Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, married, father of 2 daughters, an ENDESA employee and communist militant, presented himself voluntarily at the Antuco Carabineros Station on September 17, 1973. On two previous occasions, Carabineros—including Sergeant Manuel Osses—and military personnel had come to his home looking for him, and had proceeded to raid his residence.

Thus, on that September 17, around 09:00 in the morning, the affected party left his home heading toward the police station. He flagged down the car of his friend Jorge Astudillo, in which Víctor Santín was also traveling, and asked for a ride.

Santín—who testified before the Court—recalls that Astudillo agreed to the request and they all drove to the front of the Antuco Station, where a military checkpoint was located. There, they were ordered out of the vehicle, searched, and told to turn back, with the exception of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda, who remained at the station; this was the last time he was seen.

After learning that her husband had been detained, María Guaico Mauro went to the Antuco Station around noon to inquire about the situation. There, Sergeant Manuel Osses told her that she could not see him at that moment, but to return later. She returned around 18:00 hours. On this occasion, a guard on duty told her that the affected party had been transferred to the Los Angeles Regiment.

Immediately, his spouse went to Los Angeles, but at the military facility, they denied her husband's entry. All subsequent efforts made by María Guaico to locate the whereabouts of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda were unsuccessful. Her visits to detention centers in Concepción, Talcahuano, and Santiago were fruitless.

The apprehension and disappearance of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda is counted among the nine cases of forcibly disappeared persons from the town of Los Canelos linked to the actions of the Carabineros of the Antuco and El Abanico stations. (Further background in the case of Mario Olivares Perez).

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On March 24, 1977, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed for the affected party at the Court of Appeals of Concepción, registered under No. 3948.

During the processing of this writ, official inquiries were sent to various authorities, all of whom responded that they lacked information regarding the detention of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda. This was stated by the Minister of the Interior on March 29, 1977; and, in exactly the same terms, by the Brigadier General and Intendant of the VIII Region, Rigoberto Rubio Ramírez.

For his part, Army Colonel Atiliano Jara Salgado, Commander of the Los Angeles Regiment, informed the Court on March 26, 1977, that, in accordance with instructions, the records had been sent to the Ministry of the Interior.

On June 2, 1977, based on the information provided by said authorities and considering that "from the gathered records it is clear that Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez is not being held," the Court rejected the writ of amparo and referred the documents to the Criminal Court on Duty in Los Angeles to initiate a summary investigation.

An appeal was filed with the Supreme Court against this resolution, which confirmed the rejection of the writ on June 30 of the same year.

Thus, before the 1st Criminal Court of Los Angeles, on July 22, 1977, the case for the presumed death of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda was opened, file No. 49.135. The only investigative steps focused on summoning María Guaico and Víctor Santín to testify, as well as orders to locate the affected party so that he could appear before the Court, which, of course, was not possible.

On September 23, 1977, just two months after the judicial investigation began, the summary was closed and the case was temporarily dismissed. On November 3 of the same year, the Court of Appeals of Concepción approved the ruling of the presiding judge of the 1st Criminal Court of Los Angeles, Wilfredo Zúñiga Soto.

Source: (Corporation Report)

In a split decision (1421-2019), the Third Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Minister Gerardo Bernales Rojas, Minister Isabel Salas Castro, and lawyer (i) Abel Bravo Bravo—accepted the appeal filed by the State of Chile, overturning the ruling issued on March 20, 2020, by the 4th Civil Court of Talca, considering that the statute of limitations for filing the action had expired.

The Court of Appeals of Talca overturned the sentence of the city's 4th Civil Court and accepted the statute of limitations defenses raised by the State of Chile in the lawsuit for damages filed by the siblings of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, who has been forcibly disappeared since September 1973.

"That the dispute between the parties relates to the plaintiffs' claim to enforce compensation for moral damages, due to the non-contractual liability of the State, on the occasion of the detention of Mr.

Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, which occurred on September 17, 1973, at the Antuco Carabineros Station, the date from which he disappeared, his whereabouts remaining unknown, and that upon the arrival of democracy, the State of Chile, through the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as the 'Rettig Report,' whose final report was delivered on February 9, 1991, considered Luis Sepúlveda Núñez a victim of human rights violations, recognizing that he disappeared at the hands of agents of the State of Chile on September 17, 1973.

Versus the main allegation made by the defendant party that the action sought would be time-barred," the ruling states.

