22 years after the operation that killed three MIR members in Concepción and Hualpencillo, there is still no conviction for those responsible. The security agents who acted in what was called the "Alfa Carbón 1" plan did so with all the protections of the regime, avoiding identification for decades.

Today, the official version that spoke of "clashes" is contrasted by that of eyewitnesses who, in an unprecedented way, account for how the events actually occurred. The residents of the Lorenzo Arenas sector of Concepción still find it painful to recall the story of the MIR members murdered on August 23, 1984, in the vicinity of the Vega Monumental.

It was one of the most public and exposed repressive operations of the defunct National Intelligence Center (CNI) which, paradoxically, due to the safeguards of the intelligence agencies involved, has become one of the most difficult human rights cases to clarify.

As revealed by the statement of a CNI agent contained in the case file, the idea of the "Alfa Carbón 1" operation—as this intelligence action was called—aimed to "burst the MIR's theater of operations between the eighth and tenth regions." For this reason, they acted almost simultaneously in Concepción, Los Ángeles, Valdivia, and Santiago.

In total, 9 MIR members were murdered, and as many others were detained in numerous raids. In the particular case of the deaths at the Vega Monumental, the authorities of the time imposed an official version that spoke of a clash between terrorists and the regime's security agencies, despite the certainty of hundreds of people—adults, youths, and many children—who saw how the victims surrendered without offering resistance, one of them even with his hands held high.

After 22 years, the military justice system, where the case remained despite the opposition of the victims' families and human rights organizations, still keeps the summary proceedings open, without having issued an indictment against any of the alleged perpetrators to date.

Chronology of the crime The Alfa Carbón 1 operation began on the morning of August 23 in Concepción with the arrest of a MIR militant on a public street. After midday, in Hualpencillo, the official information reported a casual clash between a suspicious subject, Luis Humberto Aedo Arias (32), and security personnel.

The CNI reported that Aedo (one of the strongest MIR members in the area) fired at the agents and that they responded, wounding him mortally. Witnesses rule out a chance encounter. They assert that a police cordon had been set up in the sector early on and that the subject was shot in the back and finished off on the ground.

A report from Revista Hoy at the time rescued a statement that complements these versions: "When the gentleman was lying on the ground, a vehicle with three people arrived; they got out, moved him, and shots were heard again.

Then three other people with briefcases appeared and placed papers on him. He was stretched out and they changed his position." Around 3:30 PM on the same day, CNI vehicles intercepted a Las Bahías bus on the Talcahuano-Concepción route near the Vega Monumental.

The target: Nelson Herrera Riveros (30), the MIR's political-military leader from Concepción to the Tenth Region, and his companion, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez (34). 20 days later, the bus driver, Pedro Aguayo, who would die a couple of years later under strange circumstances, stated in a sworn affidavit that both subjects had boarded his vehicle in front of the Talcahuano market. "They got on, paid their fare, and sat behind me in the first seat (...) when I reached the first traffic light on Calle 21 de Mayo, in front of the Vega, I saw a red car and on the sides 4 armed people who were protecting themselves behind the car and watching me (...) from another vehicle coming in the opposite direction, some people with weapons and submachine guns got out and leaned on the hood of the bus and forced me to stop." The first controversies What happened after this action triggered one of the most open debates between the Catholic Church in Concepción and the authorities of the regime at the time. While the latter claimed that both MIR members took the bus passengers hostage to evade pursuit, Aguayo himself denied that information to the newspaper El Sur two days later. When asked if there was a clash or not, he was emphatic: "In honor of the truth, I have to say no (...) the two men finally decided to get off. At no time did they come out shooting. They wanted to surrender." Journalist Marcelo Henríquez, who was 13 years old at the time, lived in the sector. He relates that, together with some friends, he witnessed everything from an apartment facing Calle 21 de Mayo. "We heard a lot of shouting, a lot of swearing, mainly from the people in civilian clothes. They told the guys at the top of their lungs and with megaphones that if they got off the bus, nothing would happen to them (...), but as soon as the first one got off, they killed him (...) it was not a shootout. The shots came from only one side. From the armed civilians," he states. The MIR member who died at the scene was Mario Octavio Lagos. Witnesses said he got off the bus with his hands held high, which explains the bullet wound under his armpit that his body presented at the Legal Medical Institute, which was verified by the priest and journalist Enrique Moreno Laval, who at the time was the Episcopal Vicar of the Workers' Pastoral in Concepción and regional vice president of the Journalists' Association. The circumstances of Herrera's death are not clear. The driver, Pedro Aguayo, related that he managed to see him lying in the street, but that he had no blood on his body. Only a superficial wound on his forehead, which he said "could have been from the fall or the graze of a bullet." However, he arrived dead at the Regional Hospital. "Two men who approached him grabbed him tightly by the arms (...) they said he was wounded and that he had to be taken to the hospital. He was walking without handcuffs and they put him into a vehicle, though I cannot specify which one," the driver related in his sworn statement. Marcelo Henríquez does clearly remember this event. "They grabbed him (Herrera) and put him into a civilian car. I think it was a Chevrolet Opala, a big one. A dry shot rang out and I saw how the body jumped as a result of the impact." Something similar was stated in the proceedings by a former agent, who ensured that Herrera was put into a Central [CNI] car while handcuffed. "The vehicle had taxi colors. When it started, the order to eliminate him arrived. The team eliminated him at point-blank range." Herrera's death certificate lists the cause of death as a craniocerebral gunshot wound classified as homicide. A shocking photograph taken by the then-lawyer for CODEPU, Carlos Cabrera, who viewed Herrera at the morgue, shows a perforation in the middle of his forehead that would have been made with a weapon held against it. The judicial tangle The substantial difference between the official version and that of eyewitnesses motivated the distrust of the Archbishop of Concepción, José Manuel Santos, who five days after the operation requested an investigating judge from the Concepción Court of Appeals, a request that was not accepted, as the Appellate Court determined that "it did not correspond for the ordinary justice system to hear the aforementioned matters." Indignant at the response, Santos was not deterred and appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court instructed the Third Military Court to appoint an ad hoc prosecutor, an appointment that fell to Commander Alejandro Abuter Campos. In '84, the Military Justice system had already initiated an investigation into the formation of paramilitary militias and prosecuted the MIR members detained in the raids for violation of the arms control law. In this situation, to this day, are, among others, Patricia Zalaquett, Herrera's partner, and Alejandro Bernsteir. In the following 15 years, the military prosecutor's office did not prosecute any of the agents involved in the crimes of the Vega and Hualpencillo. It even moved to permanently dismiss the case. But the lawyers from CODEPU in Santiago filed a cassation appeal before the Supreme Court to invalidate the dismissal. In September, the Supreme Court revoked this decision, issued a replacement ruling, and ordered the investigation to continue. At this moment, the title of the military file for the case of the three MIR members murdered on August 23, '84, was changed to "unnecessary violence against CNI personnel." "Unnecessary violence is manifested in the death of defenseless people; that is, the military justice system in democracy recognizes these despicable acts," asserts lawyer Carlos Cabrera. Meanwhile, the case of the surviving MIR members was transferred to the ordinary justice system. Agents without masks The investigation had been stalled for years, as most of the CNI agents involved acted under operational names (aliases). Even in that condition, two of them, Army Lieutenant Colonel Hugo José Hechenleitner, alias Antonio Martínez López, and Sub-officer Víctor Muñoz Orellana, alias Jaime Marinovic Palma, had recognized their participation in the events of the Vega operation on August 23 before prosecutor Pedro Marisio. "There was a degree of complicity here, because the prosecutor accepted the statement with aliases knowing that those names did not correspond," accuses Carlos Cabrera. In April 1999, the Second Military Prosecutor's Office of Concepción prosecuted these two CNI agents, who still appeared under their aliases. For this reason, lawyer Cabrera requested proceedings to establish their true identities, which bore fruit in November 2002. With this new data, their indictment was modified. Víctor Manuel Muñoz is prosecuted for the death of Luciano Aedo, and Hechenleitner for that of Nelson Herrera, both being detained in January 2003 at Military Battalion No. 1. Today both are free on bail, but separated from the Army. They face sentences of major imprisonment in its minimum to medium degree, that is, from 5 years and one day to 15 years. As stated in the summary, in March 2003, both defendants testified before the Military Prosecutor's Office of Concepción. Hechenleitner did not recognize his 1984 testimony before prosecutor Marisio and indicated that he only had participation in the arrest of Patricia Zalaquett, which occurred in the El Recodo sector. He added that he arrived in Concepción in August '84 by order of the head of the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño, Major Alvaro Corbalán, accompanied by Carabineros Corporal I Egon Barra Barra, alias Raúl González, and a civilian employee with the surname Fuentes who has not been identified until now. During the interrogation, he was also asked if he knew Claudio Rosas Fernández. He replied that they met on September 20, '84, and that he was the head of the CNI in Chillán. However, in his 1984 statement, he acknowledged that he participated with Rosas Fernández in the Vega Monumental operation and that he fired at Nelson Herrera. He also establishes that it was he, together with agent Rosas, who transported him "alive" to the Regional Hospital. The other defendant, Víctor Muñoz Orellana, also disavows his '84 statement. Furthermore, he ruled out his participation in the Hualpencillo operation, since, as he said, he was not at the scene when the events occurred. Nevertheless, he accounts for the assistance of other agents, with their real names and aliases, information that allows for probing the responsibility of others involved. He names Army sub-officers Hernán Galvez Navarro (alias Vitoco) and Carlos Palma (assumed name, Juan Carlos Vera). A third mentioned is Leandro Montenegro or Farías. The end is near In the context of the modernization of the Army, the Third Military Court moved to Valdivia. According to Cabrera, at this moment, the Concepción prosecutor Fernando Grandón issued an opinion and proposed a conviction for the two prosecuted agents. The information was passed to the Valdivia Court to be ratified. "It took two years or more there, I don't remember, and the Third Army Division ordered the summary to be reopened again to continue the investigation, because it estimates that there are more agents involved," explains the lawyer. To date, Cabrera, who sponsors Nelson Herrera's case, does not have access to the summary, as the military instance removed the publicity of the investigation from the parties. However, this lawyer is optimistic and hints that, according to information he handles, it would take very little to find the true perpetrators of the deaths caused by this operation that remains indelible in the memory of its victims and witnesses. Operation Alfa Carbón Waiting for the big fish To materialize this plan, in the first days of August, between 25 and 30 intelligence agents, including women, arrived in Concepción from different parts of the country and joined those from the area. All planning was in charge of the CNI's regional unit based in Santiago, led by Army Lieutenant Colonel Marcos Derpisch Miranda. Within the support group, the head of the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño, Major Alvaro Corbalán Castilla, also traveled, who upon his arrival reportedly had an unfortunate encounter with the Regional Chief, Major Jorge Mandiola, apparently due to a power struggle. According to the statement of a CNI agent, the entire operation was centralized in the Third Army Division. "It was a very programmed operation, in its achievements, one hundred percent efficient (...) a lot of CNI people were moved." He also acknowledges that in Alfa Carbón I there was no prior detention, but that they knew a lot about each person. This confirms Pinochet's words on August 16, 1984, before foreign correspondents: "We have found extremists. We are finding them and we have leads. Now, many times you have to let them get fat to be able to catch them all. There are quite a few people detected..."

