Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, 24 years old, single, university student, and MIR militant, was detained under the following circumstances: On May 26, 1976, at 08:30, the victim went to the Pedagogical Institute of the Universidad de Chile, where he was studying Philosophy.

He was seen there until 11:00. He was detained that day on a public street by security agents and remains forcibly disappeared to this day. On the same day, several students from the Pedagogical Institute were detained on the street by a group of armed civilians traveling in a pickup truck outside the premises where Luis Núñez studied.

Also on May 26, another MIR member, Oscar Dante Valdivia González, was detained and remains disappeared to this day. The following day, other students from the same Institute disappeared: Rodrigo Medina Hernández and Angel Gabriel Guerrero, who were also MIR militants. Rodrigo Medina remains disappeared to this day.

Ricardo Arturo Alarcón Alarcón, a university student who was detained, declared that on August 19, 1976, and on subsequent dates, he was able to see Rodrigo Medina Hernández, Dante Valdivia González, and Angel Guerrero Castillo at the Villa Grimaldi torture center; all of them were MIR militants who belonged to the same party structure as Núñez.

On November 14, 1981, the Núñez family home was raided by a group of 10 armed civilians who did not show a warrant and did not identify themselves; the family received more than 10 visits from armed agents between 1976 and 1980, some of whom identified themselves as police or public officials conducting investigations into the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared or regarding the efforts his mother, Ninfa Rojas, was making for the disappearance of her son.

To date, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas remains forcibly disappeared following his detention.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On May 31, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under case number 467-76.

In this appeal, it was requested that the Minister of the Interior, the Cuatro Álamos prison camp, and the DINA be officially notified. On June 1, 1976, the Court resolved to notify only the Ministry and reiterated this decision on June 8 of the same year, "representing the urgency of obtaining a response."

On June 9, in confidential official letter No. 2687, the Minister of the Interior responded that Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas was not being held by order of that Ministry.

The Court decided that, for better resolution, reports should be requested from the prefects of the Carabineros and the Investigations police of Santiago.

Investigations responded negatively to the inquiry, and the Carabineros, through the Minister of the Interior, reported in confidential official letter 3066 of July 1, 1976, that: "the citizen Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas has not been detained by any unit of that Institution" (referring to the Carabineros).

On July 6, 1976, the Court of Appeals agreed to dismiss the writ of amparo based on the reports received, and the records were sent to the corresponding Criminal Court.

On June 23, 1976, the family filed a complaint for alleged disappearance before the Eighth Criminal Court of Greater Santiago, which was registered under case number 13.834, requesting that the Minister of the Interior, DINA, SENDET, the Combat Aviation Command, the Chief of the State of Siege Zone, and the General Directorates of Investigations and Carabineros be notified.

Judge Juan Rivas Larraín sent a circular to the various suggested institutions on June 23, 1976. It stated: "In case 13.759-6, it has been decreed to notify you so that you may arrange what is necessary to inform this Court if Luis Hernán Núñez López has been detained by order of that service and, if so, the place where he is located and the crime for which he is being prosecuted."

Reiterating the incorrect second surname, it adds:

"I inform you that Núñez López has been disappeared since May 26 last."

The Carabineros Directorate of Order and Security, the Minister of the Interior, and the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET) informed the Court that Núñez López was not being held. For its part, the General Directorate of Investigations of the Metropolitan Area reported that "a person named Luis Hernán Núñez López" had only one recorded detention on October 15, 1974.

A new request from the Court to Investigations to investigate the disappearance of Luis Núñez, with the name duly corrected, was issued on July 14, 1976.

The Investigations Police sent official letter 7689 on August 10, 1976, in which it reported on the inquiries made: interrogations of the victim's mother, professors, and friends. Inquiries were made to the Psychiatric Hospital, the Legal Medical Institute, SENDET, and the Carabineros, which yielded no positive results.

The Civil Registry and Identification Service reported on October 1, 1976, that the victim's death did not appear in its records.

At the request of the victim's mother, the Court sent other official letters to other security agencies: SICAR (Carabineros Intelligence Service), DIFA (Air Force Intelligence Directorate), etc. The responses were negative.

The Carabineros responded in their report that it is "unknown if he has been detained for a common crime or if he has suffered an accident."

