The DINA Lautaro Brigade was an extermination unit established by Manuel Contreras and led by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado. This brigade operated from the clandestine barracks at Calle Simón Bolívar 8630.

The actions of this group of DINA agents known to date include the capture of the Communist Party leadership in 1976. The brigade operated with a contingent of more than 70 members, whose operational members carried out the gathering of information, arrests, interrogations/torture, execution, and the disappearance of the detainees' bodies.

For these purposes, they had access to a large infrastructure; in addition to the barracks themselves, they had a varied number of vehicles at their disposal, as well as access to Puma helicopters from the Army Aviation Command (CAE), which operated from Peldehue.

The members of the Lautaro Brigade came from the four branches of the Armed Forces, in addition to having some civilian agents attached to the various branches. Its composition was mostly non-commissioned officers.

The fact that there were at least seven agents from the Navy in this brigade makes it clear that the institution lied when it declared that the Navy withdrew all its personnel from the DINA in 1975. Another characteristic of the Lautaro Brigade is that it included a large number of women, who, as has been discovered, were characterized by their coldness and cruelty in the face of the crimes.

Several of them, due to their knowledge of medicine and nursing, cooperated in the experiments carried out in the chemical laboratory at Michael Townley's house in Lo Curro. Townley constantly attended the Calle Simón Bolívar barracks to experiment on detainees with the gas manufactured by the chemist Eugenio Berríos.

The information that has been recovered as of August 2007 appears after the investigation of the “Calle Conferencia” case carried out by Judge Víctor Montiglio, who managed to establish the fate of a number of detainees from the Communist Party leadership, among them the general secretary of the PC in hiding, Víctor Manuel Díaz López, as well as Bernardo Araya Zuleta, María Olga Flores Barraza, Mario Zamorano Donoso, Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortés, Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, Elisa Escobar Cepeda, Lenín Adán Díaz Silva, Eliana Espinoza Fernández, and Marta Lidia Ugarte Román. To date, it has been established that Víctor Manuel Díaz López was arrested in the early hours of May 12, 1976, at the house located at Calle Bello Horizonte No. 979, in the Las Condes district, days after the arrest of several PC leaders detained in the operation known as the “Ratonera” at Calle Conferencia No. 1587. Víctor Díaz was taken to the Villa Grimaldi torture center and subsequently transferred to “Casa de Piedra,” another DINA torture center located in the Cajón del Maipo, a place where it is known that Augusto Pinochet allegedly visited Víctor Díaz and other PC leaders detained there. At the beginning of 1977, Manuel Contreras gave the order to Juan Morales Salgado to eliminate Víctor Díaz, and in compliance with that order, agents Sergio Escalona Acuña and Bernardo Daza Navarro took Díaz out of a cell and tied a plastic bag over his head, suffocating him, while Army Lieutenant (nurse) Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño injected him with cyanide. Subsequently, they proceeded to place the body in plastic bags, tie it up, attach a piece of rail to it, and put it into potato sacks, then tie it with wire to ensure the bindings would not open. The body was transported in vehicles to the Army regiment in Peldehue, where they had other executed individuals brought from Villa Grimaldi and tied in the same way as Víctor Díaz. They loaded the bodies into the Army Aviation Command's Puma helicopter and set off toward the coast of the Fifth Region to throw the bodies into the sea. This mode of operation by the agents of the Lautaro Brigade demonstrates the brutality and dehumanization of all its members. Below is the list of some of the agents of the Lautaro Brigade.

