Last January, the magistrate had already indicted nine retired officers and non-commissioned officers as perpetrators of the crime of kidnapping and disappearance of 12 of the executed La Moneda prisoners.

They include the former commander of the Tacna Regiment in 1973, retired General Luis Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, who is currently detained in Argentina awaiting the resolution of his extradition to France, where he is sought for the kidnapping and disappearance of Georges Klein.

Also indicted was the former second-in-command of the DINA, retired Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who supervised the machine-gunning of the detainees and their subsequent clandestine burial.

Source: July 7, 2003 Zonaimpacto.cl

The judge of the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago, Juan Carlos Urrutia, indicted eight former members of the Army for the cases of the twelve forcibly disappeared persons from the Palacio de La Moneda, an event that occurred in September 1973.

Retired General Luis Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, who has been detained in Argentina since September, was charged with the crime of aggravated kidnapping while awaiting extradition to France for the disappearance of the physician and former presidential advisor Georges Klein Pipper, who was apprehended at La Moneda in 1973.

Likewise, Colonel Servando Maureira Roa, Major Jorge Herrera López, and non-commissioned officers Teobaldo Mendoza Vicencio, Eliseo Cornejo Escobedo, Bernardo Soto Segura, Juan de la Cruz Riquelme Silva, and Jorge Ismael Gamboa Alvarez were indicted; all are retired and have confessed to the executions.

It should be mentioned that in the coming days, Magistrate Juan Carlos Urrutia will request the extradition of General Luis Ramírez from Argentina.

Source: January 13, 2003 Tercera

CDE joins the La Moneda disappeared case

The progress of the investigation being conducted in the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago and the new evidence provided by the lawyers for the case regarding the disappearance of 14 people from the Palacio de La Moneda on September 11, 1973, were the main reasons why the general council of the State Defense Council (CDE) decided that the entity should become a party to the proceedings.

Sources from the entity explained that the resolution was adopted unanimously and “was a report lasting more than an hour, with all the pieces of the case, and it did not go from something that was said to be black to something that is now white, but rather, simply, as things stand, there is now sufficient merit.” This explains why this idea had been rejected on August 11.

Thus, it was also determined that the lawyer who will join the case being conducted by the exclusive judge, Juan Carlos Urrutia, will be Helmut Griott, who is expected to argue based on the criteria of President Ricardo Lagos’s proposal on human rights in criminal matters.

This means distinguishing between the material and intellectual authors of the case. Retired Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, retired Colonel Servando Maureira, and retired Major Jorge Herrera have already been indicted in this case.

In addition, retired non-commissioned officers Teobaldo Mendoza, Eliseo Cornejo, Bernardo Soto, Juan de la Cruz Riquelme, and Jorge Gamboa have been indicted. Among them is also retired General Hernán Ramírez Pineda, who has been detained since last September in Buenos Aires.

Regarding this case, for which the Chilean justice system has already requested extradition, the CDE is studying the possibility of becoming a party in Buenos Aires, which in the opinion of the councilors is possible because he is indicted in Chile for this case.

Among the victims of La Moneda, who were taken from the Tacna Regiment to the Justo Arteaga Cuevas fort in Peldehue, where they were executed by firing squad and their bodies subsequently thrown into the sea, are Jaime Barrios Meza, Daniel Escobar Cruz, Enrique Huerta Corvalán, Claudio Jimeno Grendi, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Julio Moreno Pulgar, Arsenio Poupin Oissel, Julio Tapia Martínez, Oscar Valladares Caroca, Juan Vargas Contreras, and George Klein Pipper.

It is for the latter’s case that the French justice system requested the arrest of Ramírez Pineda from its Argentine counterpart.

Source: August 22, 2003 La Nacion

Court indicts ten former military personnel for crime against former GAP member

The Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals indicted ten former military personnel, including retired General Herman Brady, for the crime of aggravated kidnapping committed against former GAP member Luis Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme.

The resolution states that Luis Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, Servando Elías Maureira Roa, Jorge Iván Herrera López, Teobaldo Segundo Mendoza Vivencio, Eliseo Antonio Cornejo Escobedo, Bernardo Eusebio Soto Segura, Juan de la Cruz Riquelme Silva, Jorge Ismael Gamboa Alvarez, retired General Herman Julio Brady Roche, and retired Brigadier Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo participated in the crime.