Between August 23 and 24, 1984, seven MIR members died in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles in fake clashes. The operation known as Alfa Carbón has only had two people held responsible before the justice system: Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

However, the families of the murdered men hope that the prosecution will be extended to 13 other former CNI agents. Today, their families and friends remember them in the south. In the Vega Monumental sector of Concepción, at a monolith erected to remember the seven members of the MIR murdered 29 years ago, Tamara Lagos will be there today.

Despite feeling that justice has not yet been served for her father's death, she will not commemorate the sadness. "These are days of remembrance, but above all of meeting, laughter, and much affection.

On the day of their deaths, we celebrate their lives," says Tamara, daughter of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, one of those killed in the operation. Mario's name is added to those of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias (30 years old); Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros (31), murdered in front of the Vega Monumental before numerous witnesses along with Mario Lagos.

Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros (32) was executed in his home in Los Ángeles. Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente (31) and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala (24) were murdered in a "clash" in Valdivia; the same as Juan José Boncompte Andreu (31), murdered in his home, also in Valdivia.

All of them were murdered between August 23 and 24, 1984, in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles. The crimes were committed within the framework of Operation Alfa Carbón, which has also been known as Albania of the South, in allusion to the Corpus Christi massacre, in which in June 1987 the CNI murdered twelve members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front. "For a long time, this case did not move because it was in the military justice system and those who testified did so under false names, and in 1998 it was almost dismissed because the Military Prosecutor said it was almost impossible to find the identities," says Javiera Herrera, daughter of Nelson Herrera. Now they hope that the justice system will rule on the extension of the prosecution for "illicit association" to 13 former CNI agents involved in the execution of the seven MIR members; a process in which, until now, only two of the accused were indicted on June 20, 2012: Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

THE PROCESS

Javiera details the development of the events of that day. On August 23, 1984, in front of the Vega Monumental in Concepción, the bus where her father and Mario Lagos were traveling was intercepted by about thirty CNI agents, who, after intimidating those traveling in the vehicle, threw tear gas bombs inside.

That day, both Mario Lagos and Nelson Herrera got off the bus. The former with his hands held high. The autopsy report of Mario Lagos Rodríguez revealed that he received two bullet impacts fired from more than fifty centimeters away: one in the left axillary area—which proves that he raised his arms at the moment of receiving the impact—and another in the posterior part of the right thigh.

It is in light of this information, and due to the premeditated and coordinated action, that the families of the murdered MIR members requested the extension of the prosecution that Judge Carlos Aldana had resolved; and at the beginning of this year, lawyers Magdalena Garcés and Patricia Parra presented two requests to extend the prosecution to JORGE CLAUDIO ANDRADE GÓMEZ and AQUILES MAURICIO GONZÁLEZ CORTÉS as authors of the qualified homicide of all the victims; JORGE CAMILO MANDIOLA ARREDONDO as author of the qualified homicide of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, and Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; HUGO JOSÉ HECHENLEITNER HECHENLEITNER and EGON ANTONIO BARRA BARRA as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez; RAFAEL DE JESÚS RIVEROS FROST as author of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; FRANCISCO JAVIER ORELLANA SEGUEL and JORGE FERNANDO RAMÍREZ ROMERO as authors of the qualified homicide of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala; and agents CARLOS ALBERTO EGUÍA LÓPEZ, LUIS RENÉ TORRES MÉNDEZ, PEDRO MARÍA ROJAS VÁSQUEZ, ZINAIDA LENA VICENCIO GONZÁLEZ, and AQUILES POBLETE PALOMINOS as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu. "It is more than proven in the files that more than a hundred agents participated in this massacre," asserts Javiera, and continues: "Among those prosecuted, the head of the CNI in Concepción is also not there, nor is the head of the CNI in Puerto Montt, nor Corbalán's second-in-command. That is why we are asking for justice. There are at least 26 people who are the most evident."

Source: El Mostrador, August 24, 2013

This September 23, the day we remember 24 years since the explosive homicide of Jaime Orellana and Nelson Lagos in Chillán, the reconstructions of the scenes of the crimes committed by the military of the Armed Forces on duty with the CNI were carried out, where they proceeded with exclusive dedication to plan and execute homicides, some massive like that of August 23, 1984.

With a large police deployment in which numerous PDI officers participated—some strangely hooded as in the dictatorship—and GOPE personnel, the reconstruction of the scene was carried out under the charge of Judge Carlos Aldana, who, in the company of his secretary lawyer David Bravo and the lawyer of the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of the Interior, Mrs.

Magdalena Garcés, participated in order to clarify the criminal acts in which the leaders of the MIR's Southern zone were executed on August 23, 1984. In each place where the proceedings were carried out—Hualpén, Concepción, and San Pedro—in addition to their families and friends, the Association of Political Executed MIR Members of Concepción and social organizations of Hualpén were present.

A large public from the sector and press from different media outlets gathered, who from a distance—cordoned off by the officers—were attentive to the movements that described the events that occurred in those homicides.

Let us remember that on this date, seven comrades, members of the MIR's Southern leadership, were executed in the operation called Alfa Carbón 1 by the security services of that time, whose objective was to eliminate the members of that MIR leadership.

During that simultaneous operation, Nelson Herrera and Mario Lagos were murdered in Concepción, Luciano Aedo Arias in Hualpén, Mario Mújica in Los Ángeles, and Juan José Boncompte, Rogelio Tapia, and Raúl Barrientos in Valdivia.

The executioners, members of the CNI, were commanded by Marcos Derpisch Miranda, an Army Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the operation, and seconded by Hugo José Hechenleitner, an Army Lieutenant Colonel, who appeared today at the scene of the events along with five other members of the former CNI to reconstruct the events at the corner of Calle Grecia and Nápoles in the current Hualpén Commune, where Luciano Aedo Arias was murdered.

Some of the names of the death squad that participated in the Alfa Carbón 1 operation in Concepción: 1. Marcos Derpisch Miranda: Army Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the operation. Today he continues working at the DINE (Army Intelligence Directorate). 2.

Hugo José Hechenleitner: Army Lieutenant Colonel, his alias was Antonio Martínez López. 3. Claudio Rodrigo Rosas Fernández: Army Lieutenant Colonel. 4. Víctor Manuel Muñoz Orellana: Army Sub-officer, his alias was Jaime Ricardo Marinovic Palma, and he was the one who shot Luciano Aedo. 5.

Álvaro Corbalán Castilla (Army Major). Today imprisoned at the Punta Peuco resort. 6. Francisco Zúñiga Acevedo: Army Officer. Already deceased, he left without paying. 7. Jorge Mandiola Arredondo: Army Major. 8.