1 Acevedo Acevedo, Heriberto del Carmen - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 2 Ahumada Despouy, Joyce Ana - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 3 Altamirano Sanhueza, Orlando del Tránsito - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 4 Alvarez Droguett, Victor Manuel - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 5 Alvarez Vega, Hiro - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 6 Arriagada Mora, Jorge Hugo - FACH - Civilian employee (Ret.) 7 Aspe Rojas, Celinda Angélica - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 8 Benavides Escobar, César Raúl - Army - General (Ret.) 9 Bermúdez Méndez, Carlos Justo - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 10 Bitterlich Jaramillo, Pedro Segundo - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 11 Cabezas Mardones, Eduardo Patricio - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 12 Calderón Carreño, Gladys de las Mercedes - Army - Officer (Ret.) and nurse 13 Castro Andrade, Sergio Hernán - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 14 Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Federico Humberto - Army - Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) 15 Daza Navarro, Bernardo del Rosario - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 16 Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Iván - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 17 Díaz Ramírez, Guillermo Eduardo - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 18 Escalona Acuña, Sergio Orlando - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 19 Escobar Fuentes, Jorge Marcelo - Army - Brigadier (Ret.) 20 Ferrán Martínez, Guillermo Jesús - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 21 Garea Guzmán, Eduardo - Army - Civilian employee (Ret.) 22 Guerrero Aguilera, Gustavo Enrique - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 23 Guerrero Soto, María Angélica - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 24 Gutiérrez Valdés, Pedro Antonio - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 25 Jaime Astorga, Rufino Eduardo - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 26 Jiménez Escobar, Berta Yolanda - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 27 Krassnoff Martchenko, Miguel - Army - Brigadier (Ret.) 28 Lagos Yáñez, Luis Alberto - FACH - Civilian employee (Ret.) 29 Lawrence Mires, Ricardo Víctor - Carabineros - Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) 30 López Tapia, Carlos José - Army - Colonel (Ret.) and Army Prof. 31 Magna Astudillo, Elisa del Carmen - Army - Officer (Ret.) 32 Manríquez Manterola, Jorge Lientur - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 33 Marcos Muñoz, Carlos Segundo - Civilian - attached to the Army 34 Meza Serrano, José Miguel - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 35 Montre Méndez, Manuel Antonio - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 36 Morales Salgado, Juan Hernán - Army - Colonel (Ret.) and Army Prof. 37 Navarro Navarro, Teresa del Carmen - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 38 Obreque Henríquez, Manuel Jesús - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 39 Ojeda Obando, José Alfonso - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 40 Orellana de la Pinta, Claudio Orlando - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 41 Oyarce Riquelme, Eduardo Alejandro - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 42 Pacheco Fernández, Claudio Enrique - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 43 Pichunmán Curiqueo, Jorge Segundo - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 44 Piña Garrido, Juvenal Alfonso - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 45 Reyes Lagos, Eduardo Antonio - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 46 Rinaldi Suárez, Carlos Ramón - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 47 Rivas González, Adriana Elcira - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 48 Riveros Valderrama, René Miguel - Army - Officer (Ret.) 49 Saavedra Vásquez, Orfa Yolanda - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 50 Sagardía Monje, Jorge Laureano - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 51 Sarmiento Sotelo, José Manuel - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 52 Silva Vergara, Marilin Melahani - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 53 Sovino Maturana, Hernán Luis - Army - Captain (Ret.) 54 Torrejón Gatica, Orlando Jesús - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 55 Troncoso Vivallos, Emilio Hernán - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 56 Urrutia Acuña, Luis Arturo - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 57 Vacarella Gilio, Italia Donata - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 58 Valdebenito Araya, Héctor Manuel - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 59 Vilches Muñoz, Ana del Carmen - FACH - Civilian employee (Ret.)

Manuel Contreras, Pedro Espinoza, and Miguel Krassnoff are among those identified as responsible for the Human Rights case. Miguel Vázquez, the visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, determined the responsibility of 79 former members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) in the aggravated kidnapping of seven people and the aggravated homicide of Víctor Díaz López, events that occurred between May 1976 and January 1977 and which make up the so-called Conferencia Case.

The eight crimes were perpetrated in operations carried out by the secret police of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship at Calle Conferencia 1587, in the Santiago district; Gaspar de Orense 993, in the Quinta Normal district; Bello Horizonte 979, in the Las Condes district, and the Simón Bolívar 8800 barracks, in the La Reina district.

