The Santiago Court of Appeals revoked the decision adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who had dismissed the request to prosecute the former officers. Additionally, the appellate court prosecuted three of them for qualified kidnapping.

The Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals accepted the request to prosecute nine retired officers of the Chilean Air Force (FACh) under the charge of genocidal criminal conspiracy, based on evidence identifying them as perpetrators of illegal detentions, torture, and disappearances within the Air War Academy (AGA) following the 1973 coup d'état.

With the dissenting vote of Justice Rosa María Maggi, Justice Carlos Cerda and lawyer Andrea Muñoz voted to revoke the first-instance decision adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who had not granted these indictments.

Consequently, the appellate court prosecuted Ramón Pedro Cáceres Jorquera, Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, Juan Bautista González Figueroa, Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, Omar Arturo Insunza Melo, Juan Luis Fernando López López, Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán, Roberto Francisco Serón Cárdenas, and Luis Campos Poblete as perpetrators of the crime of genocidal criminal conspiracy.

"It is justified that in 1974, a group of individuals organized to work in a coordinated manner in the persecution of persons who might hold Marxist ideology or extra-party leftist activism, with the objective of exterminating these social groups, criminally attacking their members or followers," the ruling states.

To this end, "they proceeded to detain them without a prior order issued by a legitimate authority, to then confine them in the Air War Academy of the Chilean Air Force, located in the Las Condes commune of this city, where they were kept incommunicado for prolonged periods and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and other varied forms of physical and psychological torture," it added.

Likewise, the Sixth Chamber ordered the issuance of arrest warrants against all these officers, given that the gravity of the imputed crime makes their preventive detention necessary.

Qualified kidnapping

Furthermore, the appellate court indicted Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, Juan Bautista González Figueroa, and Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán as co-perpetrators of the crime of unlawful deprivation of liberty of José Luis Baeza Cruces.

As stated in the resolution, the evidence in the case is also sufficient to justify the existence of the unlawful deprivation of liberty of the aforementioned victim, a crime that at the time of its perpetration was described and sanctioned in Article 141, third paragraph, of the Penal Code.

José Luis Baeza Cruces, married, father of 2, a leader of the Central Unica de Trabajadores (CUT) and the Communist Party, was detained on July 9, 1974, by security personnel belonging to the FACh, presumably at the residence located at El Mirador 1868, Santiago.

After his capture, he was transferred to the AGA, where he was seen until August 29 of that same year, in very poor physical condition as a result of the torture to which he was subjected. (Source: memoriaviva.com)

Source: El Mostrador, December 19, 2006

Human Rights: Court increases sentences for former FACh members for savage torture at El Bosque air base

One of the victims had the sign of the Unidad Popular carved into his back with a yataghan, and was subjected to interrogations with electricity on his genitals and tongue, the ruling notes.

In a split decision, the First Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals increased the sentences against six former members of the Chilean Air Force (FACh), including perpetrators and accomplices, for torture carried out in 1973, following the September 11 coup d'état, against Patricio Mario Rivera Cornejo and Ramón Daniel Pavez Casanova inside the El Bosque base in Santiago.

The court, composed of Justices Leopoldo Llanos, Juan Antonio Poblete, and lawyer Jorge Norambuena, decreed 5 years and one day of effective imprisonment as perpetrators for former military officers Renato Gastón del Campo Santelices, Manuel del Carmen Cabezas Pérez, and former FACh General Guillermo Reynaldo Gómez Aguilar (who already has a 3-year and one-day sentence for the death of 22-year-old student Gabriel Marfull González).

Additionally, also for their status as perpetrators, it decreed 4 years of imprisonment, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, for Eduardo Enrique Cartagena Maldonado (a FACh non-commissioned officer prosecuted for numerous cases of forcibly disappeared persons) and Leopoldo Zamora Maldonado.

Finally, for Víctor Manuel Mättig Guzmán (an officer already prosecuted as a perpetrator of the crime of genocidal criminal conspiracy), the court stipulated a sentence of 3 years and one day of imprisonment, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, for his status as an accomplice.

The decision was adopted with the dissenting vote of Justice Poblete.