Carlos Palma: Army Sub-officer. 9. Leandro Montenegro (Army Sub-officer), alias Farías. 10. Jorge Vargas: Civilian. 11. Miguel Gajardo: Civilian. 12. Andrés Caris: Carabineros Sub-officer. 13. Egon Barra: Carabineros Corporal. 14.

Rosa Humilde Ramos: Army Sub-officer. The most feared among her peers. They call her "La Mala" (The Bad One). 15. Teresa Osorio: Navy Sub-officer. These are those who acted in the massacre of Concepción and Hualpén, accompanied by another numerous contingent of CNI, Army, Carabineros personnel, and snitches.

In the case of Los Ángeles, where they murdered Mario Mújica, the following participated in the numerous contingent of evildoers: 1.- Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena 2.- José Artemio Zapata Zapata. Currently, it is believed that one of them—they say it has not been possible to establish which one—is living in Los Ángeles and the other in Concepción.

For a short time, they were detained and were in prison, but of course, after a short time, they were released and today they enjoy full freedom. After concluding in Hualpén, the group moved to the Vega Monumental sector, where Nelson Herrera and Mario Lagos were executed after having surrendered and descended with their hands held high from the bus in which they were traveling.

This fact is a clear example of how the rights of the detainee were violated, as they were unarmed and without the capacity for armed response, they were riddled with bullets in the presence of passersby and passengers of the bus in which they were traveling, which constitutes a double homicide.

After the reconstruction in Hualpén and Concepción was finished, the Judge and his work team moved to the El Recodo neighborhood on the road to Santa Juana, where the CNI proceeded to raid the house of Nelson Herrera's family, in which his wife, Patricia Zalaquett, was detained.

Today, Judge Aldana has obtained, in the presence of the accused, the details and characteristics of these crimes that were presented at that time to public opinion as "clashes" of terrorists against CNI officials, even though these evildoers had traveled expressly from Santiago to commit the illicit acts.

It should be noted, as Judge Aldana himself pointed out to the press, that this judicial case was archived in the Military Prosecutor's Office, from where it was recovered, apparently by the Government's Human Rights Department, to transfer it to the hands of the Civil Justice system, which will now have the task of prosecuting and passing sentence, although the Judge himself indicated that he does not rule out new proceedings.

The families of the political executed MIR members in Concepción expect a lot from the Judge; so far, all his conclusions in other cases implicate only the material executioners, the last link in the chain of command, the one who pulled the trigger, leaving the intellectual authors and commanders who gave the orders to murder unpunished.

That is why we hope that this chain of command reaches the High Commands of the institutions that had intelligence apparatuses with exclusive dedication to commit crimes, and those are even higher than Álvaro Corbalán Castilla himself (who excused himself from attending although he participated in the events), because this bandit did not act alone.

Today it transpired that the Judge had submitted to prosecution the second-in-command of the CNI, whom he had sent as a detainee to the Chacabuco Regiment; at the time of writing this note, it was only a rumor.

The orders to murder in a highly hierarchical and centralized armed institution could only come from the Intelligence General Staff with the due approval and authorization of the de facto Government of the coup-plotting military.

It is striking that the former MIR leaders of that time are once again not present supporting the families, nor are they part of the lawsuits for truth and justice, nor do they undertake initiatives against impunity; it is possible that they are hunting for votes instead of hunting criminals.

Source: Liberacion.cl, September 30, 2009

Alfa Carbón 1: Operation Albania of the South

The Court of Appeals is about to rule on the expansion of the indictment for "illicit association" against 13 former CNI agents involved in the execution of seven MIR members in 1984, murders that were presented at the time as "clashes." The judge presiding over the case only indicted two of the accused for "illicit association": Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

The following text was sent to CIPER by the victims' families and reconstructs the events based on the statements contained in the judicial file. Its authors aim to demonstrate that the "illicit association" included all the agents who acted in these operations.

The method of fake clashes to eliminate opponents was a common practice used by the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), the repressive agency of the military government. The detention, execution, and forced disappearance of prisoners—which the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the CNI's predecessor, used intensely and massively during the early years of the dictatorship—was replaced in subsequent years by the public execution of "internal enemies" and their subsequent presentation as clashes by the CNI.

The latter would detain and eliminate opponents in chosen locations, where the scene of the alleged clash was later staged. Alternatively, opponents were executed in ambushes prepared in advance. In both circumstances, the press covered the episodes with complicit enthusiasm.

The courts of justice ignored the investigations demanded by the victims' families or processed the cases in a foolish and negligent manner; in any case, the country has had to endure decades of proceedings to achieve judicial progress.

What follows accounts for the responsibility held by the courts of justice in clarifying the murder of seven MIR members in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles, which occurred on August 23 and 24, 1984, within the framework of Operation Alfa Carbón 1 or, as it has been called, the "southern Albania," in allusion to the well-known Operation Albania or Corpus Christi Massacre, with which the CNI murdered twelve members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez in June 1987.

The background information presented below does not constitute, according to the visiting judge presiding over the case, Carlos Aldana Fuentes, sufficient evidence to establish well-founded presumptions that the accused and defendants Hugo Salas Wenzel, Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, Jorge Andrade Gómez, and Aquiles González Cortés, among others, held responsibility and participation as perpetrators of the crimes committed under the charge of criminal illicit association.

Aldana also dismisses the responsibility as accomplices and accessories held by Miguel Ángel Parra Vásquez, then a CNI lawyer and responsible for instructing agents to provide false statements to the courts after the events occurred.

According to Aldana, there is insufficient evidence to consider that these agents participated as perpetrators, accomplices, or accessories in the crimes attributed to them, as required by Article 274 No. 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

On August 23, 1984, the CNI team led by Luís Hernán Gálvez Navarro began the second stage of Operation Alfa Carbón 1. At around 11:00, several CNI teams and a Televisión Nacional crew arrived in Hualpencillo, now Hualpén.

Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, a MIR leader in the Southern Theater of Operations, lived at 3346 Nápoles Street. After noon, at the intersection of Grecia and Nápoles, agents Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz and Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, along with Gálvez Navarro, got out of the vehicles in which they had followed him for months, shot him in the back, and finished him off on the ground.

Finally, according to witnesses, "after a while, many vehicles began to arrive, they checked his pockets, placed two small weapons near his body, some pamphlets, and some black objects like grenades" (fs. 3907, case file 746-84).

Alfa Carbón 1 had begun at the start of '84—or perhaps earlier—when Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, head of the CNI in Concepción, informed his superior Marcos Spiros Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI's Regional Division, that there was already sufficient data to confirm the presence of a subversive structure in the area: the Southern Theater of Operations (TOS) of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR).

Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (+), Derpich's second-in-command in the Regional Division, had directed the intelligence work for what would be the definitive dismantling of the MIR leadership in southern Chile.

Derpich and Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, then head of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Division (DAS), based at the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, would be in charge of commanding the operation. The report submitted by Mandiola included names, addresses, and organizational charts of the MIR members, among which were Aedo's details.

The autopsy report performed by forensic doctor César Reyes Contreras on August 24, 1984, at 8:30, confirmed that Luciano Aedo received seven bullet impacts: four in the back, head, left wrist, and left foot, and defined the precise and necessary cause of death as a projectile fired from a distance of more than fifty centimeters that entered through the back and exited through the chest, compromising the heart and lungs (fs. 234; 292).

Likewise, in his statement on September 13, the doctor noted that the projectile's trajectory suggests that Aedo was leaning forward, "as when running," and that the wounds in the back must have been inflicted when the thorax was very inclined, "almost horizontal to the ground" (fs. 17954). Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias was 34 years old, a father of four, and a member of the MIR.

Later, at around 16:00, in front of the Vega Monumental in Concepción, the driver Pedro Aguayo Aguayo was forced to stop his minibus. About thirty CNI agents and Carabineros personnel had surrounded the area.

In Talcahuano, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, military head of the TOS, and Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, political-military head of the TOS, had boarded it. A Televisión Nacional team was also taking positions.

Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, a former Army officer hired as a civilian employee of the CNI and second-in-command of the Special Brigade, ordered the passengers to get off. Only the driver did so. Faced with this, the officers began throwing tear gas canisters inside the vehicle, where about twelve people remained.

Ten got off. After a few minutes, Mario Lagos descended through the back door with his arms raised. Egon Antonio Barra Barra, a Carabineros corporal and member of the CNI's Special Brigade, got out of the vehicle in which they had followed the minibus, carrying an AK rifle.

Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, a Carabineros corporal and member of the CNI's Special Brigade, did the same. According to fs. 3646, both fired several shots, "the subject falling face down and dying in that place." They acted under the orders of Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner, then an Army lieutenant and head of the team, in front of the stunned gaze of some 500 witnesses.

The autopsy report for Mario Lagos Rodríguez revealed that he received two bullet impacts fired from more than fifty centimeters away: one in the left axillary area—which proves he had his arms raised at the moment of receiving it—and another in the posterior part of the right thigh. Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez was 34 years old, a father of three, and a member of the MIR.

