque San Javier. On December 28, 2015, González Theodor sold his plot for $63 million.

Another officer who had property in the condominium is Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, a former Carabineros colonel who in 2015 was prosecuted for the kidnapping of priest Miguel Woodward (1973). Last year, he was also prosecuted for the kidnapping of a 14-year-old girl, Viviana Victoria Fernández, an episode that took place in 1974.

Between 1991 and 1995, Lorca Fuenzalida was a partner of one of General Cordero's sons in Agrícola El Edén, a company in which another neighbor of the condominium, Gumercindo Bisbal Olivos, who was then the owner of lot 9, also participated.

Lorca Fuenzalida sold his plot in 2002 to Sociedad Agrícola Chicureo, controlled by Julio Antonio Bouchon Sepúlveda, who in 1970 was prosecuted as an accomplice to the assassination of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General René Schneider. Bouchon bought the land in October 2002 for $20 million and sold it six years later.

Another neighbor of the condominium is María Cecilia Lawrence Mires, sister of the former DINA agent and Carabineros colonel (ret.), Ricardo Lawrence, alias "Cachete Grande." The former DINA operations chief is a fugitive, having been convicted in various human rights cases, such as the disappearances and crimes of Alfonso Chanfreau, Ana María Puga, Alejandro de la Barra, José Ascencio, Mario Quezada, Santiago Ferruz, and Octavio Boettiger.

He was also convicted for the horrors committed at the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture center.

María Cecilia Lawrence is one of the few neighbors who bought during the original 1990 sale and remains an owner. She has a house located right in the center of lot 2, surrounded by trees and with a circular pool.

In the SII, her plot appears as "agricultural" and is exempt from payment. Her husband is Carlos Pereira Albornoz, former rector of the Universidad Unicit and current rector of the Universidad Sek.

The original owner of the plot that General Bruno Villalobos now owns (lot 7) was former officer Pedro Bobadilla Jara, who in 2016 was prosecuted by Minister Mario Carroza as an accessory to the homicide of Luis Armando Rubio Garrido, a 20-year-old who, on October 30, 1984, was struck by a bullet during a day of protest against the military regime.

Lot 5 was bought in 1990 by Colonel (ret.) Silvia Martínez Regollo, who has directed children's homes dependent on the Carabineros. In June 2000, she sold the property for $20 million to Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Eugenio Palacios Salas. In 1986, Palacios was the acting Undersecretary of Carabineros.

Palacios only held the plot for a year. In June 2001, he sold it for $20.5 million to Raquel del Valle Jeldres, who built a central house, two smaller dwellings, and a pool there. Between 2005 and 2008, Raquel del Valle carried out procedures at the municipality to regularize her property.

On July 13, 2005, she paid $241,000 for a building permit. Even so, in the SII, her plot still appears as agricultural land, exempt from payment.

The first owner of lots 13 and 14 was former Carabineros official Luis Hernán Espejo del Valle, who only retains the first one. He sold lot 14 to the writer Ángela Pleguezuelos, wife of General (ret.) Ricardo Solar Roberts.

The latter was head of the Metropolitan Zone when he retired at the end of last year. Before that, he was head of the III Zone of Atacama and Santiago West; and in 2015, he was in charge of Private Security and Arms Control. The plot, with a one-story house, does not pay taxes because it remains registered irregularly with an "agricultural" designation, with a fiscal valuation of $4.7 million.

Another of the original owners of El Tranque San Javier is General (ret.) Juan Alejandro Valenzuela Barra, who acquired Lot 8 in 1990. In 2010, he sold it for $23 million to Colonel (ret.) Raúl Raffo Arriagada and his son, Raúl Raffo Aranda.

The father counts among his companies security firms, such as Segint (according to its website, its clients include SQM and Inmobiliaria Manquehue) and Soseyco. Currently, there are two dwellings on that lot. It does not pay taxes, although the Municipality of Peñaflor does record procedures carried out by Raffo to regularize his houses: in 2011, he paid fees and building permits.

The original buyer of lot 6 is Emilio Maldonado Lobos, an Intendancy colonel (the administration and finance area of the Carabineros) who is now retired. Maldonado is married to General (ret.) Lilian González González, who served as Director of Welfare for the institution between 2006 and 2009, a key unit in granting housing loans to police personnel.

The Maldonado González couple remains the owner of plot 6 and still maintains strong ties with the Carabineros: Emilio Maldonado has been a representative of the Carabineros' Club de Huasos y Rodeo before the SII and is currently a member of the board of the Carabineros' Radio Club.

Although his house is one of the largest in the condominium and there are at least two other structures on his plot, no procedures have been initiated at the municipality to regularize the buildings, and in the SII, it continues to be listed as land with an "agricultural" designation, which is why it does not pay taxes.

Lots 11 and 12 are the only ones that have agricultural plantations across their entire extent, which is why it is appropriate for them to benefit from the tax exemption. The lands were acquired in 1990 by Héctor García Barros, president of the Círculo de Amigos de Carabineros and a member of a group of civilians who collaborate with the police: "Alguaciles." In 1996, García sold them for $32 million.