Considering that the Government of Chile had conducted an investigation into the forcibly disappeared and that its partial results had been made known to the International Red Cross, according to information from the newspaper La Segunda on October 25, 1976, it was requested that the Red Cross be notified to obtain information on the victims, as well as the Secretary General of Government.

On January 10, 1978, Dr. Werner Ruefli, Director of the Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, informed the Court that "we must inform you that said person (referring to Luis Núñez Rojas) appears on the list of persons whose whereabouts are unknown, delivered to the President of the Republic by the President of the ICRC on December 10, 1976.

To date, the ICRC has not received a response regarding this person."

On February 22, 1979, the International Red Cross, through the ICRC Delegation in Chile, communicated that "the International Committee of the Red Cross delivered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on May 16, 1978, a list of persons whose whereabouts are unknown. To date, our Institution has not received a response regarding any of the cases presented on that occasion."

On August 13, 1976, the complaint was consolidated with the information from the writ of amparo sent by the Court of Appeals and registered in the Eighth Criminal Court under case number 13.759-6.

On March 5, 1977, the summary was closed and a temporary dismissal was issued. On March 10, 1977, the Court of Appeals established, in the second instance, the reopening of the case.

The victim's mother again requested that the Minister of the Interior, DINA, Investigations, and the International Red Cross be notified. All these requests were denied on April 15, 1977, by the judge, on the grounds that they were "untimely."

On May 23, 1977, the Civil Registry and Identification Service sent the filiation extract, and upon the Court's insistence, it sent the photograph on November 14, 1977. Both documents correspond to another person with the same name.

On January 23, 1978, the summary was closed again, and a dismissal was ordered with consultation to the Court of Appeals; the latter, in the second instance, ordered its reopening on August 3, 1978, on the grounds that the data in the filiation extract did not correspond to the victim.

On August 21, 1978, the Civil Registry and Identification Service sent the filiation that effectively corresponded to the victim, but without the photograph.

Subsequently, a request was sent to the Criminal Courts of the country to report on the victim and summon him to a hearing. This request was answered by Courts throughout the country, and the responses were all negative.

On February 6, 1979, the Court received the complete filiation extract with a photograph from the respective service.

On April 18, 1979, Magistrate Servando Jordán López was appointed as a Visiting Minister, who took over the cases of several forcibly disappeared persons, including that of Luis Núñez.

This Minister requested information on the other forcibly disappeared persons who had been detained on the same date, receiving reports on Rodrigo Alejandro Medina H. and Oscar Dante Valdivia González.

On November 27, 1979, the Visiting Minister established the dismissal, which was approved in the first instance on December 10, 1979, and in the second instance by the Court of Appeals on January 31, 1980.

The plaintiff's lawyer maintained that by dismissing the case, the objectives for which the Visiting Minister had been appointed were not met, and that the constitution of a centralizing body for the investigation of the forcibly disappeared had been undermined.

On December 6, 1976, the head of the Confidential Department of the Ministry of the Interior, responding to a letter sent by the relatives in which they requested information from the Minister, indicated in a mimeographed document that "...regarding the matter, it is my duty to inform you that there are no records of the aforementioned person in the confidential index of the Ministry of the Interior, and he has not been arrested to date by resolution of this Secretariat of State, for which reason it has been arranged to elevate the background information to the knowledge of the respective security agencies, in order to carry out investigative proceedings in relation to the situation raised, the result of which will be informed to you in the event of obtaining positive results."

The detention and disappearance of Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas was communicated to the International Red Cross, which delivered, on October 16, 1978, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile a list of forcibly disappeared persons. This note was not answered by that Ministry.

Luis Núñez's mother made efforts before multiple agencies and visited all detention centers, as well as appealing to the Santiago Court of Appeals, consulting public assistance stations, hospitals, the Legal Medical Institute, etc., without obtaining any positive results.

Source: (Corporation Report)

Today, while silence invades every corner, I remember that fateful day in 1976 when they tore you from our side. It has been 48 years since that moment, and you are a Disappeared Person. Although in those times your first name was "alleged," I reflect and realize that in reality you are not disappeared, because if that were true, I would not remember you every day.