Upon seeing him on the ground, Nelson Herrera tried to flee but was intercepted. The driver, Pedro Aguayo, declared on September 10, 1984: "I headed toward him and was a meter away from him. At that same moment, two agents arrived and lifted him by the arms.

The fallen man opened his eyes and looked at me head-on. He had no blood anywhere on his body, except for a scrape on the right temple, which could have been caused by the fall or the graze of a bullet [...] The two men who had approached him grabbed him tightly by the arms, lifted him up, and said he was wounded and had to be taken to the hospital" (fs. 18345).

José Abel Aravena Ruiz, a Carabineros non-commissioned officer and member of the Blue Brigade, commanded the team in charge of tracking Herrera and, together with Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, a civilian Army agent and member of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Division in Concepción; Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, a Carabineros corporal and operational guard at the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño; and a fourth agent to this day unidentified, whose alias was allegedly "Cárdenas," put him in a car and drove him toward Santa Juana.

There, in a vacant lot, Luis Andaur Leiva fired a shot into his forehead.

Nelson Herrera's autopsy concluded that the cause of death was a craniocerebral wound resulting from a point-blank shot, which penetrated the middle nasofrontal region and whose star-shaped appearance indicates it was inflicted from a distance of two or three centimeters.

Furthermore, it revealed the presence of bruising with blood infiltration on his wrists, indicating they were tied at the time of death. Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros was 30 years old, a father of one daughter, and a member of the MIR.

According to fs. 4601—and established at fs. 3089; 3419; 2700, and 2557—the day before the operation, "a meeting was held in which it was said who had to be detained and who had to be eliminated. In that meeting, photographs were placed, and those who had to be eliminated were marked with a cross; among these, Herrera and Lagos were pointed out." The meeting was led by Derpich and Mandiola, and the entire command participated, meaning, in addition to them: Corbalán, Gonzales Cortés, Krantz Johans Bauer Donoso, and "the CNI officer known at the Cuartel Borgoño specifically as ‘don Oscar,’ who corresponds to Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez." Krantz Bauer (+) was to be in charge of the teams that were going to operate in Los Ángeles, and for that reason, he moved that night to the regiment in that city.

At around 17:00 on August 23, Bauer Donoso received the order to operate and informed the teams under his command to proceed with the planned actions. Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, an Army non-commissioned officer and member of the Concepción DAS; José Artemio Zapata Zapata, a civilian Army agent and member of the Concepción DAS; and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, a civilian Army agent and member of the Caupolicán, Red, and Blue brigades, arrived at 841 Bombero Carlos Vyhmeister Street in the Orompello neighborhood, where Mario Mujica Barros, a MIR leader and member of the TOS, lived.

According to the file, the three members of the team commanded by Soto Aravena had arrived in the city of Los Ángeles the first week of August to follow him. On the day of the events, the team waited for him to leave his home, but Mujica did not move.

About twelve agents positioned themselves in front of and on the sides of the house, and once the perimeter was secured, the team initiated the attack by entering the home. Simultaneously, the other teams fired into the air to give the impression of a clash.

But, as stated at fs. 309, Mario Mujica was subdued inside his home, placed on his knees, and executed with a point-blank shot. Subsequently, and to continue with the facade, the agents continued firing, climbing onto the roofs of neighboring houses and stationing themselves in the rear alley, while a large number of Carabineros provided perimeter support (fs. 146; 191).

Mario Mujica's autopsy report indicated as the cause of death a bullet wound to the neck with involvement of the trachea and blood vessels, hemorrhage, and anemia. Likewise, Police Report No. 44 of the PDI's Criminalistics Department indicated that at the moment of receiving the lethal impact, Mario Mujica could have been at a lower height than the person who fired the shot, either crouching or on the floor, or partially with his back turned, with his head and neck inclined (fs. 390).

Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros was 32 years old, a father of one, and a member of the MIR.

As in Concepción, and according to fs. 392; 291, on August 22, 1984, a meeting was held in Valdivia to plan the operation in that city. The meeting was led by Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, an Army lieutenant and second-in-command of the Yellow Brigade; Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, an Army captain and head of the CNI in Valdivia; and Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, an Army captain and head of the CNI in Puerto Montt.

There, the teams that would operate the following day and the day after in the city were assigned.

On August 23, 1984, around noon, the three teams led by Patricio Castro detained Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, MIR leaders and members of the TOS, in downtown Valdivia.

The three groups formed a caravan along with two other teams, one of which was commanded by Moraga Tresckow, and headed along the route to Niebla to the Estancilla Bridge, where they stopped in the middle of an open field.

A red van was also in the caravan. There, one of the vehicles moved about two hundred meters toward Niebla to block traffic, while another did the same with the flow coming from Valdivia. The detainees, tied, blindfolded, and gagged, were forced to get out and were immediately murdered by about five or six shooters, the first of them being Patricio Castro.

He was followed by "Miguel Aliaga," Gerardo Meza Acuña, Francisco Orellana Segel, Fernando Ramírez Romero, Alberto Moraga Tresckow, and another agent to this day unidentified. Subsequently, these same agents fired at the red van that had parked nearby to simulate a clash.

Ernesto Arnoldo Barría Ordoñez, captain of the ferry Caupolicán, which followed an itinerary on the Valdivia River, noted that on that August 23, from noon, many vehicles with Santiago license plates began to pass, crossing from Las Mulatas toward Torobayo, and that in the afternoon, some people in civilian clothes who said they were from the CNI approached him, accompanied by several Carabineros.

They asked him to suspend service, and since there were orders from the Maritime Governorate, he had to obey. After about an hour and a half, a Carabineros chief told him to cross to pick up a hearse to transport the bodies of two MIR members who had died in a clash. "The hearse was black, but it had the Carabineros logo.

I asked a known Carabinero for authorization to see the bodies." There he recognized Barrientos, because they lived in the same neighborhood (fs. 287).

The autopsies confirmed that Rogelio Tapia received six bullet impacts in the face, thorax, and abdomen, and Raúl Barrientos, three impacts in the head and thorax. Rogelio Tapia de la Puente was 31 years old, a father of two daughters, and a member of the MIR. Raúl Barrientos Matamala was 23 years old and a member of the MIR.

The execution of Operation Alfa Carbón 1 culminated on August 24 at 643 Rubén Darío Street, in the Corvi neighborhood of Valdivia. The previous day, most of the teams that had moved to Valdivia were monitoring the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, a MIR leader and member of the TOS, waiting for him to leave so they could execute him.

Among them were the chiefs Boehmwald Soto, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, and Luís René Torres Méndez. However, Boncompte did not leave that day. The agents returned on the 24th with the order to enter his home.

Patricio Castro Muñoz entrusted Boehmwald Soto to lead the operation after noon. The team leaders, in addition to agents Patricio Castro, Pedro María Rojas Vásquez, Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, Aquiles Poblete Palominos, and Carlos Alberto Ejía López, among others, entered through the front door, while several teams surrounded the house and the entire block.

Eladio Washington Ilabel Poblete, a neighbor in the sector, noted that on the day of the events, he saw a black taxi park in front of Boncompte's house. Four individuals got out, knocked on the door, and entered.

After one or two minutes, he heard several shots: "Out of curiosity, I climbed onto the roof of my house and observed a man running toward the site (backyard) and he was riddled with bullets by several people, as many were coming from the front of the house.

I also remember that an armed woman approached the body of the shot person and lifted his nose, hearing her say: 'He was a pretty guy,' as if laughing, and then she shot him with her weapon" (fs. 286).

According to the autopsy, Boncompte had 22 bullet impacts: nine in the thorax, four in the arm, and two in the right forearm; three in the right thigh, three in the left leg, and one in the face. Juan José Boncompte Andreu was 31 years old, a father of two, and a member of the MIR.

Narda Flandes, also a neighbor of Boncompte, noted at fs. 279 that one of the subjects who shot him turned him over with his foot so he would be face up and, along with others, "threw his body into a bag. I left the place, running toward the corner to keep watching. In that interval, I saw when they took out a pregnant girl and put her in the van."

In the statement she provided on October 5, 1990, for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Inés Díaz Vallejos noted:

I, Inés Díaz Vallejos, born in Quillota, Chilean citizen, with date of birth April 25, 1952, identity card 7.152.059-5, Santiago, teacher by profession, with current address at Sodra Ledningsgatan 39, Lilla Edet, Sweden, come to declare that:

1) Approximately at 16:00 that day, a group of people dressed in civilian clothes appeared at our home. Some wore an armband that identified them as members of the Army. Those people entered our house when I opened the door.

My partner, Juan José, remained in the bedroom. I was assaulted by four or five of the people who entered and was thrown to the floor of the living room. While lying there, I heard firearms being fired inside the house.

At those moments, I was subjected to mistreatment by a group of those individuals. They demanded answers to questions about where there might be weapons, explosives, etc. I replied that I had no knowledge whatsoever about those things.

These people insisted that I answer, and for that, they subjected me to beatings and kicks all over my body. I must emphasize that when this happened, I was 28 weeks pregnant. I lived with Juan José and he is the father of my daughter.