In the SII, the owner is listed as Servicios de Ingeniería Limitada, the same owner of lot 15.

ORIGINAL DEED WAS STOLEN FROM THE JUDICIAL ARCHIVE

The history of the El Tranque San Javier condominium began in 1985, when Rafael Valenzuela Silva acquired Plot 1 of Malloco. He bought it from Gabriela Polette Saint Simon for a value equivalent to 1,565 quintals of wheat, as recorded in the deed signed at a notary office in Panguipulli.

On the land, Valenzuela planted peaches and nectarines until he decided to subdivide it. At the end of 1990, he subdivided a nine-hectare tract into 18 plots of 5,000 m2.

When Valenzuela put the 18 lots up for sale, of the 13 original buyers, 11 were Carabineros officers (active or retired) or direct relatives of uniformed officers or civilians related to the police. Each plot was sold for $1.6 million.

The details of these purchases were recorded in a deed signed at the notary office of Félix Jara Cadot in November 1990. The notarial index records that the deed bears the signatures of the seller (Valenzuela Silva), the main buyer (the then-active General Fernando Cordero), and a representative of the Mutual de Carabineros.

To find out if the Mutual de Carabineros played any role in financing the purchase, CIPER tried to review the deed. The original document was sent by the notary office to the Judicial Archive. But in that archive, the pages of the book where the deed appeared were torn out. Someone stole the document.

The loss was confirmed by the head of the archive, Julián Miranda, who indicated that he is considering reporting this anomaly to the North Central Prosecutor's Office, which is what is appropriate in these cases. In the last two years—he stated—security measures have been increased to avoid something that was previously common: the disappearance or falsification of public deeds.

Source: ciper.cl, April 13, 2017

13 retired uniformed officers prosecuted for the kidnapping of a girl in Valparaíso in 1974

The visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Jaime Arancibia, submitted to prosecution and ordered the preventive detention of 13 former uniformed officers—two from the Carabineros and 11 from the Navy—for the crime of kidnapping Viviana Victoria Fernández.

In the resolution, he indicted Gilda Mercedes Ulloa Valle, Alejo Esparza Martínez, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Enrique Orlando Corrales Díaz, Ricardo Alejandro Riesco Cornejo, Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, Eduardo Mauricio Núñez Contreras, Jaime Erik Riesle Wetherby, Héctor Nelson Tapia Olivares, Juan Orlando Jorquera Terrazas, Ángel Segundo Lorca Fuenzalida, and Marcelo Alejandro Onofre Vargas Goas, as authors of the crime of kidnapping Viviana Victoria Fernández Montenegro.

According to the background information, the events took place in the second fortnight of February 1974 "due to the political ideas she professed, as well as her family, who were arrested at their home in Cerro Florida, Valparaíso.

Viviana Victoria Fernández Montenegro, who was 14 years old at the time, was taken to the Silva Palma Barracks, adjacent to the Naval War Academy, the same place where her sister Morelia del Rosario Fernández Montenegro and her mother Emma Mercedes Montenegro Mena were taken.

These arrests were carried out by members of the Navy and Carabineros of this city, without an order from a competent court. The victim, as well as her aforementioned relatives, were interrogated regarding the political activities they carried out and the existence of alleged weapons or deposits of them that were supposedly hidden.

During these interrogations, they were sexually abused, and also received beatings, insults, death threats, and the application of electric current to their intimate parts, ankles, and fingers. The victim was subsequently released after approximately one week, but was required to sign in weekly at a Carabineros station in Cerro Alegre for one year, without any judicial process being initiated against her, either in the military or ordinary courts."

The accused, once notified of the indictment, must be taken to the facilities designated by the Carabineros to serve their preventive detention.

Source: elclarin.cl, July 17, 2016

Viviana Fernández and the prosecution of the marines who tortured her as a girl: "They cut our lives short"

When she was just a 14-year-old adolescent, Viviana was arrested by Navy agents and kidnapped for a week at the Silva Palma barracks in Valparaíso, where she was subjected to physical and psychological torture. 42 years passed, and the Visiting Minister, Jaime Arancibia, issued the indictment against 13 of those responsible.

In 1974, Viviana Fernández Montenegro was only 14 years old. In February of that year, she was arrested at her home in Cerro Florida, Valparaíso, by Navy agents. She was kidnapped for a week at the Silva Palma barracks, one of the most emblematic detention centers in the V Region.

During the interrogations, she was subjected to torture and sexual assault. Days earlier, they had taken her 17-year-old sister Noelia and her mother prisoner, all three accused of being guerrillas and keeping weapons hidden in their house.

After 42 years since the events occurred, last week, the Visiting Minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Jaime Arancibia, issued the indictment against 13 marines for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against Viviana.

