The appellate court ratified the challenged sentence that sentenced the conscript soldiers to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, as co-perpetrators of the crime. In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Appeals of Coyhaique confirmed the sentence that convicted four retired members of the Army for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo, an illicit act perpetrated on October 10, 1973, in the rural sector of Valle Simpson in the commune.

The appellate court ratified the challenged sentence that sentenced the then-conscript soldiers José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez, Luis Octavio Loy Gómez, Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré, and Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, as co-perpetrators of the crime.

During the investigation stage, Judge Luis Sepúlveda managed to establish the following sequence of events:

• That in the first days of October 1973, approximately on the 10th of that month and year, the 1st Corporal of the Regimiento N° 14 Aysén, Juan José González Andaur, who was also an instructor and vehicle driver for that military institution, ordered that he, along with some conscript soldiers, go to the neighborhood sector of Villa Frei in order to arrest people according to a list or roster he was carrying. For this, he recruited around 7 conscript soldiers from different sections, to whom he indicated that they were going to carry out a raid and/or arrests, without indicating the place or the people they were going to raid or arrest.
• That, as a result of the above, said military patrol, as has been stated, composed of Corporal González Andaur and around 7 conscript soldiers, among whom were Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas, Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré, and José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez, headed to the rural property where Vera Cárcamo lived, located in the sector known as Valle Simpson, approximately 23 kilometers from Coyhaique, and when they approached this residence, the military patrol noticed that there was a resident who was performing field work and using an axe with which he was making stakes.
• That Corporal González Andaur proceeded to stop the Unimog truck, got out, and went to where said resident was, who turned out to be Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo, to whom he indicated that he was the person they were looking for and that "he had an order to take him arrested to the Regimiento 14 Aysén," without any judicial or administrative order having been shown to him; rather, said corporal acted due to, as he said, a verbal order that had been given to him by the Regimental Commander, General Humberto Gordon.
• That the conscript soldiers Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas, Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré, and José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez, who formed the military patrol, each separately, when providing their versions of the events, declared that an ambush was set for said farmer and that Corporal Juan González Andaur gave him an order to run in the direction of the military truck, which the man obeyed, and when he was running, said corporal gave them the order for all of them to shoot the resident in the back, a situation that is acknowledged by the corporal, even though he declares that the order he gave was because the farmer Vera Cárcamo had resisted arrest and attempted to attack him with the axe, although he never touched him at any time.
• That, after those shots occurred, Corporal González Andaur approached the resident Vera Cárcamo and verified that he was dead and gave the order for the conscript soldiers of the patrol to load the corpse into the back of the Unimog truck, with some of them remaining to guard the corpse, while González Andaur drove the truck back to the Regimiento 14 Aysén, and subsequently, still with the corpse on the vehicle, moved the vehicle to the premises of the Regional Intendancy where the Regimental Commander had offices in his capacity as Regional Intendant; then he took the truck again and took it to the Regiment where Captain Joaquín Molina allegedly gave him instructions to go and bury the deceased clandestinely in the neighborhood cemetery of the El Claro Sector, which he effectively did in the presence of some of the victim's relatives, who were ordered to remain silent about these events.
• That, finally, as a result of this investigation, the precise place where Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo had been buried was located, whose body was exhumed and subsequently, according to forensic examinations, his remains were identified and handed over to his relatives for their Christian burial.

Source: pjud.cl, October 1, 2018