"The victim Patricio Mario Rivera Cornejo, apart from the mistreatment suffered at the time of his detention, upon being subsequently transferred to the El Bosque Air Base, was subjected by personnel of that institution to 'interrogations with electricity on his genitals and tongue, and in particular, they caused marks by tracing the sign of the Unidad Popular on his back with a yataghan, in addition to several mock executions,'" the ruling noted.

"Regarding the victim Ramón Daniel Pavez Casanova, it states that after having been detained, interrogated, and beaten at the Ministry of Defense, he was transferred inside the El Bosque Air Base, 'remaining in that place for around a week to 10 days, subjected to sessions of interrogation and torture through the use of electricity and blows to his body,'" it added.

In civil matters, the sentence ordering the State to pay compensation of 40 million pesos (a little over 58,000 dollars) to each of the victims was confirmed.

Source: elmostrador.cl, November 12, 2018

Who are the two human rights violators who received a pardon from Piñera?

Víctor Mattig Guzmán was convicted for the torture and disappearances that occurred at the Air War Academy, while Raúl Rojas Nieto was serving a sentence for his participation in the Comando Conjunto. by Cristián Meza

This Friday it was learned that President Sebastián Piñera, through the Ministry of Justice, pardoned two inmates at Punta Peuco who were convicted of human rights violations.

Lawyer Raúl Meza, a defender of crimes against humanity, declared that "it seems to us that it is a very powerful signal that the government of Sebastián Piñera is giving. We believe that the time for justice has arrived, and not for revenge."

"We hope that the President of the Republic, Sebastián Piñera, fulfills his campaign commitments to the military family and hopefully many more presidential pardons will come," he highlighted to Radio Biobío.

Conversely, the president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, Alicia Lira, questioned that "by disregarding international conventions and treaties, Sebastián Piñera pardoned them; that goes against all the principles of the struggle that the relatives of victims have waged, so that there is truth and justice, and here, just taking advantage of the health crisis, in a cowardly and hidden way, the President pardons these two criminals," she declared.

But who were the two beneficiaries of the pardon?

Víctor Manuel Mattig

The retired squadron commander of the Air Force, Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán, 81, was sentenced to 5 years and one day for the qualified kidnapping of José Luis Baeza Cruces, an event that occurred on July 9, 1974, in addition to torture committed at the Air War Academy.

For his part, in 2019 he received a sentence of 3 years and one day, with the benefit of supervised release, in his capacity as an accomplice to the torture suffered by Patricio Mario Rivera Cornejo and Ramón Daniel Pavez Casanova at the El Bosque Air Base.

According to the ruling of the First Court of Appeals of Santiago, Rivera Cornejo was "subjected to 'interrogations with electricity on his genitals and on his tongue, and in particular they caused marks by tracing the sign of the Unidad Popular on his back with a yataghan,' in addition to several mock executions."

Along with this, he was prosecuted for genocidal criminal conspiracy for the illegal detentions, torture, and disappearances that occurred at the Air War Academy, reported Memoria Viva.

"It is justified that in 1974, a group of individuals organized to work in a coordinated manner in the persecution of persons who might hold Marxist ideology or extra-party leftist activism, with the objective of exterminating these social groups, criminally attacking their members or followers," maintains the ruling of the sixth chamber of the capital's appellate court.

Mattig, who is hospitalized at the FACh Hospital, only entered Punta Peuco to serve his sentence in 2018.

Raúl Rojas Nieto

The retired Army colonel, Raúl Rojas Nieto, also known as "El Pichi" and a member of the Comando Conjunto, was sentenced along with Alvaro Corbalán to a 7-year prison term for his participation in the qualified kidnapping of communist militant Víctor Vega Riquelme, whose trail was lost at the Remo Cero torture center in Colina.

The former officer, 84, was also an agent of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), where he was in contact with Lenin Guardia, who provided intelligence services to the government of Patricio Aylwin and was a paid informant for the military institution, who indicated to him that the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front planned to assassinate Jaime Guzmán, as noted by Juan Cristóbal Peña, author of Jóvenes Pistoleros.

Rojas Nieto is hospitalized at the Military Hospital and only set foot in the Punta Peuco prison in 2017.

Source: eldinamo.cl, August 1, 2020