Almost five decades have passed, and the last time I saw you remains etched in my memory as if it were yesterday. It was at our house, the night of May 25, 1976. I remember you smoking, laughing, and talking with my mother, as you used to do until late at night. My room did not have a door, so I would listen to your conversations about your dreams, worries, struggles, loves, and heartbreaks.

Today, vivid memories flood my mind, moments that I will keep in my memory forever. Thus, in my memory, you will continue living with me until the end of my days. How can I not remember how badly you played soccer, the Lego you gave me for Christmas in '74, or the first time I heard the Cantata by the Quilapayún on Radio Moscow at my grandmother's house?

You told me that this cantata was a premonition of what had happened and what would continue to happen in our tormented national history.

I also relive the first time I was able to enter a nightclub. After insisting so much, you agreed to take me and convince the doorman to let me in to watch. It was in Quintero, at the now-disappeared nightclub El Trauko, and upon returning, you blamed me for not having been able to stay with some girls.

I think of your youth, so full of life at only 24 years old… I wonder if a flower or a tree has grown from the deepest part of the earth by your side. Have you seen sea moss and fish grow from the bottom of your bed?

Perhaps you were confused with some metal at the bottom of a mine shaft. Now that age has reached me, I ask myself different questions about you, the same ones that tormented my mother and my grandparents:

Did you feel very cold, feeling the ice in your bones?

Did they beat and torture you until they stole your last breath? Was your agony a brief sigh or an endless torment? Did you cry in silence, with tears that no one saw? How much did you suffer in that pitiless darkness?

Was your captivity an eternal instant, an infinite pain? Did a gunshot blind your life or was it an electric shock? Did a treacherous blow break your essence? Were you thinking of us, of your family, during those moments of solitude?

These are questions that will probably never have an answer. Although your murderers are convicted and imprisoned, justice seems incomplete, and the absence of music is replaced by a deafening silence.

I wanted to tell you that I miss you and that we all miss you. I would have liked you to meet Marcela and my children Cristian, Camila, and Kukita. Now that I am a grandfather, I would also have liked you to meet my granddaughter Emy, and more recently my granddaughter Amanda. However, it consoles me to know that they and all my descendants know you and will continue to know you.

Until Victory Always, dear Hernán! With love, Jano

Source: 5/26/2024 facebook.com Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas

The Court of Appeals of Santiago increased the criminal sentence for two former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and the amount of compensation that the State must pay to the relatives of Óscar Dante Valdivia González, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, and Rodrigo Alejandro Medina Hernández, students of the Pedagogical Institute who have been forcibly disappeared since May 26 and 27, 1976.

In the ruling (case 2.806-2019), the First Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Miguel Vázquez, Elsa Barrientos, and Rafael Andrade—increased the sentence to 10 years and one day of imprisonment for former agents Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko.

Likewise, the acquittal of former agents Jorge Andrade Gómez and José Aravena Ruiz was maintained, as the court shared the decision made by the visiting minister Mario Carroza.

"That, in relation to the participation of the accused Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez and José Abel Aravena Ruiz, the reasons for their acquittals are read in the Sixteenth and Twenty-Second considerations.

Well, the Court shares such considerations that are set forth in the first-instance ruling to decide these acquittals, insofar as the background information gathered fails to form the conviction required by Article 456 bis of the same Code, in the sense that the aforementioned persons really had participation in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Óscar Dante Valdivia González, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, and Rodrigo Alejandro Medina Hernández, or any of the forms of punishable intervention in a fact constituting a crime contemplated in Articles 15, 16, and 17 of the Penal Code.

Due to the foregoing, the acquittal must be maintained.

It must be noted that the assessment of the elements of conviction brought to the case are those that do not allow reaching the judicial conviction of conviction, referred to in Article 456 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in relation to Jorge Andrade Gómez, and not the version and background of his defense, in the sense that on the dates of the events, he was in some course abroad.

The allegations made by the plaintiffs in their appeals do not alter what is being decided regarding the acquittal of these two accused, since they, due to their generality, do not manage to vary what is being decided," the ruling states.