The resolution adds that "given what was maintained by the plaintiff party and the appealed ruling, it is deemed necessary to clarify, regarding the former, that the criminal and harmful act that originates the civil effect thereof would be a crime against humanity, analyzing and indicating that with respect to crimes against humanity, as serious as they are, the penalties imposed for them must be served in their entirety without room for any type of benefit.

However, it is the case that no ruling of such nature is the basis of the action deduced in this indemnity case, since it has not been based on a conviction for a crime against humanity, but on the act generated by the Government of the time, in which the State recognizes the status of forcibly disappeared person, which the commission gave him in the Rettig Report (1991), to Mr.

Luis Sepúlveda Núñez, as a victim of human rights violations, recognizing that he disappeared at the hands of agents of the State of Chile on September 17, 1973."

"In this way, from the legal point of view and the factual reality of the current regulations, being clear that there was no specific conviction in this case for a crime against humanity, nor for the crime of human rights violation, the plaintiff party should not then demand, nor should the lower court judge apply, rules other than the general ones established in the legislation, in this case regarding the civil effects that, for the State of Chile, imply an act of reparation and national reconciliation (...) Likewise, the civil action derived from crimes or quasi-crimes prescribes in four years, counted from the perpetration of the act as indicated by article 2332 of the Civil Code regarding non-contractual civil liability, differentiating it from civil liability derived from the fulfillment of obligations, where the prescription period is set at 5 years, counted from when the obligation became enforceable as a general rule. And in article 2497 which establishes, the rules relative to prescription apply equally in favor of and against the State, churches, municipalities, national establishments and corporations, and private individuals who have free administration of their own property."

It adds that "That in accordance with what has been reasoned, according to the nature of the civil action exercised in the present case and having to consequently compute the prescription periods starting from the delivery of the report of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as the 'Rettig Report,' that is, March 1991, where the State assumes again the responsibility to repair and consequently compensate for the acts it recognizes (through said unprecedented and unique act, already analyzed and which in no case mutates the institution of prescription), so that by the date of the notification of the lawsuit in the file, that is, September 7, 2018, more than 27 years had passed, exceeding both the periods established for the statute of limitations of the indemnity action filed in the file by application of article 2332 of the Civil Code of four years, which could even be estimated at 5 years according to the internal rule that establishes a longer period to demand the fulfillment of obligations. Without this meaning a conflict with any norm or principle of international law in matters of Human Rights. On the contrary, various international norms, among them, the Pact of San José de Costa Rica, refer that in the absence of a specific international rule, what corresponds is the application of internal or national law, a situation that is applicable to the present case in relation to the defense raised by the State of Chile."

The ruling maintains that "That such criterion has also been ratified expressly by jurisprudence of the country's highest Court through various rulings, as an applicable legal criterion, which is also consistent with the spirit of justice and equity that must govern judicial decisions, in a sense of equality before the law, which is also a constitutional guarantee established by the Fundamental Charter.

To maintain the opposite would imply leading to a legal absurdity, of eradicating legal certainty and accepting the exercise of civil actions of a patrimonial nature, such as indemnity actions that pursue the non-contractual liability of the State, even for historically reprehensible facts that occurred in the past, without a limit of reasonably acceptable times."

The resolution concludes that "the ruling dated March 20, 2020, is revoked, and in its place, it is declared that the statute of limitations defenses for the action, raised by the defendant State of Chile, are accepted, so the lawsuit will not be granted, all without costs of the case and the appeal."

Source: pjud.cl 11/18/2021 Date: 11-18-2021

Minister Paola Plaza González orders the imprisonment of a retired Lieutenant Colonel convicted of kidnapping in the Endesa Episode.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Walther Klug Rivera must serve a 10-year prison sentence for his responsibility as the perpetrator of kidnappings and qualified homicides between September and November 1973.

The minister visiting human rights cases of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, Paola Plaza González, ordered the entry into the corresponding prison as a convicted prisoner of retired Lieutenant Colonel Walther Klug Rivera, sentenced to 10 years in prison for his responsibility as an accomplice in the so-called Endesa Episode, cases involving human rights violations.

