Luis Humberto Piñones Vega, 21 years old at the time of the events, a member of the Central Force of the MIR, known by the political alias "Rolando," was detained by DINA agents on the morning of January 8, 1975, at an unknown location in the capital.

The captors acted in their procedure accompanied—under duress—by two other MIR militants who had been detained previously, Hugo Ernesto Salinas Farfán and Claudio Enrique Contreras Hernández, the latter of whom is also forcibly disappeared.

After the arrest, Piñones Vega was taken to Villa Grimaldi, then a secret DINA facility, where he was subjected to violent interrogations involving the application of electric shocks to various parts of his body.

The victim remained at that facility until January 25, the date on which he was removed from the site along with Jilberto Patricio Urbina Chamorro, Claudio Contreras Hernández, and Carlos Eduardo Guerrero Gutiérrez, all militants of the MIR who, like the victim, have been forcibly disappeared ever since.

Luis Humberto Piñones had left his parents' home on December 31, 1974, due to the certain fear of being detained, as his parents' home had been raided on two occasions by security agents. Furthermore, in a press report published by the evening newspaper La Segunda on December 14, 1974, which detailed the situation of the MIR, he was identified as a fugitive and his membership in the Central Force of the MIR and his political alias "Peque Rolando" were noted.

Testimonies from former prisoners who survived their detention by the DINA provide accounts of his time at Villa Grimaldi. Ms. Ana Angélica Ulloa Mella states in her testimony that she was detained by the DINA on January 15, 1975, and taken to Villa Grimaldi, where she was tortured with punches, kicks, and the application of electric shocks to various parts of her body, as well as threats against the lives of her young children.

Her torturers accused her of having helped Luis Humberto Piñones Vega, who was with the agents at the time she was apprehended. The witness adds in her testimony that for the first 3 days of her confinement in Grimaldi, she was in the same holding area as Piñones Vega, before being moved to another part of the facility. On January 28, she was transferred to 4 Alamos.

For her part, witness María Alicia Salinas Farfán states in her testimony that she was detained by the DINA on January 3, 1975, and taken to Villa Grimaldi, where she remained for 7 days. Immediately upon arriving at the secret facility, she was interrogated under torture.

Her interrogators were Marcelo Moren Brito and "Lieutenant Pablo" (Laureani Maturana). On January 8, Luis Piñones Vega arrived as a detainee at Villa Grimaldi; she knew him from before and they called him "Peque Rolando." She remembers he was wearing a short-sleeved striped shirt and blue jeans.

She saw Piñones being beaten as he was brought into the facility and immediately taken to the torture room. Later, she saw him again on one occasion when he was eating lunch in the courtyard along with other prisoners, including Patricio Urbina, Herbit Ríos, Claudio Contreras, Carlos Guerrero, and Hugo Ernesto Salinas Farfán.

Finally, the surviving witness, Mr. Hugo Salinas Farfán, states in his testimony that he was detained by the DINA on January 3, 1975, and taken to Villa Grimaldi, where he was subjected to cruel torture.

On the morning of Wednesday, January 8, he was taken out of the facility along with prisoner Claudio Enrique Contreras Hernández, and they were taken to the operation to detain a person he knew as "Rolando," who was in reality Luis Humberto Piñones Vega.

Once the arrest was carried out, they were returned to Villa Grimaldi. Finally, the witness states that, around January 25, 1975, a group of prisoners consisting of Luis Humberto Piñones Vega, Jilberto Patricio Urbina Chamorro, Claudio Contreras Hernández, and Carlos Guerrero Gutiérrez were taken out of Villa Grimaldi, and all traces of them were lost.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS

In June 1991, his family filed a complaint for alleged disappearance before the 6th Criminal Court of Santiago, Case File 13.731-D, which states that Humberto Piñones Vega was a militant of the MIR and was allegedly one of the people accompanying Pascal Allende and Miguel Enríquez, the top leaders of the MIR at that time.

Attached to the complaint were the sworn statements of siblings María Alicia and Hugo Ernesto Salinas Farfán. As of December 1992, the case was in the summary phase with pending investigative steps.

The detention in November 1992 of former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena could allow access to information regarding the fate of Luis Piñones. The aforementioned Romo is one of the agents most frequently named in the detention operations of MIR militants from that era, and in the interrogations at the DINA facility of Villa Grimaldi.

The agent had left the country at the end of 1975 after having been summoned in several cases of forcibly disappeared persons. The DINA provided him with the means to leave Chile, including, among other things, false identity documents under the name Osvaldo Andrés Henríquez Mena.

Romo Mena was located in Brazil in 1992, following a series of investigative steps carried out by order of the 3rd Criminal Court of Santiago during the processing of the case regarding the disappearance of Alfonso Chanfreau Oyarce. As a result of his location, he was first detained and then expelled from Brazil.

From the time he was detained until the end of 1992, six indictments had been issued against Romo, and there are several pending summons in courts handling other cases.

Source: (Corporation Report)

Santiago Court confirms rulings against former members of the DINA and FACH for kidnapping and torture.

The sentence was confirmed that convicted former DINA members Fernando Lauriani Maturana, Gerardo Godoy García, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, and María Gabriela Órdenes Montecinos to 5 years and one day in prison, as perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of Luis Humberto Piñones Vega.

The Santiago Court of Appeals ratified the sentences issued by the visiting judge Mario Carroza against former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and retired members of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and the application of torture, respectively.

