In a ruling that will have significant repercussions for human rights cases, the Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the release of thirteen military personnel and revoked their indictments, determining that the principle of res judicata and the Amnesty Law applied.

The ruling states that there is no merit to maintain the indictments against thirteen members who belonged to the Comando Conjunto and who were prosecuted by the head of the 25th Criminal Court, Carlos Hazbún, who serves as a judge with preferential dedication.

This follows the May 2 decision by the head of the First Civil Court of San Bernardo, Cecilia Flores, to declare herself incompetent to hear the case regarding the kidnapping of David Urrutia Galaz, who was captured by Comando Conjunto agents in 1975, and referred the case files to the judge of the 25th Criminal Court of Santiago, Carlos Hazbún.

The defense for the former military personnel, led by lawyer Carlos Portales, stated that the resolution opens the door to follow the same path for the remaining fifty or so military members currently being prosecuted by judges with exclusive dedication to these cases.

According to El Mercurio, the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior ordered a special meeting for tomorrow with all its lawyers to analyze the new scenario. The director of the agency, Luciano Fouillioux, indicated that the final word regarding the application of the principle of res judicata and the Amnesty Law lies with the Supreme Court.

This is because it is the first time an appellate court has applied a ruling of this nature in human rights violation cases investigated by special judges appointed as a result of the "Dialogue Table." The head of the 25th Criminal Court of Santiago, Carlos Hazbún, had indicted the following military personnel on January 7, 2002, as authors of "illicit criminal association": César Palma Ramírez, Otto Trujillo Miranda, Raúl González Fernández, and Manuel Muñoz Gamboa.

Likewise, the indictment included retired FACh (Chilean Air Force) non-commissioned officer Pedro Caamaño Medina; retired FACh Colina Regiment commander Carlos Madrid Hayden; active FACh non-commissioned officer Robinson Suazo Jaque; retired FACh non-commissioned officer Fernando Zúñiga Canales; retired FACh non-commissioned officer Eduardo Cartagena Maldonado; retired Navy lieutenant Daniel Guimper Corvalán; retired FACh non-commissioned officer Guillermo Urra Carrasco; retired FACh non-commissioned officer Pedro Zambrano Uribe; and retired FACh non-commissioned officer Juan Chávez Sandoval, all of whom have now benefited from this provision.

Source: El Mostrador, June 16, 2002

First indictments issued for the death of Rivera Matus

The first indictments for the death and disappearance of Juan Luis Rivera Matus were issued today by the head of the First Criminal Court of Santiago, Joaquín Billard. The magistrate charged Alvaro Corbalán Castilla, who was a member of the Comando Conjunto; retired Air Force General Enrique Ruiz Bunger; Arturo Madrid, also a member of that repressive entity; and Sergio López Díaz, a former member of the DINE, with the crime of aggravated kidnapping.

Ruiz Bunger had also been indicted by Judge Mario Carroza last week as the author of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Víctor Vega, David Urrutia, Juan Carlos Orellana, and Ricardo Weibel Navarrete, who are listed as forcibly disappeared, as well as four survivors.

Carroza is also investigating the implications of the alleged re-articulation of the Comando Conjunto recently denounced by former agent Otto Trujillo. Díaz López, meanwhile, is a former Army officer who was part of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE).

Until the statement made by former Comando Conjunto agent Andrés Valenzuela—alias "Papudo"—in France in January of this year, the existing evidence suggested that Rivera Matus had been detained at the Colina military facility, where that repressive agency operated.

The indication was that the detainee had been removed by the DINE after being killed. However, the testimony of "Papudo" made it possible to prove that the person in charge of removing the Chilectra leader from that military installation was Corbalán, who was accompanied by López.

The investigation into the Rivera Matus case has progressed by establishing that his death is a distinct case from other crimes that occurred during the military regime, as it cannot be attributed to a specific repressive group but rather to individuals who allegedly committed the crime in isolation.

Because an indictment was never issued in this case for nearly 27 years, the Supreme Court, as the final instance, could not refer to the principle of res judicata. Doubts on the table The name of Juan Luis Rivera Matus appeared in the report submitted by the Armed Forces to the Dialogue Table, which indicated that his remains had been thrown into the sea.

However, as part of the search for other forcibly disappeared persons conducted by Minister Amanda Valdovinos, his remains were found at the Army's Justo Arteaga fort in Colina. The discovery was one of the first and most dramatic alerts regarding doubts and inaccuracies in the information compiled by the Armed Forces in that forum.

The union leader's remains were handed over to his relatives in May of last year; they showed signs of having been burned after death, according to experts from the Legal Medical Service (SML). Rivera Matus was a member of the Communist Party (PC) and a union leader at Chilectra.

