Judicial and extrajudicial statements, as well as those provided at the Consulate of Chile in Paris, by Nicza Estrella Báez Mondaca, found on pages 37, 154, 625, 767, 18, 52, 147, 617, 880, 899, 897, 908, 916, 924, 951, 959, 961, and 970, in which she stated that she married Alonso Lazo in February 1975.

Both joined the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) in 1972, carrying out literacy work in neighborhoods and labor communities. In the days following the coup d'état, they were persecuted, and the homes of relatives were raided in attempts to locate them; her father, uncle, and grandfather were detained.

During this entire period, both moved through different locations such as Huasco, Vallenar, and finally Copiapó, where they stayed at the home of Carolina Quezada and began making arrangements to leave the country.

However, agents eventually managed to find their whereabouts, arriving at the house where they were living. The individuals, dressed in civilian clothes, captured her along with her husband, Alonso Lazo, who managed to shout for them to alert "Mama Rosa" of the situation and told the apprehending officers to be careful with her because she was pregnant.

She was then placed in the front of a pickup truck, while her husband was beaten severely and placed in the back of the same vehicle. Upon arriving at the Regimiento de Infantería Motorizada Nº 23 in Copiapó, she was separated from her husband and locked in a small cell.

Hours later, blindfolded, she was taken out and brought to a second floor, where she was placed in a room that smelled of blood and burnt nails or hair. They sat her in a chair and began questioning her about Pascal Allende and other leaders in the area.

During these moments, she heard her husband's voice again, stating that "she doesn't know anything." She adds that she is certain of this because she managed to lift her blindfold and saw her husband sitting in front of her, his face full of hematomas and his entire body bloodied.

He said something to her like "stay calm, everything will be fine," but then she felt a blow to her left eyebrow and lost consciousness, waking up moments later back in her cell. After about two or three days, a person she recognized as Patricio Román came to get her, telling her it would be better to cooperate or things would get worse.

She was taken to the second floor again and interrogated by three subjects who, again under torture, asked her for information about leaders in the area. On another occasion, she was confronted with other detainees whom she knew from her time in the MIR.

During her interrogations, she was subjected to torture, including electric shocks to her mouth and genitals. After a few days, she noticed that they no longer mentioned her husband's name, and no one referred to him.

During that same period, a soldier offered his help through the bars and mentioned that something serious had happened to one of the detainees. She relates that during her time at the Regiment, she was once taken by ambulance to the hospital because her health had severely deteriorated, and medical personnel treated her inside the ambulance.

Furthermore, her mother and sister went to the Regiment to ask about her, and they were informed that she and Alonso had been transferred to Santiago. Days later, she was taken from her cell by DINA agents, blindfolded, and with her feet tied, she was transported to Santiago.

They stopped beforehand in La Serena at the Regimiento Arica, where she was interrogated with beatings and separated from the group of detainees who had come from Copiapó. They then continued their journey until they reached a place they told her was Cuatro Álamos, but days later they took her to another facility along with other female detainees called Tres Álamos, where she was with Amelia Negrón, Sara White, Gladys Ledesma, Viviana Altamirano, Elva Duarte, Maritza Matamala, María Cristina Chacaltana, and others.

She recognizes among her torturers Patricio Román Díaz, Pedro Vivían Guaita, Adolfo Lapostol, and also remembers Juan Artemio Valderrama Molina as an officer who would visit her in her security cell at the regiment and talk to her, but who also participated in torture sessions, as in the absence of Captain Román, he, as a Lieutenant, assumed the duties of Chief of Intelligence.

She states in her declarations that while she was detained, she was beaten, threatened, and suffered electric shocks to different parts of her body. Other of her captors and torturers were the corporals with the surnames Marihual, Portillo, and José Quintanilla.

In the confrontation proceedings on page 791, she recognizes Patricio Román as the person who applied torture in Copiapó; on page 795, she recognizes Vivían Guaita as one of the people who kidnapped and later tortured her; on page 797, she recognizes Valderrama as a person who had full knowledge of her confinement and the torture she suffered; on page 799, she recognizes Portillo as a torturer; on page 800, she recognizes Marihual; on page 801, she remembers González as one of those who knew she was being tortured, as he would occasionally take her to the bathroom; on page 802, she recognizes Quintanilla as one of the members of the Second Section of the Regiment; and on page 804, she recognizes Vega as one of those who participated in her first detention, after which they were initially released.