It adds: "That regarding the convictions, and regarding the particular situation of Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, this Court agrees with the conclusion reached by the first-instance judge, in that with the background information compiled during the investigation it is possible to construct various judicial presumptions that, by meeting the requirements of being based on real and proven facts, being multiple, serious, precise, direct, and concordant, are sufficient to maintain with conviction that these accused had intervention in the capacity of authors, in the terms of No. 1 of Article 15 of the Penal Code, in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Óscar Dante Valdivia González, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, and Rodrigo Alejandro Medina Hernández, insofar as at the time of the events the former was in charge of the 'Halcón' group, which carried out the kidnappings, and the latter was at that date in charge of the detention center known as Villa Grimaldi, the last place where the three aforementioned victims were seen, as accredited by the testimony of survivors of said detention center, which are detailed in the appellate ruling.

Under such conditions, it is appropriate to maintain the conviction decision for these defendants."

The Court considered that due to the repetition of events, it is appropriate to increase the corporal punishment for the convicted persons by one degree: "That, for the purposes of grading the criminal sanction that corresponds to impose on the sentenced Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, it must be considered that, being the penalty assigned to the crime of qualified kidnapping, established in Article 141, paragraphs 1 and 4 of the Penal Code—at the time of its perpetration—that of major imprisonment in any of its degrees, benefiting them with a mitigating factor—Article 11 No. 6—by application of Article 68, paragraph 2 of the same legal body, the maximum degree must be excluded, and thus said penalty could be imposed in the minimum degree, but keeping in mind that it is a repetition of illicit acts, the penalty will be increased by one degree and will remain in major imprisonment in its medium degree, also considering for determining its amount the provisions of Article 69 of the Penal Code," the ruling ensures in this aspect.

The ruling also increased to the total sum of $360,000,000 (three hundred and sixty million pesos) the compensation that the State must pay to the relatives of the victims due to the affliction caused to the children, spouse, siblings, and niece of each of the victims.

"That, next, to assess the entity of the damage claimed, it must be considered fundamentally that as a result of the disappearance of the victim, the plaintiffs had to face a sudden, unexpected, violent, and involuntary change in their way of life, the affliction of each of them being clear, as they were involuntarily deprived of the care and support of each of the three forcibly disappeared persons of the case sub judice, a pain that evidently marked them in the development of their personality.

All of which results in this Court ordering to increase the amounts to be compensated to the plaintiffs in a quantum, which will be stated in the resolution," asserts the appellate court's ruling.

Source: elperiodista.cl 12/11/2020 Date: 12-11-2020

U. de Chile awards posthumous degrees to State Professors who were former students of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities

Within the framework of the commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the coup d'état in our country and as part of the reparation gestures that the Universidad de Chile has carried out, in an emotional ceremony, the rector Prof.

Ennio Vivaldi Véjar and our dean Prof. Carlos Ruiz Schneider awarded posthumous degrees to students of our Faculty who belonged to the Pedagogical Institute, who were forcibly disappeared and political executions.

They are José Modesto Amigo Latorre, State Professor in Philosophy; Jorge Enrique Espinosa Méndez, State Professor in Mathematics; José Fernando Romero Lagos, State Professor in Spanish; and Juan Aniceto Meneses Reyes, State Professor in History and Geography, who join the 100 posthumous degrees awarded on April 11.

José Modesto Amigo Latorre, MIR militant, died in 1986, after the "return operation," in a confrontation in Peñaflor. He was a Philosophy student until his detention and subsequent expulsion from the country.

Jorge Enrique Espinosa Méndez, MIR militant, was detained in June 1974 by DINA agents. He was seen by witnesses at Londres 38. He is in the status of a forcibly disappeared person and is one of the 119 victims of Operation Colombo.

José Fernando Romero Lagos, MIR militant, was 22 years old when he was detained by Carabineros and was executed on September 15, 1973, at the Niblinto police station, Bío-Bío Region. To this day, he remains a forcibly disappeared person.

Juan Aniceto Meneses Reyes, militant of the Radical Youth, was detained in August 1974 by DINA agents and taken to Londres 38 and subsequently to Cuatro Álamos. He remains in the status of a forcibly disappeared person.

Source: uchile.cl 12/21/2017 Date: 12-21-2017

Supreme Court confirms conviction of DINA agents for qualified kidnapping of students in 1976

The Second Chamber of the highest court confirmed the ruling that sentenced Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo to 10 years and one day of imprisonment, in the capacity of authors of the crimes, after discarding an error in the regulation of evidence in the challenged ruling.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals for cassation in form and substance filed against the ruling that convicted two agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of students Óscar Dante Valdivia González, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, and Rodrigo Alejandro Medina Hernández. Crimes committed in May 1976, in Santiago.