He was detained on November 6, 1975, at the corner of Santo Domingo and San Antonio by about five people in civilian clothes who forced him into a white Peugeot station wagon without license plates. On the same day of his kidnapping, a habeas corpus petition was filed on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which, like almost all similar actions filed during the military regime, was rejected without further proceedings by the appellate court following a negative report on the detention issued by the Ministry of the Interior.

On May 26, 1976, the case had been temporarily dismissed.

Source: El Mostrador, October 4, 2002

Judge issues convictions in three cases of forcibly disappeared persons

The head of the First Criminal Court of Santiago with exclusive dedication to human rights cases, Joaquín Billard, sentenced former CNI operational chief Álvaro Corbalán Castilla to ten years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnapping and subsequent death of Juan Luis Rivera Matus, which occurred in December 1975.

Along with Corbalán, and receiving the same sentence, former Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) member Sergio Díaz López was convicted. Meanwhile, in their capacity as accessories, the head of the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA), Freddy Ruiz Bunger, and Carlos Madrid Hayden received sentences of 600 days of commuted prison time.

The notification for Corbalán was delivered this morning at Punta Peuco. Sources close to the case indicated that the Army preferred not to transport him to the court to avoid problems following his recent outings.

Juan Luis Rivera Matus was named in the first report of the Dialogue Table as one of the victims of repression who had been thrown into the sea, along with 131 other people. However, in 2001, his remains appeared on the grounds of the "Justo Arteaga Cuevas" Fort in Peldehue.

For many, this fact destroyed the credibility of that forum. Rivera Matus was a member of the PC and a union leader at Chilectra. He was detained on November 6, 1975, at the corner of Santo Domingo and San Antonio by about five people in civilian clothes who forced him into a white Peugeot station wagon without license plates.

On the same day of his kidnapping, a habeas corpus petition was filed on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which, like almost all similar actions filed during the military regime, was rejected without further proceedings by the appellate court following a negative report on the detention issued by the Ministry of the Interior.

On May 26, 1976, the case had been temporarily dismissed. Other cases But this was not the only sentence issued by the magistrate. He also convicted former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena for the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Espinoza Méndez, nicknamed "Abel" or "Juancho," whose last traces date back to June 18, 1974.

According to the Rettig Report, Espinoza Méndez was seen by witnesses at the Londres 38 detention center and disappeared while in the custody of the DINA, with no further news of him since. The magistrate also sentenced former DINA agents Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren Brito, Basclay Zapata, and Osvaldo Romo to ten years and one day for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against former MIR militants Elsa Leuthner, María González, Hernán González, and Ricardo Troncoso Muñoz.

The case of Troncoso Muñoz is unique. Before his detention, he had remained in asylum at the Mexican Embassy in Santiago from October 10, 1973, until March 1, 1974, the date he left the asylum, desperate due to the delay in being granted a safe-conduct.

Fifteen days later, he was detained by DINA agents. The magistrate is still investigating the case of Juan Suil Faúndez, who was made to disappear by SIFA agents in the mid-seventies. The other two cases the magistrate had, one of them regarding Operation Colombo, were attached to the file being processed by special judge Juan Guzmán Tapia.

With the convictions in these three cases, the path is opened for the Supreme Court to unify the criteria regarding the application of the Amnesty Law. In 1997, the criteria of the Second Criminal Chamber of the highest court changed, modifying the application of that legal body and establishing the theory of permanent kidnapping.

Source: El Mostrador, May 4, 2004

First conviction against FACH general

A sentence of 600 days in prison against the former head of the FACH Intelligence Service, retired General Enrique Ruiz Bunger, as an accessory to the kidnapping of Communist militant Juan Luis Rivera Matus in November 1975, was issued by the head of the First Criminal Court of Santiago, Joaquín Billard.

Although the sentence was issued as "commuted"—meaning it is not served in prison in exchange for periodic identity checks—it is the first time a judge has sentenced Ruiz Bunger, one of the architects of the Comando Conjunto in 1975.

The magistrate also convicted former CNI operational chief, retired Major Álvaro Corbalán, as the author of the same crime. Likewise, he sentenced retired Army officer Sergio Díaz López to ten years as an author.

Retired FACH officer Carlos Madrid Heiden was sentenced to 600 days of commuted prison as an accessory. Corbalán has been serving a life sentence for a few days at the Punta Peuco prison for the crime of carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca, committed by the CNI and the DINE in 1983 to attempt to cover up the assassination of union leader Tucapel Jiménez.

In addition, another ten-year prison sentence was issued against him for the homicide of Lisandro Sandoval. The fate of Rivera Matus acquired a special connotation, as it was the first case that cast doubt on the 2001 Armed Forces report regarding the final fate of 200 forcibly disappeared persons as a result of the human rights Dialogue Table.