After a while, I was removed from the house and taken to police facilities in Valdivia. That same day, almost at dusk, I was transferred again, this time to the men's prison in Valdivia. There I remained, always incommunicado. This lasted six days (although I remained) detained until the week of the birth in November 1984, without being accused or convicted.

2) On November 28, 1984, my daughter Javiera was born, affected by generalized spastic tetraparesis. This implies a state of total physical impairment that is irreparable. My daughter is not in a condition to use her legs or arms, nor can she speak.

The impairment is physical in nature. My daughter's mental capacity is intact, with an evident degree of intelligence. All medical evaluations indicate without a doubt that the physical disability is due to the mistreatment I received on August 24, 1984.

The judicial history of this case begins on that same August 23, 1984, in the military prosecutor's offices of Concepción and Valdivia with proceedings against the 16 MIR members detained in both cities and those responsible for the "unnecessary violence" that caused the deaths of Luciano Aedo, Mario Lagos, Nelson Herrera, Mario Mujica, Rogelio Tapia, Raúl Barrientos, and Juan José Boncompte.

That same year, Monsignor José Manuel Santos, Archbishop of Concepción—whose reports were picked up by Cauce magazine in a report titled "I Accuse"—requested a visiting judge from the Court of Appeals and, faced with its refusal, presented all the background information he could gather to the Supreme Court.

But the case remained in the military justice system, most of the time in charge of prosecutor Pedro Marisio, the same one who took statements from the detainees when they left the CNI barracks and went to prison.

Marisio interrogated six agents knowing they were using false names instructed by the lawyer Miguel Ángel Parra. Claudio Rodrigo Rozas Fernández, Antonio Martínez López, Jaime Marinovic Palma, Juan Machuca Fuenzalida, Ricardo Labórquez Maturana, and Raúl González López are the "aliases" they used.

In 1998, prosecutor Marisio dismissed the case, declaring that it was not possible to find the true identities of those responsible. The lawyer representing the families of the MIR members murdered in Concepción and Hualpencillo appealed, but the Martial Court confirmed the dismissal.

The lawyer then filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court, which ordered the investigation to continue. Only in 2003 did military prosecutor Fernando Grandón, faced with a new attempt at dismissal, request that the Fifth Department of the PDI be ordered to investigate.

It was the detectives of this brigade who found the first two names: Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner and Víctor Muñoz Orellana. Finally, in 2007, lawyer Magdalena Garcés took charge of representing the majority of the victims' families and managed to have the case transferred to the civil justice system.

In 2009, Judge Aldana reopened the process for the death of Mario Mujica—which had been dismissed in 1998—and in 2011, he consolidated the three cases (Valdivia, Concepción, and Los Ángeles) into one (12-2009 of the Concepción Court of Appeals) for qualified homicide and illicit association against Marcos Derpich, Álvaro Corbalán, and others.

On June 20, 2012, Judge Aldana resolved to indict only ÁLVARO CORBALÁN CASTILLA and MARCOS DERPICH MIRANDA for illicit association and, for qualified homicide, in addition to them, 13 agents (see list below).

At the beginning of 2013, Magdalena Garcés and Patricia Parra (lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, which also became a party to the process) presented two requests to expand the indictment.

The lawyers' requests are for the judge to expand the indictment for the crime of illicit association and to indict: JORGE CLAUDIO ANDRADE GÓMEZ and AQUILES MAURICIO GONZÁLEZ CORTÉS as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of all the victims; JORGE CAMILO MANDIOLA ARREDONDO as perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, and Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; HUGO JOSÉ HECHENLEITNER HECHENLEITNER and EGON ANTONIO BARRA BARRA as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez; RAFAEL DE JESÚS RIVEROS FROST as perpetrator of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; FRANCISCO JAVIER ORELLANA SEGUEL and JORGE FERNANDO RAMÍREZ ROMERO as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala; and agents CARLOS ALBERTO EGUÍA LÓPEZ, LUIS RENÉ TORRES MÉNDEZ, PEDRO MARÍA ROJAS VÁSQUEZ, ZINAIDA LENA VICENCIO GONZÁLEZ, and AQUILES POBLETE PALOMINOS as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu.

An illicit association composed of only two people, as Judge Aldana intends, is laughable in this context. Indeed, Article 292 of the Penal Code provides that any association formed with the object of attacking the social order, good customs, persons, or property constitutes a crime that exists by the mere fact of organizing.

Likewise, Article 293 of the Penal Code sanctions with the penalty of major imprisonment in any of its degrees the leaders, those who have exercised command, and their provocateurs when the agreement of wills has had as its object the perpetration of crimes, as is the case here.

Added to this, Judge Aldana has decided to prosecute only the "material" perpetrators of the case, ignoring both the rationality and hierarchy with which the repressive apparatuses functioned in Chile, as pointed out by the advances in jurisprudence in this regard.

To be able to judge the crimes committed by the Nazis, international jurisprudence replaced the distinction between material perpetrator and intellectual perpetrator with one that would allow accounting for the way complex organizations operate.

Currently, a distinction is made between the immediate perpetrator and the mediate perpetrator, who is, ultimately, the one who gives the order and "has control of the act." For this reason, the fact that Hugo Salas Wenzel (second head of the CNI), Jorge Mandiola Arredondo (head of the CNI in Concepción), Jorge Andrade Gómez (second head of the Anti-Subversive Division commanded by Corbalán), and Aquiles González Cortés (head of the Blue Brigade in charge of the extermination of the MIR) are not being prosecuted in this case, when their participation in the crimes is proven, constitutes sufficient proof to affirm that the courts lack the will and conviction to effectively investigate and punish the State agents who committed criminal offenses during the dictatorship.

The set of statements from witnesses, agents, and survivors is not sufficient for the judge, who seems to ignore that in human rights cases, obtaining the confession of the accused is almost impossible.

Therefore, the convictions in these cases are based not on conviction, but on the configuration of well-founded presumptions: the immediate and mediate perpetrators have not confessed nor will they confess their crimes, so if there are two or more statements indicating that an agent presided over a meeting and showed photographs marked with crosses; commanded a team and gave the order to execute; fired at a man who was in the street or inside his house, or occupies a place in the organizational charts that the agents themselves have drawn up to map the operational command of the CNI—as happens throughout the 20 volumes that make up the case—that person should be being prosecuted for both illicit association and qualified homicide.

Finally, even if Judge Aldana were to indict all the most obvious commanders and immediate perpetrators, as lawyers Garcés and Parra request, the convictions would be insufficient. Operation Alfa Carbón 1 involved around one hundred agents from Santiago, Concepción, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and other cities in the south of the country in a massacre that ended the lives of seven people and for which, currently, only 15 individuals are being tried.

What do the judge and the Chilean justice system need to recognize the logic of extermination that prevailed in Chile between 1973-1990 and proceed accordingly?

Source: Ciper, June 4, 2013

New indictments for the Los Ángeles episode in the Vega Monumental Case and for the Laja-San Rosendo Case

This Monday, it was reported by court sources that the Special Judge for Human Rights Cases of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Mr. Carlos Aldana Fuentes, decided to indict Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo as the perpetrator of the crimes of illicit association and qualified homicide committed against the person of Mario Mujica Barros within the framework of Operation Alfa Carbón, perpetrated by the CNI on August 23 and 24, 1984, against members of the anti-dictatorial resistance in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, and Valdivia.

Mandiola Arredondo, currently a retired Army lieutenant colonel, was at the time of the crimes the head of the CNI's Concepción Regional Brigade, which depended on the Regional Division of the repressive entity and whose direct superior was Marcos Spiros Derpich Miranda, who is already indicted in this case for the same crimes, but committed against Nelson Herrera Riveros, murdered in Concepción, on the road to Santa Juana.

Judge Aldana ordered the detention and preventive imprisonment of the former CNI regional head for his participation and direct responsibility in the execution of Mujica Barros in the city of Los Ángeles.

In that city, on August 23, '84, around 18:00, a large contingent of CNI agents commanded by the late Kranz Johans Bauer and following orders from the operation's commanders, among whom Mandiola acted, attacked the home of Mujica Barros located at 841 Bombero Vyhmeister Street, in the Orompello neighborhood of Los Ángeles, proceeding to subdue and execute the MIR militant.

The former CNI leader was admitted as a detainee to the facilities of the Chacabuco regiment in Concepción, awaiting the Court of Appeals' ruling regarding the provisional release granted to him by Judge Aldana.

The material executors of the homicide of Mario Mujica Barros were agents Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, José Artemio Zapata Zapata, and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost. The first two are indicted in the case for this crime, while the indictment of Riveros Frost has been denied (until now) by Judge Aldana.

As Resumen has reported in previous reports, Judge Aldana denied separate requests for indictments and expansion of indictments presented by the lawyer for the victims' families, Magdalena Garcés, and by the lawyer for the Human Rights program, Patricia Parra Poblete, but in both cases, those requests were rejected by Mr.