The entry order was materialized after a court in Italy agreed to the extradition request filed by the visiting minister Mario Carroza—then instructor of the case—so that Klug Rivera would serve the sentence issued in October 2014, which convicted Klug Rivera for his responsibility in the qualified kidnappings and qualified homicides of the victims Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino, Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga, all of them linked to the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants, and detained between September and November 1973 by members of the Chilean Army.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl 8/2/2021 Date: 08-02-2021

Fugitive Walter Klug, convicted of human rights violations during the dictatorship, arrested in Argentina

The criminal was a fugitive from justice after being sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison for the so-called Endesa case.

In the city of Buenos Aires, the dictatorship criminal, sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison for the so-called Endesa case, Walter Klug Rivera, was arrested this Saturday after fleeing the country.

Agents of the Interpol division of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA) located the subject who had managed to evade the border controls of the Investigative Police (PDI), an event that was denounced by various human rights defense groups such as Londres 38.

Once the escape was known, the extraordinary minister for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, Paola Plaza, issued an international arrest warrant to Interpol that ended with the arrest this Saturday of the former dictatorship official.

According to the background gathered by various investigations related to the dictatorship, after the 1973 coup d'état, Klug, then a 23-year-old lieutenant, organized a detention and torture camp in the stables of the Infantry Regiment No. 3 of Mountain in Los Ángeles.

Survivors of said torture camp described Klug as "particularly brutal and sadistic." According to various organizations, most of the one hundred disappeared persons from the Bío Bío region passed through that camp.

The lawyer and president of the Chilean Commission of Human Rights, Carlos Margotta, valued the news: "it puts an end, satisfactorily, to a very complex situation that has been experienced in Chile as a result of the apathy and indolence of the courts in not guaranteeing that this famous criminal, who had already escaped on another occasion, had all the restrictions proper to a person convicted of such serious crimes."

According to information emanating from Argentina, Klug Rivera will remain in custody until Monday when he must appear before federal judge Julián Ercolini, who will carry out the procedure for extradition to Chile.

Source: radio.uchile.cl 6/12/2021 Date: 06-12-2021

Supreme Court orders the State to compensate siblings of a forcibly disappeared worker from the El Toro plant

"That, as this Court has repeatedly pointed out, this complex of norms known as International Human Rights Law has certainly brought about a significant change in the configuration of state responsibility.

Specifically, in matters of human rights, States have an obligation of result, which is the effective validity of the rights and freedoms enshrined in international instruments," the ruling maintains.

The Supreme Court accepted the appeal in substance and, in a replacement sentence, confirmed the first-instance resolution that ordered the State to pay a total compensation of $150,000,000 (one hundred and fifty million pesos) to the siblings of Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, who worked as a welder at the El Toro hydroelectric plant of Endesa at the time of the events, and who was detained by state agents on September 17, 1973, the date from which his trail and fate were lost.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 94.432-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Minister María Teresa Letelier, lawyer (i) Diego Munita, and lawyer (i) Leonor Etcheberry—established an error of law in the challenged sentence, issued by the Court of Appeals of Talca, by accepting the statute of limitations defense alleged by the State.

"That, as this Court has repeatedly pointed out, this complex of norms known as International Human Rights Law has certainly brought about a significant change in the configuration of state responsibility.

Specifically, in matters of human rights, States have an obligation of result, which is the effective validity of the rights and freedoms enshrined in international instruments," the ruling maintains.

The resolution adds that: "Therefore, the responsibility of the State for human rights violations is an objective matter, since the illicit act for violations of fundamental rights occurs at the moment the State acts in violation of a mandatory norm, without the need for fault or guilt on the part of the agent. (Cf.

Aguiar, Asdrúbal. The international responsibility of the State for human rights violations. Inter-American Institute of Human Rights Journal, Vol. 17, IIDH, 1993. Page 25). Indeed, it is an objective responsibility where the presence of intent or guilt in the harmful action of the State is not relevant."

"The international responsibility of the State arises at the moment when, through its actions, it infringes the limits set by human rights as attributes inherent to the dignity of persons, without the need for fault or guilt on the part of the material author of the act," it adds.

For the Supreme Court: "(...) from what has been pointed out, it follows that the State is subject to the rule of responsibility, which is not foreign to our legislation, since article 3 of the Hague Regulations of 1907 states that 'The belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said Regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation.

It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.' This is complemented by article 2.3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that 'Any person whose rights or freedoms as herein recognized are violated shall have an effective remedy,' which implies the right to seek and obtain full reparation, including restitution, compensation, satisfaction, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition.