In March 2001, while conducting excavations at Fort Arteaga in Colina, based on information contained in the aforementioned report, Minister Amanda Valdovinos found a complete skeleton, which was finally proven to be the remains of Rivera.

However, he appeared in that report as having been thrown into the sea along with 150 other political prisoners. The kidnapping and homicide of Rivera Matus corresponded to a joint operation between the DINE, for which Corbalán worked in 1975, and the newly formed Comando Conjunto, one of whose promoters was General Ruiz Bunger.

Rivera, a Chilectra worker, was kidnapped and taken to the FACH Colina Regiment, where he remained for a few days. From there, he was taken out by Corbalán and Díaz and driven to the interior of what was then the Peldehue military facility, where he was executed.

The autopsy performed on his remains revealed that the detainee, after death, was doused with oil and burned. Rejection of amnesty In 2002, the revelations of Otto Trujillo, "Colmillo Blanco," in La Nación Domingo, pointed to a previously little-known fact: the collaboration between the DINE and the Comando Conjunto in 1975 to kidnap and murder Juan Luis Rivera Matus.

The information provided by Trujillo was key to the lead followed by Judge Joaquín Billard. This also continued the path opened by Minister Alejandro Solís and did not apply amnesty in favor of those convicted.

The defense for the sentenced individuals even argued that Juan Luis Rivera Matus was no longer a forcibly disappeared person since his remains were found at Fort Arteaga in 2001. And that, therefore, the figure of kidnapping as a permanent crime to reject amnesty could no longer be invoked.

But the judge dismissed these arguments and stated that, in that case, the crime continued to be committed beyond March 1978, the date up to which the amnesty extends. But the magistrate's fundamental arguments pointed to the fact that these crimes, being crimes against humanity, are not subject to amnesty.

Source: La Nación, May 5, 2004

Court increased sentences for former Comando Conjunto agents

The Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals increased the sentences of two members of the former Comando Conjunto, including its creator, retired FACH General Enrique Ruiz Bunger, for the 1975 kidnapping of Communist militant Juan Luis Rivera Matus.

Ruiz Bunger's sentence was increased from 600 days to 10 years, and the sentence of the former agent and now retired FACH colonel, Carlos Madrid Haydn, was increased in the same proportion. Both also had their status changed from accessory to author.

The chamber maintained the 10-year prison sentence for retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Sergio Díaz López, but reduced the sentence of the former agent and head of the CNI Metropolitan Brigade, retired Major Álvaro Corbalán, from 15 to 10 years.

Minister Jorge Zepeda provided the minority vote, as he was in favor of sentencing the four former agents to only three years "for humanitarian reasons." In this sense, Minister Zepeda has been criticized by plaintiff lawyers for the low sentences he applies for crimes against humanity, although he is not in favor of applying amnesty.

The majority vote was formed by Minister Jorge Dahm and the participating lawyer Victoria Valencia. The first-instance sentence was issued by Minister Joaquín Billard. The remains of Rivera Matus were found in 2001 while the area of Peldehue, where the Army's Fort Arteaga is located today, was being searched for the bodies of the disappeared from La Moneda by an order of the Supreme Court, based on data received at the Dialogue Table in 2000.

Source: La Nación, June 28, 2006

Supreme Court reduces sentences for the homicide of Juan Rivera Matus

The highest court accepted the appeal in cassation filed by the defense of the retired military personnel convicted for the crime of the former Communist leader. The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court considerably reduced the sentences imposed for the aggravated homicide of Communist leader Juan Rivera Matus, who disappeared in November 1975 by members of the Comando Conjunto.

The highest court sentenced retired Chilean Air Force (FACH) General Enrique Ruiz Bunger and retired FACH commander Arturo Madrid Hayden to commuted prison sentences. For the same crime, former CNI operational chief Álvaro Corbalán Castilla and retired officer Sergio Díaz López, a former member of the DINE, were sentenced to four years in prison.

The latter was granted the benefit of supervised release, while in Corbalán's case, the sentence must be served effectively. In the second-instance ruling, the Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals had sentenced the four former military members to ten years.

Rivera Matus, 52 at the time of his disappearance, was married and had seven children. He worked as an electrical technician at Chilectra, where he was also a union leader. He was detained on November 6, 1975, by five men in civilian clothes as he left work.

The Rivera Matus case is considered one of the most emblematic regarding human rights violations, as it revealed the inaccuracy of the information provided by the Armed Forces to the Dialogue Table. Although the military branches included him in a list of detainees whose bodies had been thrown into the sea, Judge Amanda Valdovinos determined that his remains had been buried at the Army's Fort Arteaga in Colina.

Source: El Mostrador, July 30, 2007