After ordering their preventive detention, they were released on bail while awaiting the conclusion of the magistrate's investigation and the sentencing. As soon as Viviana heard the news, alerted by her lawyer, Hernán Fernández, she went to the Court and witnessed how the former uniformed officers were arriving to be notified by the Judge.

Afterward, she went to visit her parents at the Cemetery to tell them, and then spent time with her family. In the following days, she was meditating on how the repression marked her entire family and the differences regarding the conditions of detention for her as a victim and those of her victimizers, who are now elderly. "I was a minor, I didn't understand what was happening, I hadn't committed any crime, my family wasn't informed where they were taking me.

I was taken away in the clothes I was wearing, I had no toiletries, no food, nothing. Their situation is very different," she tells The Clinic Online.

-They locked me in a cell—she recounts, where there was a middle-aged woman and an elderly woman. They took us out for interrogations in turns; there was all kinds of psychological and physical torture.

I spent all the time hooded, I only heard voices. What they threatened me with the most was that if I didn't talk and didn't give them the information they asked for, they would kill my family. I believed it, I was 14 years old, I thought everything they told me could happen, and in fact, with many families, it did.

The torture that Viviana recounts, according to Judge Arancibia's indictment, included "sexual abuse, beatings, insults, death threats, and the application of electric current to their intimate parts, ankles, and fingers."

-They cut our lives short—says Viviana. For me, after what we went through, there was no longer a life project, there were no more dreams, only surviving, with that fear that for so many years kept me paralyzed.

Now that I am an old woman, to come to have this, quote-unquote, reparation from justice, is something that makes me breathe a little better. Before the judicial stage, Viviana lived for many decades in silence.

When the three managed to return home—the last one was her sister, who was kidnapped for almost a month—all because of their communist militancy, her father forbade talking about the subject. She couldn't even comment on it. He said they had to keep living. They never sat down to talk as a family about what had happened to them.

-In 2003, when the Valech Commission was opened, despite the criticism, it favored us because it forced us to talk. The first time, my sister and I didn't qualify; we had to make a pilgrimage through the War Academy, the Barracks, the Navy, looking for documents that would support what we lived through, but there were no records; it was quite degrading.

For a victim, having to face the places where they were tortured is reliving the pain. Then, with witnesses, we were able to prove our condition in the second stage of the Valech—Viviana recounts about the first time she publicly addressed what had happened to her.

Ten years later, for the 40th anniversary of the Coup in 2013, Viviana presided over the group "Ex-minor victims of imprisonment and torture." Together with 20 other people, and advised by an integral team of professionals, they filed a collective lawsuit against those responsible.

Of that lawsuit, this is the fourth case in which Judge Arancibia has prosecuted uniformed officers for crimes against humanity against minors that occurred during the dictatorship. For the plaintiff lawyer, Hernán Fernández, "this prosecution is of great historical significance because children were ignored, made invisible, during the last decades as victims of the State's political repression.

These criminal prosecutions confirm and recognize that there were crimes against children during the dictatorship. We believe that this is a very responsible and serious work of the justice system and the application of human rights for these victims who were ignored for so long," he maintains.

Furthermore, lawyer Fernández recognized the work of Minister Arancibia and requested the collaboration of the accused, who until now have denied or minimized their participation in the events. "As plaintiffs, we recognize the work that Minister Arancibia has done.

We have the expectation that progress will continue to be made in the investigations, and we also have expectations that those responsible for human rights violations will collaborate with the investigation and in the face of the multiplicity of evidence that incriminates them.

We believe that the time elapsed is not an excuse; rather, there is a greater duty to collaborate because of so many years of prior impunity," requests Fernández.

-Justice has been slow, but this has been a breath of fresh air, a hope. I am not for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I have no spirit of revenge; it is to close a chapter of my life, it is so that the wound can begin to heal.

I know they are human beings, they have hearts, some must be repentant for what they did, but we cannot stay all these years with that thorn in our hearts, with that tremendous pain, that humiliation we had to go through, just for thinking differently, for having a different option than theirs.

I don't harbor illusions of anything more than that sentences be handed down and that they assume and know that what they did was not right—Viviana asserts. After the criminal stage, Viviana will file a civil lawsuit against the State: "I want the State not to dodge the issue of minors, of damaged childhood; there were many minors who suffered so much, that the State recognize it, make a mea culpa, and help in the reparation.

There are very hard cases, people who were left very damaged, with very hard lives. That didn't just end there; what came after was an ordeal," she concludes.

The individuals prosecuted as authors of kidnapping with serious injury against Viviana are: Gilda Mercedes Ulloa Valle, Alejandro Riesco Cornejo, Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, Eduardo Mauricio Núñez Contreras, Jaime Erik Riesle Wetherby, Héctor Nelson Tapia Olivares, Juan Orlando Jorquera Terrazas, Ángel Segundo Lorca Fuenzalida, and Marcelo Alejandro Onofre Goas.

Source: the clinic.cl, July 22, 2016