FIFTEENTH: That as maintained in the third motive, in the Third Region, an intelligence agency of the Army and Carabineros was operating against the civilian population of the area under the acronym CIRE, Centro de Inteligencia Regional (Regional Intelligence Center), formed mainly by personnel from the so-called Second Section of the Regimiento de Infantería Motorizada Nº 23 of Copiapó.

At that time, it was under the command of the Commander of said Regiment, who also served as the Regional Intendant and is currently deceased. The operational command of that organization was in the hands of Army Captain Patricio Román Herrera.

SEVENTEENTH: That the aforementioned criminal organization, in addition to the person who exercised operational command, Patricio Sergio Román Herrera, was composed, according to their own statements in the case files, of Pedro Eduardo Vivían Guaita, Héctor Florentino Navarrete Jara, Hernán Ernesto Portillo Aranda, Juan Artemio Valderrama Molina, Cristóbal Ceferino Marihual Suazo, Adolfo Nicolás Lapostol Sprovera, José del Carmen Quintanilla Fernández, Felipe Luis Guillermo González Astorga, and Erasmo Francisco Vega Sobarzo.

They not only recognize their membership in this intelligence structure but were not unaware of the illicit activities they carried out daily, as happened in this case with the couple Alonso Lazo and Nicza Báez, who were raided, deprived of their liberty, locked in the military unit, and interrogated through torture.

In the particular case of the kidnapping of Nicza Báez Mondaca, this lasted for more than 90 days and caused serious damage to her health.

TWENTIETH: That unlike what was expressed previously by his companions, the accused Cristóbal Marihual Suazo does not recognize participation in the deprivation of liberty of the victim or in the torture.

In fact, in the ruling on the Alonso Lazo episode, he was acquitted because his superior, Román, did not point to him as a participant in his detention. However, he does recognize, unequivocally, that he belonged to the criminal structure that detained Nicza Báez Mondaca and her husband, although he returns to the arguments that his duties were administrative in nature.

He does not deny that he had full knowledge of the existence of detainees in the intelligence department and that they were interrogated under torture, and furthermore, that they were kept locked in the military unit.

He remembers having seen the detained woman, but says nothing about taking any initiative to free her from the illegal and arbitrary confinement in which she was held. On the contrary, during the time Nicza Báez remained kidnapped, he tolerated what was happening to the victim, and for that reason, his participation in the illicit act is direct.

On this occasion, Pedro Vivían does remember him participating in the detentions, as do the accused Navarrete, Portillo, González, and Quintanilla. Furthermore, the victim, in the confrontation proceedings on page 800, alludes to having heard one of her kidnappers, while she was being tortured, say: "take Marihual out, he's going too far."

Source: Judiciary, March 13, 2017

Case File 2182-98: NICZA BÁEZ MONDACA Episode

Regarding the Criminal Action. 1.- That PATRICIO SERGIO ROMÁN HERRERA, PEDRO EDUARDO VIVIAN GUAITA, FELIPE LUIS GUILLERMO GONZÁLEZ ASTORGA, HERNÁN ERNESTO PORTILLO ARANDA, JOSÉ DEL CARMEN QUINTANILLA FERNÁNDEZ, ERASMO FRANCISCO VEGA SOBARZO, HÉCTOR FLORENTINO NAVARRETE JARA, JUAN ARTEMIO VALDERRAMA MOLINA, CRISTOBAL CEFERINO MARIHUAL SUAZO, and ADOLFO NICOLÁS LAPOSTOL SPROVERA, already identified in the case files, are sentenced for their participation as authors of the crime of Aggravated Kidnapping of Nicza Estrella Báez Mondaca, which occurred from November 14, 1975, to the month of June 1976, to the penalty of SIX YEARS OF MAJOR IMPRISONMENT IN ITS MINIMUM DEGREE, and the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and positions and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and the payment of court costs.

Source: Judiciary, March 13, 2017

Case File N° 2182-1998, of the Santiago Court of Appeals, “Nicza Báez Mondaca Episode”

Having challenged that decision, a chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, by judgment of October 29, 2019, resolved to revoke the appealed judgment in the part that had convicted the accused Cristóbal Marihual Suazo of the charge formulated against him as an author of the crime of Aggravated Kidnapping of Nicza Báez Mondaca and, in its place, it is declared that he is acquitted of that charge.

Source: Judiciary, July 25, 2022