Those identified as responsible for the disappearance of Mario Zamorano Donoso, Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortés, Jaime Donato Avendaño, Elisa Escobar Zepeda, Lenin Díaz Silva, and Eliana Espinoza Fernández, and the death of Víctor Díaz López are: Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Carlos López Tapia, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Jorge Madariaga Acevedo, Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez, José Fuentealba Saldías, Hugo Clavería Leiva, José Soto Torres, Raúl Soto Pérez, Juan Carlos Escobar Valenzuela, Jerónimo Neira Méndez, Héctor Briones Burgos, Pedro Mora Villanueva, Roberto Rodríguez Manquel, Leonidas Méndez Moreno, Jorge Andrade Gómez, Nelson Herrera Lagos, Juan Morales Salgado, Jorge Sagardía Monje, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Federico Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Bernardo Daza Navarro, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Guillermo Ferrán Martínez, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Jorge Díaz Radulovich, Orlando Altamirano Sanhueza, Eduardo Cabezas Mardones, Jorge Escobar Fuentes, René Riveros Valderrama, Jorge Pichunmán Curiqueo, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Celinda Aspe Rojas, Teresa Navarro Navarro, Berta Jiménez Escobar, Adriana Rivas González, Jorge Arriagada Mora, Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo, Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme, Guillermo Díaz Ramírez, Ana Vilches Muñoz, Italia Vacarella Gilio, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, Orlando Torrejón Gatica, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Manuel Obreque Henríquez, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, Eduardo Garea Guzmán, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Rufino Jaime Astorga, Luis Lagos Yáñez, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Sergio Castro Andrade, Manuel Montre Méndez, Pedro Gutiérrez Valdés, Claudio Orellana de la Pinta, Joyce Ahumada Despouy, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Miguel Meza Serrano, José Ojeda Obando, Carlos Bermúdez Méndez, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Eduardo Reyes Lagos, Marilin Silva Vergara, Hernán Sovino Maturana, José Friz Esparza, Carlos Miranda Mesa, Camilo Torres Negrier, Orlando Inostroza Lagos, Carlos López Inostroza, José Seco Alarcón, Lionel Medrano Rivas, Juan Suazo Saldaña. The plaintiffs in the Conferencia case, the State Defense Council (CDE) and the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, were notified to adhere to Vázquez's accusation or present another one in particular. Once these are defined, the defense teams of the accused will be notified for the plenary stage prior to the first-instance sentence.

JUDGE CARROZA'S PROCEEDING

Meanwhile, the visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, indicted former lieutenant Kenny Aravena Sepúlveda for his responsibility in the homicides of Jorge Pacheco Durán, Denrio Álvarez Olivares, and Ernesto Mardones, which occurred on December 19, 1973.

According to the document, a military patrol removed the deceased from the Santiago Public Prison to transfer them to the Buin No. 1 regiment under the charge of Aravena, and an hour later the officer left the bodies of the three detainees at the Legal Medical Service (SML).

Carroza also issued an indictment for the homicides of Luis Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán, which occurred in September 1973, holding Pedro Silva Jiménez, Jaime García Zamorano, Jorge Muñoz Pontony, and Pedro Rivera Piña responsible for the crimes. "On September 27, 1973, a military patrol went to the Chilean Autos company and proceeded to arrest two of its workers, union leaders, Luis Ricardo Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán; immediately afterward, they transferred them to the facilities of the Army War Academy (...) subsequently, without any justification, the officers Major Jorge Muñoz Pontony and Captain Benjamín Araya Pérez ordered Captain Jaime García Zamorano and second soldiers Pedro Rivera Piña and Pedro Silva Jiménez to execute the detainees," the investigation indicates.

Source: 24horas.cl, October 22, 2013

“Calle Conferencia” Case: Judge Vázquez issued accusations against 79 former DINA agents

The Minister of the Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez, who is investigating the “Calle Conferencia” case, issued an accusation against 79 former DINA agents for the disappearance of 7 Communist Party militants between May 1976 and January 1977, a list that includes Manuel Contreras, Pedro Espinoza, and Miguel Krassnoff.

The victims of the repressors correspond to the first political commission that the PC organized in hiding during the dictatorship: Mario Zamorano Donoso, Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortés, Jaime Donato Avendaño, Elisa Escobar Zepeda, Lenín Díaz Silva, and Eliana Espinoza Fernández; and for the aggravated homicide of Víctor Díaz López.

Vázquez's resolution, which continued the investigations of judges Juan Guzmán and Víctor Montiglio, constitutes one of the last actions prior to the first-instance sentence for the aggravated kidnappings. According to Cooperativa, the list of the 79 accused is as follows: [List of 79 names omitted for brevity, identical to the list above]

Source: The Clinic, October 22, 2013

“MAMO” SECRETARY AMONG 53 ACCUSED IN CONFERENCIA CASE

The woman requested for extradition from Australia, Adriana Rivas, appears along with other women such as the so-called “Doctor Hoffman” among those indicted for the extermination of the Communist Party leadership at the hands of DINA brigades.

A raw account that includes the action of military personnel in the exhumation of bodies from Cuesta Barriga under the protection of Carabineros, and the active participation of, among others, the extraditable Adriana Rivas, former secretary of Manuel Contreras, is included in Judge Miguel Vásquez's accusation against 53 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) in the “Calle Conferencia Two” case.