In this context, we also find principle 15 of the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in its Resolution 2005/35 of April 19, 2005, which states that 'In accordance with its domestic law and international legal obligations, States shall provide reparation to victims for acts or omissions which can be attributed to the State and constitute gross violations of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law'."

"In the same sense—it continues—the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has expressed itself, which, adopting the reasoning established by the Hague Court, pointed out 'that every violation of an international obligation which has caused damage entails the duty to make adequate reparation.

Compensation, for its part, constitutes the most usual way of doing so (...) the reparation of the damage caused by the infringement of an international obligation consists of full restitution (restitutio in integrum), which includes the restoration of the situation prior to the infringement and the reparation of the consequences that the infringement produced and the payment of an indemnity as compensation for patrimonial and non-patrimonial damages, including moral damage.' (Cf.

Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Velásquez Rodríguez case. Compensatory indemnity. [Art. 63.1 American Convention on Human Rights]. Judgment of July 21, 1989. Series C, No. 7. Para. 25-26)."

"In summary, the obligation of reparation is an obligation that weighs on the State that has violated the human rights of its citizens, an obligation that is part of the legal statute of Chile, as has been pointed out," the resolution affirms.

"That, in sum—it delves—weighing on the State the obligation to repair the victims and their families enshrined by international human rights regulations, domestic law does not become a sustainable argument to exempt it from its fulfillment. Not only because of what has already been expressed but because this duty of the State also finds its consecration in domestic law."

"Indeed, the State's responsibility system also derives from article 3 of Law No. 18.575, Constitutional Organic Law of General Bases of State Administration, which provides that the State Administration is at the service of the human person, that its purpose is to promote the common good, and that one of the principles to which it must subject its action is that of responsibility; and, consequently, in its article 4, it provides that 'the State shall be responsible for the damages caused by the organs of the Administration in the exercise of their functions, without prejudice to the responsibilities that may affect the official who caused them.' Thus, it can only be concluded that the moral damage caused by the illicit conduct of the officials or agents of the State who are authors of the crimes against humanity on which the present action is based, must be compensated by the State," the highest court asserts.

"That, under those conditions, it is true that the lower court judges incurred an error of law when accepting the statute of limitations defense of the civil lawsuit filed against the State, an error that has substantially influenced the operative part of the sentence, so that the appeal in substance will be accepted," it concludes.

Source: pjud.cl 1/18/2023

Walther Klug, the criminal against humanity who fled to Argentina, enters Military Regiment

The Judiciary reported late at night the internment in the Santiago Military Police Regiment No. 1, in the commune of Peñalolén, of Walther Klug Rivera, a criminal against humanity of the Chilean Dictatorship who had fled the country attempting to evade the judicial proceedings against him.

Former Colonel Klug Rivera is a well-known member of the repressive forces of the Dictatorship in southern Chile, and today is wanted in two cases for human rights violations: the kidnapping and death of 21 Endesa workers in the commune of Antuco, Bío Bío Province, and the qualified kidnapping of the president of the Student Federation of the University of Concepción, Los Ángeles branch, Luis Cornejo.

In the first case, Klug was sentenced by the Supreme Court to 10 years in prison, without benefits, for his responsibility in the homicides of: Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino; in addition to the qualified kidnappings of: Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

In the second case, Klug is identified as the person responsible for the disappearance of the Topography student and president of the student center of the Los Ángeles branch of the University of Concepción, Luis Cornejo.

Klug had fled in 2015 to Germany, taking advantage of the leniency in the treatment of human rights violators in our country. Thus, he used his dual nationality and benefited from the difficulty of the European nation to extradite its citizens, even if they are criminals against humanity.

However, in 2019 he was arrested on a trip he made to Italy, the country from which he was extradited to Chile.

However, despite the gravity of the crimes committed—he is convicted by the Supreme Court—the criminal against humanity was not imprisoned and fled again, this time to Argentina, from where he was expelled to our country.

Klug did not comply with the precautionary measures dictated by Minister Carlos Aldana—who did not order his arrest despite the existence of this background—for the other case for which he is being prosecuted: the qualified kidnapping of Luis Cornejo.

The visiting minister of the Court of Appeals of Santiago, Paola Plaza, indicated that Walther Klug Rivera will serve a 10-day quarantine period at the Santiago Military Police Regiment No. 1 to then review his procedural situation.

Source: resumen.cl 1/29/2021