Between October 5, 6, and October 7, 1973, 18 peasants from the area, none of whom had any political affiliation, were executed at the mountain estates known as El Morro, Carmen y Maitenes, and Pemehue, located east of Mulchén.

A patrol of approximately thirty people, composed of carabineros, military personnel, and civilians from Mulchén, went to the aforementioned estates carrying a pre-prepared list of the individuals who were to be detained and who were subsequently executed.

The patrol, which traveled on horseback, arrived at the El Morro estate on the afternoon of October 5. They proceeded to detain five peasants at their homes and led them to the banks of the Renaico River:

Juan de Dios LAUBRA BREVIS, 26 years old, agricultural worker.

Domingo SEPULVEDA CASTILLO, 29 years old, estate house servant.

Edmundo José VIDAL AEDO, 20 years old, agricultural worker.

Celsio Nicasio VIVANCO CARRASCO, 26 years old, agricultural worker.

José Florencio YAÑEZ DURAN, 34 years old, agricultural worker.

Witnesses heard gunshots. In the month of December, neighbors and relatives found the bodies in the La Playita sector with bullet wounds and their hands tied behind their backs with wire.

The group of uniformed personnel and civilians continued upward until they reached the Carmen y Maitenes estate, where they detained eight peasants at their homes, took them to the main house, and beat them and forced them to beat each other:

Miguel del Carmen ALBORNOZ ACUÑA, 20 years old, agricultural worker.

Daniel Alfonso ALBORNOZ GONZALEZ, 28 years old, agricultural worker.

Alejandro ALBORNOZ GONZALEZ, 48 years old, agricultural worker.

Guillermo José ALBORNOZ GONZALEZ, 32 years old, agricultural worker.

Luis Alberto GODOY SANDOVAL, 23 years old, agricultural worker.

Florencio RUBILAR GUTIERREZ, 25 years old, agricultural worker.

José Liborio RUBILAR GUTIERREZ, 28 years old, agricultural worker.

José Lorenzo RUBILAR GUTIERREZ, 33 years old, agricultural worker.

Around 23:00 hours, witnesses heard bursts of machine-gun fire. The following day, members of the patrol buried seven bodies in a pit dug in a field near the houses, covering them with grass. That same day, October 7, they began their journey toward Pemehue, taking with them a detained and physically battered Guillermo Albornoz, whose body later appeared downstream in the Renaico River.

At the Pemehue estate, they again proceeded to detain five peasants at their homes:

Alberto ALBORNOZ GONZALEZ, 41 years old, agricultural worker.

Felidor Exequiel ALBORNOZ GONZALEZ, 33 years old, agricultural worker.

José Fernando GUTIERREZ ASCENCIO, 25 years old, agricultural worker.

Gerónimo Humberto SANDOVAL MEDINA, 22 years old, agricultural worker.

Juan de Dios ROA RIQUELME, 35 years old, agricultural worker.

During the night, repeated bursts of gunfire were heard. Relatives later found their bodies with their hands tied, their faces destroyed, and numerous bullet wounds.

All of them were buried in the same places where they were found.

On November 21, 1979, a criminal complaint was filed in the Court of Mulchén, case file No. 20.595, for the crimes of trespassing, kidnapping, unlawful coercion, bodily injury, and qualified homicide of 18 peasants from Mulchén.

The action was filed against the participants of the "patrol." The Illustrious Court of Appeals of Concepción appointed a Visiting Judge who proceeded to investigate the case.

After an exhaustive investigation, the Judge concluded that the patrol of military personnel, carabineros, and civilians who went to the aforementioned estates were the perpetrators of the victims' deaths and the subsequent burial or, in some cases, the disappearance of the bodies.

The bodies were illegally exhumed, presumably in the month of March 1979, before the judicial investigation was carried out; however, numerous forensic examinations were able to be performed to identify the corpses based on the remains that were left and because some of them were still buried.

The Judge declared himself incompetent to continue hearing the case and referred the files to the Military Prosecutor's Office of Concepción. On January 7, 1983, the Military Judge of the Third Military Court issued a definitive dismissal of the case and applied the amnesty law to the accused.