Rivas remains in Australia and her extradition has been requested since last Thursday, January 16, by the Supreme Court at the request of the visiting judge who has her among those indicted in this proceeding for the extermination of the second Communist Party leadership in 1976.

In September 2013, the woman who formally served as secretary to the director of the DINA made statements to the Australian broadcaster SBS that caused a stir by saying that she defended torture and, furthermore, pointed out that those years when she belonged to the repressive apparatus were the best of her youth.

Considered an agent of the Lautaro Brigade, the woman in that conversation indicated that torture in her country during the Augusto Pinochet regime was “an open secret” and described it as a “necessary” technique to “break people.”

DOCTOR HOFFMAN IS ALSO AMONG THE ACCUSED

The resolution considers 10 other women, all indicated as participants in the torture of political detainees, who were later murdered and disappeared, among them Berta Jiménez, Celinda Aspe, and Gladys Calderón, who allegedly acted by inoculating toxic elements and was known as “Doctor Hoffman.” In part of the document, one of the testimonies is highlighted, which established that “Adriana Rivas and Berta Jiménez were operatives” and that although “on paper all the women were secretaries,” it is noted that “the truth is that they were operatives” and that “Celinda Aspe was the most operative of the female agents.”

AT THE GATES OF SENTENCING

The process, which is advancing by leaps and bounds toward sentencing, indicates that starting on December 13, 1976, DINA brigades captured Fernando Navarro Allendes, Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, and Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina in various operations.

The construction of the case carried out by the magistrate indicates that they were all taken to the Simón Bolívar barracks in La Reina, where they were interrogated under torture, then disappeared, and that minimal remains of some of them were found at illegal burial sites.

THE DETAIL WITH THE LIST OF THE ACCUSED

[List of accused individuals and charges omitted for brevity]

Source: La Nación, February 7, 2014

“Mamo” Secretary among 53 accused in Conferencia case

The emblematic case of the Medical Technologist and leader of the Sótero del Río Hospital advances with the presentation of charges for the aggravated kidnapping of the members of the Simón Bolívar barracks.

It includes “Mamo” and Pedro Espinoza. The entire staff of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and those who were in charge of the Simón Bolívar barracks and clandestine detention center were accused this Friday by Judge Miguel Velásquez for the disappearance of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza in 1976.

The visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals charged a total of 51 former agents of Augusto Pinochet's first secret police with the crime of aggravated kidnapping, which affected the woman who was arrested while waiting for a bus in Ñuñoa.

The case of Reinalda del Carmen, a militant of the Communist Party, is one of the most emblematic of the first years of the dictatorship for being one of several pregnant women who are on the list of forcibly disappeared persons in the sad history of the military regime.

The woman, who was 29 years old at the time of her disappearance, was married and expecting her first child (she was 5 months pregnant). She worked as a Medical Technologist at the Doctor Sótero del Río Hospital, where she also served as Personnel Delegate, was Secretary of the Federation of Health Professionals and Technicians, and was a leader of the Association of Medical Technologists.

PERMANENT KIDNAPPING: “SHE WAS NEVER SEEN ALIVE AGAIN”

In the resolution, the magistrate established that “it is legally proven that, after 4:00 PM on December 15, 1976, at the streets Exequiel Fernández and Rodrigo de Araya, in the Ñuñoa district, Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, 29 years old, a medical technologist and communist militant, who was pregnant, was arrested by DINA agents.” He adds that they “were moving in two automobiles, and she was forced into one of them and transferred to a secret barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar 8800, where she was interrogated under illegitimate duress and then disappeared, with no news of her whereabouts to date.” He finally establishes that the described facts “constitute the existence of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, provided for and sanctioned in section 3 of article 141 of the Penal Code of the time, since the victim's confinement resulted in serious harm to her person, as she was never seen alive again.”

THE LIST OF THOSE ACCUSED FOR HER KIDNAPPING IS AS FOLLOWS:

[List of 51 names omitted for brevity]

Source: La Nación, June 13, 2014

Santiago Court confirms ruling that sentenced 30 DINA agents for the aggravated kidnapping of a pregnant young woman

The appellate court confirmed the sentence that condemned 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza.

A 29-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who was arrested on December 15, 1976, in the current Macul district and taken to the clandestine detention barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina district, from where her trail was lost.

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that condemned 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza.