Aldana in January and April 2013, respectively. Following this denial, the lawyers appealed to the Concepción Court. After almost a year of delay, the Fourth Chamber of the Concepción Court ruled on Wednesday the 15th, denying the plaintiffs' request.

Among the people for whom their indictment was requested was the former head of the regional CNI, Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, since he had active and direct participation in the preparation of the criminal repressive operation, intervened directly in the execution of the operation from command positions exercised both in the CNI barracks located at the corner of Pedro de Valdivia and Bahamondes (in Concepción) and in the execution of the crimes in the field.

Mandiola allegedly gave the direct order for the execution of the operation against Mujica Barros in the city of Los Ángeles after having verified the completion of the Concepción phase of the extermination operation.

Likewise, Mandiola Arredondo had active participation in the cover-up of the crime, presenting the operation to public opinion and the courts as "clashes." All the background information that demonstrates this participation and incriminates Mandiola is in the case file, the families and lawyers have pointed out in their request.

However, until now, Aldana and the Court had denied the existence of sufficient merits to indict, in circumstances where there is more than enough evidence, as demonstrated by the very resolution issued by Judge Aldana regarding Mandiola.

It remains pending what resolution Judge Aldana will adopt in due course regarding the dozen requests he previously rejected and the twenty expansions he also previously rejected. It is to be hoped that the decisions he adopts and the news he generates in the future will be in the function of exercising justice for the victims and their families.

At the same time, in a parallel trial, Judge Aldana decided to indict former Carabineros officers Héctor Rivera and Luis Urrutia for the responsibilities they hold in the execution and illegal burial (disappearance) of 19 workers from the communes of Laja and San Rosendo, most of them workers at the Laja Paper Mill, who were executed by uniformed personnel and right-wing civilians in September 1973.

In addition, he proceeded to expand the indictment of the 10 Carabineros already indicted for the crime, who are now charged with the crime of illegal inhumation. Only the right-wing civilians and executives of the Paper Mill who enthusiastically participated in the reprisals and abuses against the workers continue to go unpunished.

Source: Resumen.cl, January 21, 2014

After having issued the indictment for the crimes of qualified homicide and illicit association, the minister for human rights cases, Carlos Aldana, ordered the arrest of the former head of the CNI in Concepción, retired Major Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, and arranged for his detention at the facilities of the Chacabuco Regiment. This Wednesday, the Court of Appeals granted his provisional release.

Due to well-founded presumptions of his participation as an indirect perpetrator in the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros and as a direct perpetrator in the crime of illicit association, within the framework of the Operation Alfa Carbón I case, the minister for human rights cases, Carlos Aldana, indicted the retired Army Major Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, who in 1984 was the Chief of the CNI Barracks in Concepción.

An arrest warrant was issued against him.

Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo graduated as an Army second lieutenant in December 1970. In 1975, he completed a military intelligence course at the Army Intelligence School. He was assigned on an extra-institutional commission to the DINA in 1976.

In 1982, he was attached to the CNI as head of the Concepción Barracks, located on Calle Pedro de Valdivia, with the operational name Ignacio Catalán Romero.

In the indictment, Minister Aldana states that according to Mandiola's own statements, on an unspecified date prior to the occurrence of the investigated events—August 23 and 24, 1984—he ordered and oversaw the investigation being carried out by agents of his unit and under his command regarding members of the MIR operating in Concepción and the surrounding areas, which he subsequently communicated to the Head of CNI Regionals, who referred it to the information analyst.

Subsequently, the head of regionals, the information analyst, and the head of the operational unit met at the barracks under his command in Concepción with CNI agents, at which time the method of operation was established and the individuals to be detained were determined.

He further adds that although the agents from the Santiago operational unit did not report to him, he provided his agents to work on the operation, creating mixed teams for such purposes.

Likewise, through confrontations, it was established that the CNI agents from Concepción, José Artemio Zapata Zapata and Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, from the moment they discovered the movements of the MIR members until the day of Mario Mujica Barros's death, communicated and kept Mandiola informed of everything that was happening, without prejudice to other internal communications that were taking place.

This demonstrates "that Mandiola had indirect control over the acts that his agents were carrying out."

In turn, the second-in-command of the Concepción CNI, Enrique Parada Figueroa, also mentions Mandiola as the one in charge. Another agent, Aquiles González Cortez, of the Azul Group, relates that when there was an operation outside the Metropolitan Region, they could provide support, but always under the command of the regional heads.

He says that this was what happened with the Southern Theater of Operations, in which the Azul Group provided equipment, but they were subordinate to the regional heads, in this case Mandiola, who was the head of Concepción.

It is for this reason that Jorge Mandiola is subjected to indictment and preventive detention as a co-perpetrator, in the capacity of a direct perpetrator, of the crime of illicit association, and in the capacity of an indirect perpetrator, of the qualified homicide of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros, which occurred in Los Ángeles.

Along with indicting him, Minister Aldana issued an arrest warrant against him to the Homicide Brigade of the PDI of Concepción, under threat of being declared a fugitive if he does not appear or is not found within 30 days.

Likewise, and given his status as a retired Army official, the facilities of the Chacabuco Regiment in Concepción will be enabled as a place of detention.

According to the statements made throughout the course of the investigation by Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, this operation, carried out on August 23 and 24, 1984, was the culmination of a long intelligence effort carried out by said repressive agency, which began in early 1984, when agents of his unit detected some members of a structure of the aforementioned movement, which, after a period of surveillance, allowed them to uncover an entire structure, names, addresses, contacts, and an organizational chart.

Although during the course of the investigation, Mandiola always tried to evade his responsibility for the deaths of the victims in Concepción and Los Ángeles, "repeating that their mission, as the CNI Concepción Barracks, was to investigate the subjects, obtain the maximum amount of background information, but not to kill them, nor to apprehend them, because they did not have the capacity," his participation was finally proven at least in the death of Mario Mujica, which occurred in Los Ángeles on August 23, 1984.

Source: Tribuna del Bío Bío, January 22, 2014

Concepción Court confirms sentence for 17 former CNI agents for the murder of resistance fighters against the dictatorship in Operation Alfa Carbón

In a resolution released today, the Concepción Court of Appeals ratified the sentences against 17 agents of the National Information Center (CNI) who were convicted in a first-instance ruling issued in May 2018 by Minister Carlos Aldana.

After more than four years of unjustified delays and obstructive maneuvers introduced by the criminals' lawyers, this stage of the process, which had remained stagnant in the tangle of courts, was brought to an end.

Darío Núñez

The case known as the "Vega Monumental Massacre" (docket No. 11-2009) substantiates the criminal investigation into the qualified homicides of seven militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) committed by agents of the defunct CNI on August 23 and 24, 1984, in a coordinated repressive action called "Operation Alfa Carbón" that took place in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia.

The repressive action culminated in the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, in the current commune of Hualpén; Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, in Concepción; Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros, in Los Ángeles; and Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente, Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, and Juan José Boncompte Andreu, in Valdivia.

In the ruling, the Sixth Chamber of the Concepción appellate court, composed of ministers Rodrigo Cerda San Martín, Rafael Andrade Díaz, and Claudia Montero Céspedes, rejected the cassation appeals filed by the criminals' lawyers and confirmed the sentence condemning six former Army officers who operated as commanders in the CNI.

Former Army Brigadier Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, alias "Gitano," head of the CNI Regional Division at the time of the events, and former Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, alias "Faraón," head of the CNI Anti-subversive division, were sentenced to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrators of all the qualified homicides and 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of illicit association.

Former Captain Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, alias "BJ," must serve a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison for the three homicides in Valdivia, and 5 years and one day as a co-perpetrator of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, at the time of the events regional head of the CNI Concepción, was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicides in Talcahuano, Concepción, and Los Ángeles. However, he was acquitted of the crime of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, regional head of the CNI Valdivia and material perpetrator of the crimes perpetrated at Puente Estancilla, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Former Major Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, regional head of the CNI Puerto Montt, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Meanwhile, agents Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, alias "Petete," and Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, alias "Vitoco," were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Luciano Aedo Arias committed in Hualpén.

Meanwhile, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, alias "Muñeca," Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, alias "Guatón Órdenes," Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Nelson Herrera Riveros committed at Km. One of the road to Santa Juana, in the Idahue sector.

The only person indicted and accused by Aldana for the qualified homicide of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, committed at the Vega Monumental, the criminal Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, alias "Baretta," was acquitted by the minister.

Regarding Los Ángeles, the ruling states that Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, alias "Chico Pato," and José Artemio Zapata Zapata, alias "Huaso," must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros.

While for the events in Valdivia, Gerardo Meza Acuña, alias "Patitas," and Luis René Torres Méndez, alias "Negro Mario," were sentenced to 15 years and one day as co-perpetrators of two qualified homicides committed at Puente Estancilla, on the road to Niebla, against Rogelio Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Barrientos Matamala.

For this same event, Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow was sentenced to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

Finally, Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto and Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, alias "Flaca Cecilia," were sentenced to 10 years and one day as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, committed in the Teniente Merino neighborhood.