On December 18, 1983, the Court Martial annulled the application of the amnesty and changed the nature of the dismissal to temporary.

The evidence presented allows this Commission to form the conviction that the execution and subsequent concealment of the bodies of the 18 peasants from the El Morro, Carmen y Maitenes, and Pemehue estates constitutes a grave violation of human rights for which State agents and the civilians who participated with them are responsible.

Date of Birth: 13 12 49, 23 years old at the time of his detention. Address: "El Carmen Maitenes" Farm, Mulchén. Marital Status: Married, four children, one posthumous. Occupation: Agricultural worker for the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF). Political Affiliation: No political militancy or social representative position. Date of Detention: October 6, 1973

Luis Alberto Godoy Sandoval, married, father of 4, an agricultural worker for CONAF with no political militancy, was detained on October 6, 1973, at approximately 14:00 hours, at his home located on the "El Carmen Maitenes" farm, while he was having lunch with his wife and father.

Heavily armed uniformed personnel arrived there, who, after violently raiding the house and without giving any explanation, ordered him to accompany them outside. Once outside, they forced him to lie on the ground with his hands behind his neck and interrogated him insistently.

They then took him to the farm's administration houses. Also detained in that makeshift detention center were brothers José Liborio, Florencio, and José Lorenzo Rubilar Gutiérrez, Alejandro Albornoz González, Miguel del Carmen Albornoz Acuña, Daniel Alfonso Albornoz González, and Guillermo and Germán Albornoz Acuña.

At the time of the events, Luis Alberto and María Zulema Albarrán Castro had been married for six months, and she was in the first month of pregnancy with their son, Rodrigo Esteban Godoy Albarrán.

Among the captors was the then-Lieutenant of the Carabineros Jorge Maturana Concha; Carabineros Osvaldo Díaz Díaz (alias "El Alicate") and Héctor Armando Guzmán Saldaña, both former officials of the El Morro police station; and an Army Sergeant surnamed Díaz.

Among the civilians, it was possible to identify Romualdo ("Mayo") Guzmán Saavedra, a farmer; Francisco Urrizola Elías, an industrialist and owner of a lumber yard, both residing in Mulchén; Ramón Elías Abella, a lumber industrialist; Aquiles Guzmán Fritz, a farmer, both residing in Mulchén; and Carlos Lehman, who resided on the farm. The latter was the son-in-law of Romualdo ("Mayo") Guzmán.

Luis Alberto Godoy Sandoval, like the other detainees, as noted above, were agricultural workers residing at the El Carmen Maitenes farm located in the commune of Mulchén, BíoBío Province. All were hired by the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF).

This farm had been in the process of expropriation by the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA), which had ceded it to CONAF for reforestation due to its virtual abandonment by its owners.

One of the civilians carried a document signed by Carabineros Captain Sergio Neira Tapia—who later held the position of Governor of Mulchén—authorizing them to act in the sector and to demand all types of facilities and cooperation.

Romualdo Guzmán stood out from the rest for his arrogance, which is why the peasants, relatives of the victims, speak of a "Captain Guzmán" as the leader of the group. The military personnel belonged to the 17th Mountain Infantry Regiment "Los Angeles," while the police were attached to the Second Carabineros Station of Mulchén.

The group carried a list of names of locals from the sector, which they had apparently obtained during a raid on a peasant union headquarters in Mulchén.

The detainees were held in the farm's administration building, which was made available for those purposes by Carlos Lehman. In that place, the detainees were forced to lie face down with their hands behind their necks, while their captors walked over their backs, stomping on them and striking them with spurs and the butts of their weapons.

They were forced to beat each other—brothers against brothers and fathers against sons—under threat of death if they resisted; all of this accompanied by insults and sarcasm. Subsequently, they were taken out of the administration building and forced to stand with their faces against the wall, where they were subjected to mock executions.

While this was happening in the administration building, another group dedicated itself to raiding some of the victims' homes. Neighbors closest to the farm's administration houses heard screams and lamentations.

Around 19:00 hours that day, the captors released brothers José Nieves and Germán Albornoz Acuña, who told their relatives what was happening. At approximately 23:00 hours, the inhabitants of the "El Carmen Maitenes" farm heard two long bursts of gunfire coming from the administration building, followed by absolute silence.