A 29-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who was arrested on December 15, 1976, in the current Macul district and taken to the clandestine detention barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina district, from where her trail was lost.

In the sentence (case file 3.023-2019), the Sixth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers María Rosa Kittsteiner, María Paula Merino, and Paula Rodríguez—ratified the sentence that condemned Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Juan Morales Salgado, and Ricardo Lawrence Mires to 10 years in prison as authors of the crime.

Meanwhile, as co-authors, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Teresa Navarro Navarro, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, and Jorge Arriagada Mora must serve 7 years in prison.

In the case of José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Segundo Pichunmán Curiqueo, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Bertha Yolanda del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, and Joyce Ana Ahumada Despouy, they must serve 4-year sentences as accomplices.

The appellate court adopted the background information that allowed visiting minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza to establish the responsibility and participation of the then-State agents condemned in the kidnapping and disappearance of the medical technologist. [Legal reasoning regarding the participation of the agents omitted for brevity] Detention and disappearance In the appealed ruling, visiting minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza established the following facts: a) That the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), on an unspecified date, but during the first half of 1976, occupied and enabled a property at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina district, consisting of a country house, which was conditioned for its purpose of confinement. It had a single access gate, a guard booth to its right where door guard duty was performed, a house at the back, a baby soccer field, parking lots, and on the left side of the property a kind of gymnasium where there was a mess hall, kitchen, and some changing rooms and bathrooms, which were conditioned to be used as dungeons, a property in which the Lautaro Brigade, led by Major Juan Morales Salgado, operated and which was used as a secret and clandestine place of confinement; people were taken to said premises as detainees to be interrogated under the use of various physical duress techniques, especially regarding those who had or had had political militancy adhering to the Communist Party. b) That likewise, in the second half of 1976, DINA groups led by officers Germán Barriga and Ricardo Lawrence moved to said premises, together with their operational agents, who were fundamentally concerned with investigating, locating, raiding, pursuing, repressing, and dismantling the members of the Communist Party, especially its leadership, for which provisional facilities were enabled for their installation; consisting of offices, a gymnasium, and changing rooms that were confinement dungeons, where interrogations and torture were carried out, using duress with various methods. c) That Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, pregnant with her first child, 5 months into her pregnancy, a medical technologist and communist militant, who worked sheltering people and as a liaison between Eliana Ahumada and Fernando Navarro, although also related to the communist militant Fernando Ortiz, was arrested at 29 years of age, approximately at 8:30 PM, while waiting for public transport, by security agents on December 15, 1976, at the street Exequiel Fernández corner of Rodrigo de Araya, Ñuñoa district, currently Macul district. The agents who arrested her were moving in two Peugeot brand automobiles; one of them with license plate HLN-55, from which a subject got out who grabbed her violently; upon her screaming for help, a second subject got out with whom she was forcibly reduced and entered into the vehicle. The arrest was materialized in the presence of witnesses who were in the various surrounding commercial establishments, who account that once the victim was reduced and the arrest materialized, the automobile headed along Rodrigo de Araya in a northerly direction. d) That Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza was transferred to the secret detention barracks Simón Bolívar, where she was seen together with other prisoners who, in turn, had been arrested by the same brigades under the same operational policy between December 13 and 15, 1976; that is, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, Fernando Navarro Allendes, Lincoyán Yalu Berríos Cataldo, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, and Horacio Cepeda Marincovich. In this place, Reinalda was severely beaten, tortured, illegitimately pressured, and then disappeared, with no news of her whereabouts to date. e) That the Chilean government of the time, given the search efforts made by her relatives, reported that the affected person registered an exit “on foot” through the Chile-Argentina border crossing Los Libertadores on December 21, 1976, an official version that was judicially established as false, as stated in the process reviewed, case file 2-77, in which it was verified that the route sheet that recorded said circumstances had been falsified. f) That the victim in this case was arrested on public roads just like thirteen other people in similar circumstances; eleven belonging to the Communist Party and two to the MIR and, where the information provided by the Military Government was similar and erroneous, demonstrating a large-scale operation that obeyed a policy of investigation, persecution, and dismantling of the Communist Party and not an isolated event. g) That all the aforementioned people, including the victim, were arrested to be interrogated and tortured by reason of their political militancy and in order to obtain information about their party activities and the identification of other members of the Communist Party in hiding; duress that did not cease until the required information was obtained or until the victims became unconscious.

Source: pjud.cl, March 4, 2022