The detention of the affected individual is recounted as follows by his father, in case file Rol 108.162, of the 4th Criminal Court of Greater Santiago: "On September 16, 1974, around twelve o'clock in the day, a group of five civilians arrived at our home, traveling in a light green Station Wagon.

The aforementioned agents were received by my spouse, Mrs. Aurea del Carmen Díaz Valdes, an eyewitness to the event that I report to Your Honor, to whom they verbally introduced themselves as members of 'INTELLIGENCE,' fleetingly showing her a card whose content she could not perceive."

"Immediately, the individuals entered the rooms of the dwelling, asking for my son Mario Edrulfo. They ordered him, who was getting ready to leave for class, to accompany them, thus proceeding with his apprehension without serving any arrest warrant, as provided for in Art. 13 of the State's Political Constitution."

"Nor did the authors of the illegal arrest indicate to which facility the detainee would be taken. To date, said facility remains unknown, thus infringing upon the provisions of Art. 14 of the Fundamental Charter."

Subsequently, the father of the affected individual ratified the statement made in the complaint before the judge. On page 6, one can read: "I ratify my complaint," then he adds: "The first news I had of my son was from the father of Juan Carlos Gonzalez Sandoval, since the latter, who was detained at Tres Alamos, told his father that he had not seen my son there.

I do not remember Mr. Gonzalez's name; I know he lives on Portugal Street between Leon Prado and Pedro Lagos."

Further on, on page 16, in the document by which the father requests that the complaint be expanded to a criminal lawsuit for kidnapping, he states: "In the long period of time that has elapsed since the detention of the affected individual, it has not been possible for us to obtain information about his whereabouts or situation, except for what was expressed by Ms.

Ximena Saavedra, secretary of the International Red Cross (Barros Borgono 43), to this plaintiff on November 7 of last year: the Red Cross Commission had been at Tres Alamos on October 11 and was able to see, among others, my son, who was in poor health."

On page 19, Mrs. Miranda Otina Ximena del Carmen Saavedra Cantillana testifies, stating: "I remember having attended to the gentleman mentioned on November 7 of last year, based on the data given to me now..." "...I do not remember what I told him on the occasion I attended to him on November 7 of last year, so I could not say if what he says is what I informed him in the manner he indicates.

In any case, I point out to the Tribunal that when we give information to people who come to ask us about forcibly disappeared persons, we take it from a file kept at the Red Cross, and we do so by order of the chief."

"Any other information the Tribunal may want can be requested from Mr. Laurente Nicole or the head of the Committee, Dr. Rolf K. Jenny."

Now then, on page 11, by official letter sent to the Tribunal, the International Committee of the Red Cross, under the signature of the delegate, Mr. L. Nicole, states: "On November 7, 1974, his father, Mr.

Edrulfo Carrasco Carrasco, visited us and informed us that his son, Mr. Edrulfo Carrasco Díaz, had been detained on September 16, 1974, at his home, located at Pedro Leon Ugalde No. 1485, Santiago, by plainclothes personnel belonging to the Intelligence Service (SIM)."

"On the other hand, during the visit made on October 11, 1974, by the delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to the Tres Alamos detention camp, according to information given by some detainees, Mr. Carrasco Díaz was reportedly held incommunicado at said camp. Due to the aforementioned, Mr. Carrasco Díaz was not visited by the ICRC delegates in any detention camp."

Coinciding with what was expressed in the complaint by the father of the affected individual, on page 6 vta., the mother of Mario Edrulfo testifies, stating: "On Monday, September 16 of last year, I was alone in my house with my son Mario Edrulfo Carrasco Díaz, between 12 and 12:30 in the day."

"They knocked on the street door and I went out to open it, and a man about 25 to 30 years old, thin, of average height, asked me for Mario and told me he was his friend. Since my son was getting ready to go to classes at Comercial 2 at that time, I thought that if I called him he would be late, and that the best thing was to tell him he was not at home.

I did so, and although the man insisted on asking for my son, I always answered that he was not there and asked him to leave a message with me. In the end, the man took out something like a wallet, and showing me a small disc inside, he told me he was from the Intelligence Service.

Immediately, another man of the same age appeared, who seemed to have been on the street next to the house wall." She continues her statement by saying: "The two men were dressed in civilian clothes and did not show weapons, and they entered the house without showing any warrant."

Source: Corporation report

The Supreme Court upheld the sanction against five former members of the DINA, including the once-fugitive from justice Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, for two cases of forcibly disappeared persons. The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld the sentence of ten years and one day of imprisonment against the former director of the DINA, Manuel Contreras, for the permanent kidnappings of Víctor Olea Alegría and Mario Carrasco Díaz, which occurred on September 11 and 16, 1974, respectively.

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the highest court also set a penalty of five years and one day for Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Gerardo Urrich González, and Alejandro Molina Cisternas, while Risiere Altez España received a sanction of 3 years and one day.

The vote in favor of maintaining the sentence came from ministers Alberto Chaigneau, Nibaldo Segura, and Jaime Rodríguez, who considered that it was appropriate to continue applying the legal concept of permanent kidnapping; while minister Rubén Ballesteros and the participating lawyer Ricardo Peralta were in favor of acquitting the convicted individuals by applying the statute of limitations.