Three of the criminals involved died in the period between the first-instance ruling and the Court's resolution; in September 2019, the convicted criminal José Zapata committed suicide; in July 2020, the also convicted Gerardo Meza Acuña died; and in December 2021, "Baretta," Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, died, who, unusually, although he had not been convicted by Aldana, his acquittal was appealed by the plaintiff lawyers.

Let us note that during the course of the process, Minister Aldana refused to indict Moraga Tresckow and Boehmwald Soto for illicit association, and in his first-instance ruling, he did not convict Mandiola Arredondo for this crime, the head of the CNI in Concepción and the manager of the concerted action of surveillance, tracking, and preparation of the operation that culminated in the crimes of August, in which, moreover, Mandiola actively participated.

Likewise, Minister Aldana refused to indict another dozen agents involved, a decision that was endorsed by the Concepción Court at the time.

Tribute act to the murdered militants. Concepción. Photograph by Natalia Figueroa.

Alfa Carbón

Precisely, in the investigation stage, Minister Aldana managed to establish that in 1984, the head of the CNI of Concepción, Army Major Jorge Mandiola, received information about the re-articulation in the area of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), managing to detect some of its leaders.

After informing Army Colonel Marcos Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI Regional Division, and obtaining confirmation of the fact, the director of the CNI, General Humberto Gordon Rubio (currently deceased), was informed, who determined that Army Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of the Anti-subversive Division and the Regional leadership, should coordinate the operations to neutralize the members of the MIR who were operating between the Biobío and Los Ríos regions, naming these actions "Operation Alfa Carbón."

As a result of the above, Corbalán Castilla ordered that several teams, integrated by agents from the different Brigades of the Borgoño Barracks in Santiago, composed of two or three people and with mobilization and financing provided by the Anti-subversive Division, move to Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, so that, in coordination with members of the CNI Regionals of said cities, they could carry out the tasks ordered by the different headquarters.

Likewise, he ordered his subordinate Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz to establish himself in Valdivia, in charge of the teams he brought from Santiago, to direct and carry out the operations in that region.

In parallel, and with the same purpose, Marcos Derpich Miranda ordered that the head of the CNI Chillán barracks, Héctor Reinoso Muñoz, join his counterpart in Concepción; Mandiola and the head of Puerto Montt, Oscar Boehmwald, together with two agents from his unit, were to report to the head of Valdivia, Moraga Tresckow, to support the respective operations.

Once in Concepción, the teams and heads who arrived in the city, plus those from this region, met in the days close to August 23, 1984, at the CNI barracks located on Avenida Pedro de Valdivia, where they coordinated the actions to be developed, being led by Álvaro Corbalán, Joaquín Molina (deceased), and Marcos Derpich.

In that meeting, the decision was made to carry out various raids and arrests (without judicial orders or judicial proceedings existing) and that the fate of the detainees depended on the degree of danger to the military regime prevailing in the country, assuming that some of these could end up dead.

This operation included repressive actions in Talcahuano and Concepción as well as in Los Ángeles, Temuco, Valdivia, and other locations in the southern zone.

The events

On the morning of August 23, 1984, several CNI teams set up surveillance actions on three members of the MIR at the Plazoleta El Ancla, in Talcahuano. One of them, Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, boarded a public transport bus in the direction of the Hualpencillo sector, where he got off the vehicle and tried to flee on foot, being intercepted by members of the CNI—around noon—at the corner of Grecia and Nápoles streets, where agent Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro shot him with a firearm he was carrying, causing him to fall wounded to the ground, with agent Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices approaching and finishing him off with a burst from his AKA 47 rifle in the back.

The other two MIR members detected and watched earlier in Talcahuano, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, boarded another bus heading to Concepción, who were followed by other CNI operational teams, which on the way coordinated with the Carabineros to intercept the bus—which was carrying passengers—in front of the Vega Monumental.

Upon the vehicle's arrival at that location, the CNI members intercepted the bus and ordered everyone to get off the public transport vehicle, but as some refused, including those being pursued, they threw tear gas bombs.

When they descended, they shot Herrera and Lagos, causing them wounds. Lagos Rodríguez tried to flee, so an agent shot him with the AKA rifle he was carrying, causing his death on the spot.

For his part, Herrera Riveros was apprehended by CNI agents Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Luis Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos, who put him into one of their vehicles and headed to the Concepción Regional Hospital for the treatment of his wounds.

However, during the journey, Derpich Miranda ordered his execution, so they took him to kilometer 0.9 of the road to Santa Juana, where they took him out of the vehicle and Aravena Ruiz ordered Andaur Leiva to execute the crime; he shot him with his revolver in the forehead, causing a craniocerebral gunshot wound, which caused his instantaneous death.

Around 5:30 p.m. on the same day, once the Concepción CNI agents José Zapata Zapata and Bruno Soto Aravena, who were following Mario Mujica Barros, together with several teams led by the deceased Karl Johans Bauer, following the instructions of their chief Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, approached Mujica Barros's home in the Orompello neighborhood of Los Ángeles.

They entered the property by surprise and violently, shooting the victim in the head while he was on the ground, causing his death.

Meanwhile, at around 4:00 p.m. on August 23, 1984, CNI operational teams that arrived from Santiago, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, arrested Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Jaime Barrientos Matamala near the Las Ánimas Bridge, in the city of Valdivia.

Subsequently, they crossed the Calle Calle River on a ferry and transported them to the Estancilla Bridge, located on the road from Valdivia to Niebla, in the Torobayo sector, a place where traffic for all vehicles and people had previously been cut off by the Carabineros, and in circumstances where the detainees were tied by their hands and blindfolded, the agents proceeded to execute them, by order of Castro Muñoz, with him shooting, in addition to agents Luis René Torres Méndez and Gerardo Meza Muñoz and others not identified in the process.

Likewise, the regional head of the CNI of Valdivia, Luis Moraga Tresckow, who had allegedly refused to shoot, upon the repeated order of Castro Muñoz, finished them off. The victims received multiple projectile wounds, some of which struck Tapia de la Puente and Barrientos Matamala in the skull and thorax. Subsequently, weapons were placed in the hands of the deceased to simulate a confrontation.

The following day, August 24, 1984, around 3:00 p.m., several CNI operational teams, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, surrounded the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, located in the Teniente Merino neighborhood of Valdivia, entering it to arrest Boncompte Andreu, who tried to flee from his captors, being wounded by shots from Oscar Boehmwald Soto, falling to the ground, where agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez shot him with her firearm in the head, causing his death.

Source: resumen.cl, June 10, 2022

Supreme Court confirms sentences of 15 CNI agents for crimes of Operation Alfa Carbón

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentences against 15 former agents of the National Information Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of seven militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) perpetrated on August 23 and 24, 1984, in a coordinated repressive action that took place in the cities of Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, called "Operation Alfa Carbón" by the repressive organs, but popularly known as the "Vega Monumental Massacre."

The repressive operation culminated on August 23 with the murder of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, 34 years old, committed in the current commune of Hualpén; in Concepción, in front of the Vega Monumental, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, 30, and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, 34, were killed.

On the same day in Los Ángeles, Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros, 32, was murdered, and in Valdivia, Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente, 31, and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, 23, were executed. The following day, Juan José Boncompte Andreu, 31, was executed.

In addition to this, as part of the repressive offensive, dozens of people, militants and resistance members against the dictatorship, were detained in the aforementioned cities and in other towns and localities in the south.

In a unanimous ruling (docket No. 75.716-2022), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito Cruz, Jorge Dahm Oyarzún, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, lawyer (i) Leonor Etcheberry C., and lawyer (i) Gonzalo Ruz L.—rejected the cassation appeals in form and substance filed by eight of the convicted criminals and ruled out any error of law in the challenged sentence, issued by the Concepción Court of Appeals in June 2022 (docket 325-2019), which ratified the first-instance sentence issued in May 2018 (docket 11-2009) and convicted the accused for their responsibility in the crimes.

The criminals

With this resolution, the Second Chamber confirms the sentence convicting the 15 former CNI agents; two other individuals convicted in the first instance died during the course of the process. The convicted are six former Army officers who operated as commanders in the CNI, former Brigadier Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, at the time of the events head of the CNI Regional Division, and former Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, head of the CNI Anti-subversive division, who were sentenced to 20 years in prison as co-perpetrators of all the qualified homicides and 5 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of illicit association.

Former Captain Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, alias "BJ," must serve a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison for the three qualified homicides committed in Valdivia; and 5 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of illicit association.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, at the time of the events regional head of the CNI Concepción, was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicides committed in Talcahuano, Concepción, and Los Ángeles.

Former Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, at the time of the events regional head of the CNI Valdivia, and material perpetrator of the crimes perpetrated at Puente Estancilla, in Valdivia, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Former Major Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, regional head of the CNI Puerto Montt, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the qualified homicide perpetrated in the city of Valdivia against Juan José Boncompte Andreu.

Meanwhile, agents Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro and Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices are sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Luciano Aedo Arias committed in Hualpén.

Meanwhile, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Nelson Herrera Riveros committed at Km.