The next day, Sunday, October 7, two CONAF officials, Mr. Adolfo Martín Sánchez and forest ranger Juan Leal, went to the house of the Rubilar Gutiérrez brothers and told the parents of the latter that their children and the other detainees had been taken to a distant place and would be returned within two years.

That same morning, uniformed personnel appeared at the home of the Rubilar Gutiérrez brothers' parents to ask for shovels. They then headed to a place located about 500 meters to the east of the farm's main houses, where they dug a pit in a wetland at the foot of a hill, between a stream and a wire fence.

In that pit, they proceeded to bury seven bodies of the eight victims from the "El Carmen Maitenes" farm. The perpetrators prohibited the relatives, under threat of death, from approaching the site.

The eighth victim, José Guillermo Albornoz González, was executed on the morning of October 7 on a suspension bridge over the Renaico River, where, tied up, he was shot with several bursts that caused his death. His body has not been found to this day.

In March 1979, coinciding with the date the Supreme Court ordered an investigation into the aforementioned events, unknown individuals who identified themselves as Carabineros proceeded with the clandestine exhumation and concealment of the remains.

Nevertheless, detectives from Angol recovered some human bones dating back approximately to the date the events were committed. (See file for Juan de Dios Laubra Brevis).

The same group that captured the 8 peasants from the Carmen Maitenes farm had, the previous day, October 5, detained 5 other peasants from the El Morro estate: Juan de Dios Laubra Brevis, Domingo Sepúlveda Castillo, José Vidal Aedo, Celsio Vivanco Carrasco, and José Yáñez Durán.

The day after, October 7, they detained Alberto and Felidor Albornoz González, José Gutiérrez Ascencio, Juan Roa Riquelme, and Gerónimo Sandoval Medina at the Pemehue farm. These 10 peasants were also executed by their captors and all were buried in clandestine graves, from where they were also illegally exhumed in 1979. (For more information, see the cases of Juan de Dios Laubra Brevis and Florencio Rubilar Gutiérrez).

Judicial and/or Administrative Proceedings

Due to information provided by the Supreme Court through the Temuco Court of Appeals, summary proceeding No. 33.316 was instructed for the alleged disappearance of Florencio Rubilar Gutiérrez, José Liborio Rubilar Gutiérrez, and José Lorenzo Rubilar Gutiérrez at the Angol Court of Letters.

On July 10, 1979, the judge declared herself incompetent because the reported crime took place outside her jurisdiction, which is why the records were sent to the Mulchén Court of Letters, which began hearing the case on July 18, 1979, under case number 20.595.

While this process was underway, a criminal complaint was filed in the same Court of Letters on November 21, 1979, for the crimes of "illegal house entry, kidnapping, illegitimate coercion, injuries, and qualified homicide committed against the persons of José Liborio, José Lorenzo, and Florencio Rubilar Gutiérrez; Alejandro, Daniel, José Guillermo, Alberto, and Felidor Albornoz González; Miguel Albornoz Acuña; Gerónimo Sandoval Medina; and Luis Alberto Godoy Sandoval." This complaint was consolidated with case 20.595 of the same court.

On November 22, 1979, the appointment of a Visiting Minister (Ministro en Visita) was requested to hear these facts. On May 6, 1980, the Concepción Court of Appeals appointed Minister Carlos Cerda Medina for such purposes.

The judicial investigation established the responsibility of military and Carabineros personnel, accompanied by civilians, in the detention, imprisonment, execution, and illegal burial of eight peasants from the El Carmen and Maitenes farm.

On December 21, 1980, the Visiting Minister declared himself incompetent to continue hearing the case because uniformed personnel were implicated; the case was transferred to the III Military Court of Concepción, under case number 44681.

On January 7, 1983, by virtue of Amnesty Decree Law 2191 of 1978, the military courts dismissed the case totally and definitively. However, on December 18 of that same year, the Martial Court revoked the application of amnesty and changed the nature of the dismissal from definitive to temporary.

Source: (Corporation Report)