In the first case, and in a split decision, the Twelfth Chamber of the appellate court confirmed the sentence that convicted former DINA members Fernando Lauriani Maturana, Gerardo Godoy García, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, and María Gabriela Órdenes Montecinos to 5 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of Luis Humberto Piñones Vega, a crime perpetrated on January 25, 1975, in the Metropolitan Region.

During the investigation phase, Judge Carroza was able to establish that Piñones Vega, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained in December 1974 while living in hiding in the vicinity of the current University of Santiago and taken to the clandestine detention center of Villa Grimaldi, where he was deprived of his liberty until January 25, 1975, the date on which his trail was lost.

Regarding the civil aspect, and with the dissenting vote of lawyer Claudia Chaimovich, the sentence that had ordered the State to pay total compensation of $400,000,000 to the victim's siblings was revoked.

The dissenting judge believes that the State's request to lower the amount set for damages is not appropriate, keeping in mind the damage caused to the victims, the time elapsed since the events occurred, and the State's obligation to provide them with comprehensive reparation for the grave damage caused precisely by State agents.

She noted that she was in favor of increasing the sentences imposed on Laureani, Godoy, and Wenderoth, and applying the penalty of ten years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree to the convicted parties.

War Academy In the second case, and in a split decision, the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court confirmed the sentence that convicted retired FACH members Luis Campos Poblete, Sergio Contreras Mejías, and Braulio Wilckens Recart to 3 years in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, as perpetrators of the repeated crime of applying torture to Beatriz Aurora Castedo Mira, a crime committed at the Air War Academy (AGA) in 1974.

Meanwhile, former officer Ramón Cáceres Jorquera was acquitted due to a lack of participation in the events.

During the investigation phase of the case, Judge Carroza established that in the particular case of Beatriz Castedo, the military prosecutor Horacio Otaíza, now deceased, gathered a group of agents and officials of the Air Force, and by virtue of information they received from Leonardo Alberto Schneider Jordán, a former MIR militant and at that time an informant for the SIFA, they planned an operation and conspired to detain both the victim Beatriz Castedo Mira and her contact, José Bordaz Paz, a member of the MIR Central Committee, who was the true objective of said illicit operation.

Once the maneuver was set, on December 5, 1974, as Beatriz Castedo was heading to the meeting point at the intersection of Avenida Vitacura and Alonso de Córdova, she was approached by an Air Force official who attempted to detain her.

As she resisted, another official got out of one of the vehicles used for the operation, and they proceeded to detain her. They were Luis Enrique Campos Poblete and Braulio Javier Wilckens Recart, who forced her into one of the vehicles participating in that conspiracy.

But before taking her to the War Academy, the agents confronted her contact José Bordas Paz, whom one of them shot and wounded, requiring him to be taken urgently to the FACH hospital.

Once the incident with Bordas Paz occurred, Beatriz Castedo was taken to the clandestine detention center that the Air Force used for interrogations, the War Academy, where they admitted her, blindfolded her, and then subjected her to intense interrogations using various methods of torture, which she detailed in detail in her statement in Mexico City in May 2005, particularly in a sector called La Capilla, in order to obtain information about her contacts and activities.

Regarding the civil aspect, and with the dissenting vote of Judge Marisol Rojas, the sentence that ordered the State and the convicted parties to pay joint compensation of $50,000,000 to the victim for moral damages was confirmed.

The judge points out that in the case being analyzed, there is no rule that provides for the imprescriptibility of civil action, nor is it possible to apply the rules of criminal action, so it is appropriate to apply the rules of common law.

Furthermore, Article 2.497 of the Civil Code establishes that the statute of limitations runs equally in favor of and against all classes of persons, expressly including the State among those subject to its rules.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl 29/3/2018 Date: 29-03-2018

DINA agents accused of the aggravated kidnapping of a young MIR member

The visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals designated for human rights violation cases, Mario Carroza, issued an indictment for the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Luis Humberto Piñones Vega, who was detained on January 8, 1975, in the city of Santiago.

Judge Carroza accused Fernando Lauriani Maturana, Gerardo Godoy García, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Marcelo Moren Brito, and María Gabriela Órdenes Montecinos of being co-perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of the militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement, MIR.

According to the investigation's background, the following facts were determined:

a) "Luis Humberto Piñones Vega, 21 years of age, was living in hiding after his parents' home had been raided following the publication of his name in a newspaper, which exposed his political militancy and labeled him a fugitive.

Under these circumstances, he was detained on January 8, 1975, at a point where he was to meet another militant, on a public street in an area near the University of Santiago, by agents belonging to the DINA, without any order issued by a legitimate and competent authority to justify it.

They took him to the clandestine detention and torture center known as Villa Grimaldi or Cuartel Terranova, where he was seen and recognized by other detainees who managed to gain their freedom and provided their version of events.

Piñones Vega remained deprived of his liberty at said center until January 25, 1975, the date on which his trail was lost, coinciding with the absence of other detainees, all of whom were taken out in a vehicle.

His whereabouts have been unknown since then, as has the fate he has suffered both physically and psychologically, with no news of him, no record of him leaving or entering the country, and no proof of his death." b) That at Villa Grimaldi, "two DINA groups operated, called Purén and Caupolicán, each with perfectly identifiable objectives of work and repression." c) "In charge of DINA operations in the metropolitan region was the Intelligence Brigade (BIM), led by a high-ranking army officer who had a general staff advising him on intelligence work.

Brigades depended on this chief, among which was Caupolicán, whose objective at the date these events occurred was aimed at the combat and repression of the Revolutionary Left Movement, to which the victim of this investigation belonged."

With this indictment, the case moves to the plenary stage.

Source: EL CLARIN - January 06, 2015 Date: 06-01-2015