In a majority ruling (case 14.381-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, minister María Teresa Letelier, and lawyer (i) Pía Tavolari—discarded an error in the ruling that sentenced Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo to 10 years and one day of imprisonment, in the capacity of authors of the crimes, after discarding an error in the regulation of evidence in the challenged ruling.

"That, in relation to the form of filing the appeal for substantive cassation proposed by the defense of Espinoza Bravo, through the grounds that are postulated, it is denounced, in the first place, an incorrect application of the rules regulating the evidence, since in the concept of the writer there are no background or presumptions to attribute participation to his defendant in the investigated facts, to immediately question the participation established by the judges of the merits, reproaching that the ruling does not express what was the action or omission attributed and that the conviction decision would only rest on having belonged to the DINA," the ruling states.

The resolution adds that: "In other terms, the foundations seem to be looking for the path of acquittal, since it is argued that the elements of conviction fail to demonstrate a punishable action or omission and, likewise, that there is no background information linking him to the crimes of kidnapping, questioning that he had been attributed participation to, immediately after, request that the imposed penalty be reduced by two or three degrees, for not having been established by the means of legal evidence his criminal participation."

"As can be noticed, the requests contained in the appeal are opposite or incoherent with their foundation, given that it would have been natural that, due to the grounds and their development, the acquittal of Espinoza Bravo would have been requested and, however, what was requested is the imposition of a mitigated penalty, an oversight that in a strict law appeal is not possible to ignore, which is enough to reject the appeal under analysis," it adds.

Decision agreed with the dissenting vote of minister Llanos, who was in favor of accepting the appeals for cassation filed by the plaintiffs and, consequently, issuing a replacement ruling in which the accused José Aravena Ruiz and Jorge Andrade Gómez are also convicted, in the capacity of authors of the crimes of qualified kidnapping.

Halcón Brigade In the first-instance ruling, the visiting minister of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, Mario Carroza Espinosa, established the following facts:

"A) That in May 1976, the military government maintained an agency of political repression, called the National Intelligence Directorate, DINA, which at the time was an organized, hierarchical structure with its own means and clandestine detention centers.

The operations of the DINA in the Metropolitan Region were entrusted to the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, BIM, which had an Army officer in command and a general staff that advised them on intelligence work.

In turn, the brigade's operations were carried out by groups or work teams, composed of members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Carabineros, and the Investigations Police of Chile, who used the premises or detention centers to carry out their rights-restricting work.

One of these groups was 'Halcón,' dependent on the 'Caupolicán Brigade,' in charge at that time of the Revolutionary Left Movement, MIR;

B) That in that context, the victim Óscar Dante Valdivia González, 27 years old, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement, MIR, and the Federation of Evening Students, was detained on May 26, 1976, in the afternoon, on a public street, on the route he was taking between his grandparents' home and his house, in the commune of Santiago, an occasion in which different homes of his relatives were also raided, in which the agents removed books, bundles, pamphlets, and allegedly weapons belonging to Valdivia González;

C) That the same day, at 11:00, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, 24 years old, a philosophy student, militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement, MIR, and member of the Federation of Evening Students, was detained on a public street after having gone to his faculty to take an exam;

D) That the following day, Rodrigo Alejandro Medina Hernández, 18 years old, a philosophy student, militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement, was detained on a public street on Avenida José Miguel Carrera, near 20:00;

E) That by survivors of the imprisonment in Villa Grimaldi, it has been proven that the detainees and victims of this process, Óscar Dante Valdivia González, Luis Hernán Núñez Rojas, and Rodrigo Alejandro Medina Hernández, were seen inside the Terranova barracks in months subsequent to their detention, a place from where their trail is lost and to date their whereabouts are unknown, despite all the efforts of their relatives."

In the civil aspect, the ruling that ordered the State to pay compensation of $30,000,000 to each of the siblings of Núñez Rojas; $50,000,000 to the spouse of Valdivia González and $80,000,000 to his daughter; $30,000,000 to each of the siblings of Valdivia González, and $20,000,000 to his niece was confirmed.

Source: pjud.cl 11/15/2023