The board of the Chamber of Deputies requested the resignation of the aide-de-camp, Colonel (Ret.) Jaime Krauss Rusque, and he agreed to step down. His resignation was demanded only hours after presiding judge Carmen Garay indicted him and ordered his arrest as a material author of seven homicides that occurred at the Pisagua prison camp, while Krauss served in 1974 as the captain in charge of the Company of Guards for the detainees.

The information regarding the resignation requested from the aide-de-camp, who is the brother of the current Chilean ambassador to Madrid, Enrique Krauss, was delivered yesterday after 18:30 hours at the Palacio Ariztía in Santiago by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Pablo Lorenzini (DC).

He stated that the Chamber's board agreed to request his resignation because, having been indicted, he fell under the "supervening disqualification" indicated in article No. 23, letter c) of the institution's personnel statute, which establishes that "a person performing official duties may not be indicted or convicted." The aide-de-camp had declared himself "innocent" in his statements during the Pisagua proceedings, and he also expressed this to La Nación Domingo, which published the article "The Ghost of the Aide-de-Camp" in its edition last Sunday.

The indictment of Colonel (Ret.) Krauss was requested by the plaintiff attorney in the Pisagua case, Adil Brkovic. He said yesterday that "we are very satisfied with this resolution because the truth is that there is sufficient evidence in the proceedings to prove Mr.

Krauss's participation in the homicides of seven prisoners." The attorney said that although Krauss "is not accused of shooting the prisoners himself, there are those who point to him as the one who issued the orders as the second-in-command of the Pisagua prison camp.

This investigation has already taken six years and the facts are fully proven," said Brkovic. The facts The now-former aide-de-camp to the Chamber will be notified early today at the Palacio de Tribunales in Santiago, and will then be transferred as a detainee to the Military Police Battalion located inside the Army Telecommunications Command in the commune of Peñalolén.

Judge Garay maintained in her resolution that the seven homicides, which occurred between January 18, 1974, and January 30 of that year, took place in Pisagua while "Captain Jaime Krauss Rusque was in charge of the military personnel whose mission was to guard the political prisoners of the Pisagua Camp, a military unit that ultimately depended on the commander-in-chief of the VI Army Division (in Iquique), General Carlos Forestier Haensgen." Colonel (Ret.) Krauss acknowledged during the proceedings that these seven homicides did indeed occur while he served in Pisagua between January 14, 1974, and at least, according to him, January 30 of that month. However, he denied ordering the executions and also denied that his role was that of commander of the Company of Guards for the prisoners. He said his task was "administrative," inventorying and storing "saws, hammers, shovels, heaters, cheese, ham, and sugar" that came from Red Cross aid for the prisoners. However, according to attorney Brkovic, the judge "did not believe" that argument, since it "does not fit" with what actually happened. In Pisagua, between September 1973 and July 1974, a rotating calendar of officers who made up the Company of Guards for prisoners operated like clockwork, each time under the command of an officer with the rank of captain. In turn, he had four or five lieutenants and second lieutenants under his command. The company was responsible for what happened to the prisoners, and it was its members who always participated in the extrajudicial executions, as established in the investigation. For these same duties, other officers (Ret.) who, according to the shift calendar, also held the ranks of captain, lieutenant, or second lieutenant at the time of their service in Pisagua, have been indicted for other homicides. The first to state that Krauss ordered the execution of prisoners in Pisagua was Major (Ret.) Carlos Herrera Jiménez, who is serving a life sentence in Punta Peuco prison. Herrera admitted that Krauss ordered him to kill the prisoner Nelson Márquez Agurto, one of the seven victims in the indictment, because he had attempted to escape to avoid further torture. Krauss denies it, but when confronted, Herrera maintained his statements. Colonel (Ret.) Krauss was also indicted for the homicides of Luis Manríquez, Nicolás Chánez, Tomás Cabello, Juan Rojas, Hugo Martínez, and Juan Mamani. All of them were declared "released" by General Forestier; however, their bodies appeared, along with Márquez's, in the clandestine grave discovered in Pisagua in June 1990 containing 19 bodies. The other indicted individuals Also indicted for the seven homicides were General (Ret.) Carlos Forestier, as the intellectual author; Major (Ret.) Carlos Herrera Jiménez, as a material author; Colonel (Ret.) Bernardo Martínez Téllez, as an accessory; and Carabineros non-commissioned officer (Ret.) Manuel Vega Collao, also as a material author. Vega was part of the firing squad for the six prisoners executed at the end of January 1974. Contradicting Colonel (Ret.) Krauss's arguments of innocence regarding his role being only administrative are the statements of some former prisoners, who coincidentally affirm that the then-Captain Krauss entered the prison on the night of Márquez's escape attempt, threatening that if he did not appear in half an hour, prisoners would be killed. One of them, Luis González Vivas, said that "when they killed Márquez, Major Krauss was there, for whom I had made a piece of furniture. And he warned that if Márquez did not appear by four in the morning, they were going to take prisoners out of the cells to be executed." Freddy Alonso stated the same. Both versions contradict the "administrative" tasks of the then-Captain Krauss.

Source: La Nación, July 23, 2004

Judge dismisses case against former aide-de-camp to the Chamber in Pisagua case

Visiting Minister Joaquín Billard dismissed the case against Colonel (Ret.) Jaime Krauss Rusque, former aide-de-camp to the Chamber of Deputies and brother of the current Chilean ambassador to Spain, Enrique Krauss, due to "lack of merit." The former officer had been indicted since July of last year as a material author of the homicide of seven political prisoners in the Pisagua area, First Region, in 1974.

The decision by Judge Carmen Garay—who was handling the case at the time—forced Krauss Rusque to leave his post as aide-de-camp to the lower house, a job he had held since 1990. This was because the Statute of Personnel of the Chamber of Deputies established that no official who is convicted or indicted by the courts of justice could remain in their position. "Like any soldier, I submitted to the rules of the game and cooperated with justice, but the presumption of innocence did not apply to me.

That right, which should prevail in Chile from the President of the Republic on down, was denied to me," the former aide-de-camp told the newspaper La Segunda. Krauss Rusque highlighted the testimonies of "a dozen" detainees who testified in his favor during the course of the proceedings. "It is natural for one to be defended by soldiers.

But it is truly comforting that those who have been on the other side of the fence do so," the former officer pointed out. The former officer was charged with the murders of Nelson Márquez Agurto, Luis Manríquez Wilden, Juan Rojas Osega, Hugo Martínez Guillén, Tomás Cabello Cabello, Juan Mamani García, and Nicolás Chánes Chánes.

General (Ret.) Carlos Forestier, the late father-in-law of the current Army chief, Juan Emilio Cheyre, and Major (Ret.) Carlos Herrera Jiménez and Bernardo Martínez Téllez were also indicted in these cases. The latter were not favored by the resolution announced this Tuesday.

Source: elmostrador.cl, September 13, 2005