The case was in the hands of minister Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar, who on June 6, 2005, sentenced Contreras Sepúlveda to 4 years; Raúl Iturriaga Neumann to 4 years; Gerardo Urrich González to 4 years; Alejandro Molina Cisternas to 4 years with the benefit of supervised release; and Risiere Altez España to 800 days with the benefit of conditional remission.

However, the following year, the Ninth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals increased the sanctions. Olea Alegría and Carrasco Díaz were militants of the Socialist Party and, according to the records collected in the case, were detained at the facility at 3037 Irán Street, on the corner of Los Plátanos, known as "Venda Sexy," from where they disappeared in September 1974.

Source: August 22, 2007 El Mercurio

Date: 08-22-2007

Testimonies, photographs, letters, and other documents that families and friends provided or wrote specifically to be published are incorporated into the book "Breaking the silence of girls, boys, and adolescents who were victims of political executions during the civic-military dictatorship 1973-1990," which was produced by the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons (AFEP) with the support of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, through the Culture, Memory, and Human Rights Unit, and the Human Rights Chair of the University of Chile.

The publication, based mainly on the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and the Report of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (1996), seeks to reconstruct in a comprehensive and careful manner each of the lives and stories of the victims.

During the investigation, access was granted to the archive of the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons, where documents that families have preserved over the years are kept. Illustrations by Álvaro Gómez were also included.

The creation process was a complex challenge that involved combining delicacy, respect, and methodological rigor to state a painful and inescapable truth in this work.

Source: cultura.gobierno.cl 4/20/2023

Date: 04-20-2023

Minister applies new thesis in ruling on human rights violations

The minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar, who is in charge of the investigation of 56 human rights cases transferred to him from 4 judges with exclusive dedication, issued a sentence in the first of them and applied a new legal thesis regarding the crime of aggravated kidnapping.

Juan Fuentes argued in his resolution that as of March 11, 1990, the date on which the first post-dictatorship government (presided over by Patricio Aylwin) took office, the repressive agencies ceased to exist, for which he set that date as the consummation of the crime of kidnapping in the case of these 2 opponents of the dictatorship.

Taking that thesis into consideration, the magistrate decided to apply the gradual statute of limitations for the crimes and, therefore, reduced the sentences he ruled against the leadership of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

Thus, he sentenced Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Raúl Iturriaga Neuman, Gerardo Urrich González, and Alejandro Molina Cisternas, as authors of this crime, to 4 years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree, while he sentenced Risiere Altez España (nominally) to suffer the penalty of 800 days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree.

For Contreras, Iturriaga, and Urrich, he determined that they must serve their punishment in deprivation of liberty. Meanwhile, he granted Molina Cisternas the alternative benefit of supervised release.

The first-instance sentence was issued on July 6, in case file 76.667-A. In it, it is established that on September 11 and 16, 1974, respectively, Víctor Fernando Olea Alegría, 24 years old, and Mario Edrulfo Carrasco Díaz, 16 years old, both militants of the Socialist Party, were deprived of their liberty without a legal warrant, taken to the Central Headquarters of the Investigations of Chile, and subsequently removed by a Carabineros officer acting for the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and transferred to the clandestine detention center known as "Venda Sexy" or "Discoteque," a facility where they were subjected to interrogation and torture, their whereabouts remaining unknown since then, as well as the fate of their physical and mental health and personal integrity, without them having made contact with family or friends, without any record of exits or entries to the country, and without any record of their death. It is also established that the Army officers belonging to the DINA exercised command over the other members of the operational groups called "Brigades" and "Groups," among these the "Purén Brigade," and answered to the orders of the officer who held the position of Director of the National Intelligence Directorate. The resolution rejects the application of the amnesty law, considering March 11, 1990, as the maximum date to consider the continuation of the aggravated kidnapping, given that on that date all the institutions established in the 1980 Constitution began to function and individual guarantees began to prevail in full, and the police agencies were subjected to the control and direct supervision of the administrative authority. Therefore, it points out that it must be concluded with an objective, logical, rational, and realistic criterion that the deprivation of liberty of the victims could only be maintained until March 11, 1990, it not being possible, due to the mere circumstance of their whereabouts being unknown, to prolong it beyond the period in which the de facto government of the Armed Forces was ended and the democratic government assumed power, that date being the one that must be considered for the consummation of the crimes of kidnapping of Víctor Olea Alegría and Mario Edrulfo Carrasco Díaz. He adds that to consider it otherwise would be to depart from the principles of reality and reasonableness that the Judge is obliged to respect in the fulfillment of his jurisdictional function, whose purpose is to obtain the material truth, so necessary for coexistence and social peace. Consequently, it is not appropriate to consider the crimes within the period established in the amnesty law, whose temporal scope only includes crimes perpetrated in the period that fluctuates between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978. In accordance with the date indicated as the end for the commission of the crimes—March 11, 1990—it is appropriate to apply the gradual statute of limitations for criminal action, considering the act as being covered by two or more highly qualified mitigating circumstances and no aggravating ones.

Source: July 7, 2005 El Mostrador

Date: 07-07-2005