One of the road to Santa Juana, in the Idahue sector. The only person indicted and accused by the investigating minister Carlos Aldana for the qualified homicide of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, committed at the Vega Monumental, the criminal Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, was acquitted by the minister. Later, in the course of the process, this individual died in December 2021.

Regarding the crime committed in Los Ángeles, agent Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Mario Mujica Barros.

The other individual convicted in the first instance to the same sentence for this crime, José Artemio Zapata Zapata, committed suicide in September 2019. For the criminal acts committed in Valdivia, agent Luis René Torres Méndez was sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the two qualified homicides committed at Puente Estancilla, on the road to Niebla, against Rogelio Tapia De La Puente and Raúl Barrientos Matamala.

For this same event, agent Gerardo Meza Acuña had also been convicted in the first instance to the same sentence, but this individual died in July 2020. Finally, in addition to Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, committed in the Teniente Merino neighborhood.

Let us note that in the course of the process (docket 11-2009), Minister Carlos Aldana refused to indict another dozen agents involved in the criminal acts, a decision that was endorsed at the time by the Concepción Court of Appeals.

Likewise, Minister Aldana refused to indict the implicated officers Luis Moraga Tresckow and Oscar Boehmwald Soto for illicit association; and for this crime, despite indicting him, he did not convict Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, the head of the CNI in Concepción and the manager of the concerted action of surveillance, tracking, and preparation of the operation that culminated in the crimes of August, in which Mandiola Arredondo actively participated.

In addition, the convicted criminal Patricio Castro Muñoz tried to question the legality of the judicial process and the sentence against him, and appealed last October to the Constitutional Court (TC), invoking unconstitutionality flaws in the trial and the sentence that affected him.

However, on January 9 of this year, the TC ruled, declaring the appeal filed by the criminal and his representative inadmissible, rejecting the petition.

Operation Alfa Carbón

In the investigation stage, it was proven that at the beginning of 1984, the head of the CNI of Concepción, Major Jorge Mandiola, received information about the re-articulation in the area of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), managing to detect some of its leaders and a large number of militants and resistance members.

After informing his superior, Colonel Marcos Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI Regional Division, and having confirmed the detection of the MIR organization in the south, they informed the director of the CNI, General Humberto Gordon Rubio (currently deceased), who determined that Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of the Anti-subversive Division, should coordinate with the Regional leadership to carry out operations aimed at neutralizing the members of the MIR who were operating between the Biobío and Los Ríos regions, naming these actions "Operation Alfa Carbón."

As a result of the above, Álvaro Corbalán ordered that several teams, integrated by agents from different Brigades of the Borgoño Barracks (Azul, Amarillo, Verde, Café, and Especial) in Santiago, composed of two or three people and with mobilization and financing provided by the Anti-subversive Division, move to Concepción, Los Ángeles, Temuco, and Valdivia, so that, in coordination with members of the CNI Regional units of said cities, they could carry out the tasks ordered by the different headquarters.

Likewise, Corbalán ordered his subordinate Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, deputy head of the Amarillo, to establish himself in Valdivia, in charge of the teams he brought from Santiago, to direct and carry out the operations in that region.

In the same way, he ordered Krantz Johans Bauer, deputy head of the Especial, to establish himself in Los Ángeles to take charge of the operational work, supported by joint teams from Santiago and the Regionals.

In parallel, and with the same purpose, Marcos Derpich Miranda ordered that the head of the CNI Chillán barracks, Héctor Reinoso Muñoz, and agents of his unit, join his counterpart in Concepción, and that the head of Puerto Montt, Oscar Boehmwald, together with agents of his unit, report to the head of Valdivia to support the repressive operations.

With the information accumulated through tracking, surveillance, and wiretaps, the CNI commanders decided to strike the final blow. In the days prior to the event, led by Álvaro Corbalán, Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (deceased), Marcos Derpich, and others, they met at the CNI barracks located at Calle Bahamondes and Avenida Pedro de Valdivia, in Concepción, the commanders, the heads, and the teams that arrived in the city, plus the local agents, an instance in which the actions to be developed were coordinated.

In that meeting, the decision was made to carry out various raids and arrests (without judicial orders or proceedings regarding this) and that the fate of the detainees depended on the degree of danger to the military regime prevailing in the country.

There, the CNI commanders established which MIR members would be eliminated and who would be detained at the moment of "bursting" or executing the operation. This operation included repressive actions in Talcahuano and Concepción as well as in Los Ángeles, Temuco, Valdivia, and other locations in the southern zone.

The events

The date chosen by the CNI commanders was August 23, 1984. On the morning of the 23rd, in Concepción, several CNI teams set up surveillance actions on three members of the MIR, who converged at a restaurant located at the Plazoleta El Ancla, in Talcahuano. They were Nelson Herrera, Mario Lagos, and Luciano Aedo.

Around noon, one of them, Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, boarded a public transport bus in the direction of the Hualpencillo sector where he resided, a place where he got off the bus upon noticing the conspicuous surveillance, and tried to flee on foot, being intercepted by CNI agents at the corner of Grecia and Nápoles streets.

At that moment, agent Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro shot him with a firearm he was carrying, causing Luciano to fall wounded to the ground; then agent Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices approached the fallen man and finished him off with a burst in the back with an AKA 47 rifle.

A couple of hours later, and without perceiving what was happening outside, the other two MIR members detected and watched at the restaurant in Talcahuano, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros and Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, boarded another bus heading to Concepción, who were followed by other CNI operational teams, which on the way coordinated with the Carabineros to intercept the bus—which was carrying passengers—in front of the Vega Monumental.

Upon the vehicle's arrival at that location, the CNI members intercepted the bus and ordered everyone to get off the public transport vehicle, but as some people refused, including those being pursued, they threw tear gas bombs inside the bus, forcing its evacuation.

Once the passengers got off, the two MIR members descended from the bus with their hands up, but the CNI agents shot Herrera and Lagos on the spot, causing them wounds. Mario Lagos tried to flee, so an agent shot him with the AKA rifle he was carrying, causing his death on the spot.

For his part, Nelson Herrera Riveros was apprehended by CNI agents Sergio Mateluna Pino, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Luis Andaur Leiva, and Patricio Alfredo Bertón Campos, who put him into one of their vehicles and—as part of the setup—announced aloud that they would head to the Concepción Regional Hospital for the treatment of the detainee's wounds.

However, they deviated from the route and took him to kilometer 0.9 of the road to Santa Juana, where they took him out of the vehicle and Aravena Ruiz ordered Andaur Leiva to execute the crime; he shot him with his revolver in the forehead, causing a craniocerebral gunshot wound, which caused his instantaneous death, just as Derpich Miranda had ordered them by radio.

To culminate the farce, the executioners headed with the murdered man to the Regional Hospital and admitted him through the emergency room, already deceased. The agents left Nelson Herrera at the hospital handcuffed behind his back. Later they returned to release and recover the handcuffs.

Los Ángeles

In Los Ángeles, around 5:30 p.m. on the same day, the 23rd, once the Concepción CNI agents José Zapata Zapata and Bruno Soto Aravena, who were following Mario Mujica Barros, together with several teams led by the deceased Krantz Johans Bauer, following the instructions of their chief Jorge Camilo Mandiola Arredondo, approached Mujica Barros's home in the Orompello neighborhood of Los Ángeles.

They entered the property by surprise and violently, shooting the victim in the head while he was on the ground, causing his death.

Valdivia

Meanwhile, in Valdivia at around 4:00 p.m. on August 23, CNI operational teams that arrived from Santiago, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, arrested Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Jaime Barrientos Matamala near the Las Ánimas Bridge, in the city of Valdivia.

Subsequently, they crossed the Calle Calle River on a ferry and transported them to the Estancilla Bridge, located on the road from Valdivia to Niebla, in the Torobayo sector.

In that place, where traffic for all vehicles and people had previously been cut off by the Carabineros, and in circumstances where the detainees were tied by their hands and blindfolded, the agents proceeded to execute them, by order of Castro Muñoz, with him shooting, in addition to agents Luis René Torres Méndez and Gerardo Meza Muñoz and others not identified in the process.

Likewise, the regional head of the CNI of Valdivia, Luis Moraga Tresckow, who in principle had allegedly refused to shoot, upon the imperative order of Castro Muñoz, finished them off with shots from his weapon.

The victims received multiple projectile wounds, some of which struck Tapia de la Puente and Barrientos Matamala in the skull and thorax. Subsequently, weapons were placed in the hands of the deceased to simulate a confrontation.

The following day, August 24, around 3:00 p.m., several CNI operational teams, led by Patricio Castro Muñoz, surrounded the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, located on Calle Rubén Darío, in the Teniente Merino neighborhood of Valdivia, entering it to eliminate Boncompte Andreu, who tried to flee from his captors through the backyard of the house, being wounded by Oscar Boehmwald Soto.

In the backyard, other agents were waiting in ambush for him and also shot him; already on the ground, agent Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez finished him off, shooting him with her firearm in the head, ensuring his death. Juan José Boncompte received 22 bullet impacts.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, March 5, 2024