The ruling states that “there are well-founded presumptions to estimate that each one participated as an author in the described crime (...) since the first named (Ramírez Pineda), in his capacity as Commander of the Tacna Regiment with the rank of colonel, ordered the transfer of the prisoners to Peldehue and presumably also gave the orders for their execution by firing squad, while the second through the eighth named executed said orders, without there being any evidence to suggest that said subordinates were in a situation where another course of conduct was required.” The ruling adds that the tenth (Espinoza Bravo) also arrived at the place where the prisoners were taken off and, with command authority, made the necessary arrangements for them to be presumably executed by firing squad, and the ninth (Brady Roche), holding a superior position in the chain of command over the first named (Ramírez Pineda), ordered or permitted the transfer of the victim to Peldehue, where he disappeared.” Luis Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme was part of the Group of Friends of the President (GAP) and was detained on September 11 at La Moneda. On September 13, around noon, by order of the Commander of the Tacna Regiment (Ramírez Pineda), they were tied with wire by their hands and feet and transported aboard a Pegaso truck, covered with a tarp, toward Peldehue. At this location, information about the detainee is lost, with it being presumed that he was riddled with bullets.

Source: Thursday, May 8, 2008 Lanacion.cl

Nine retired officers indicted for La Moneda disappeared

The former director of Investigations, Eduardo “Coco” Paredes, and Allende’s personal physician, Enrique Paris, are two of the eight victims for whom the retired Army officers were indicted. Visiting Minister Juan Fuentes Belmar yesterday indicted retired General Herman Julio Brady and eight other retired Army officers for the forcibly disappeared persons from La Moneda, including Dr.

Enrique Paris and the former director of Investigations, Eduardo “Coco” Paredes. This is the second indictment affecting Brady and the other officers for the detentions carried out at the government palace on September 11, 1973, which later turned into disappearances.

For this reason, they were classified as aggravated kidnappings of political prisoners. Along with Brady, retired Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo (who would later become the second-in-command of the DINA) and former officers Servando Maureira Roa, Jorge Herrera López, Teobaldo Mendoza Vicencio, Eliseo Cornejo Escobedo, Bernardo Soto Segura, Juan Riquelme Silva, and Jorge Gamboa Álvarez were indicted.

On the day of the coup d'état, military troops entered La Moneda, where they detained nearly 50 people, including direct advisors, members of President Allende’s Group of Personal Friends (GAP), doctors, and Investigations officials, who were transferred to the Tacna Regiment and subsequently executed.

To date, their bodies have not been located. In addition to Dr. Paris and “Coco” Paredes, those detained at La Moneda included Jaime Sotelo Ojeda (GAP), Sergio Contreras Contreras (Press Chief of the Intendencia), Héctor Pincheira Núñez (advisor to President Allende), José Freire Medina (GAP), Manuel Castro Zamora (GAP), and Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala (GAP).

The plaintiff lawyer in the case, Nelson Caucoto, said that “it is the first time, after 35 years, that these advisors to President Allende are beginning to see justice. With this ruling, it has been demonstrated that justice is slow but it arrives.” Regarding retired General Luis Ramírez Pineda, former commander of the Tacna Regiment—whom the magistrate decided not to indict for the moment—lawyer Caucoto explained that his situation will be decided when the Supreme Court requests the expansion of his extradition from the Argentine justice system.

Retired Generals Pineda and Brady, along with the other officers, were already indicted last May for the disappearance (aggravated kidnapping) of former GAP member Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, who was also captured at La Moneda.

However, on that occasion, the Court of Appeals acted ex officio, in the face of Minister Fuentes Belmar’s refusal in this case. Brady was the commander of the Santiago garrison and the then-Colonel Ramírez Pineda was the commander of the Tacna Regiment, where the La Moneda detainees were taken.

From that place, they were taken out in a truck, tied by their feet and hands with wire, bound for Peldehue, where they were executed by firing squad. The entire operation was supervised by Pedro Espinoza, who was dressed in civilian clothes.

Enrique Paris and “Coco” Paredes Juan Antonio Eduardo “Coco” Paredes Barrientos was married, had two children, and was a surgeon. He was a member of the PS and during the Allende government was director of the Investigations Service.

Enrique París Roa, also a doctor, was married, had 3 children, and was a member of the central committee of the PC. He advised President Allende on health matters. Both were captured while leaving the Palacio de La Moneda while it was being bombed. Along with the rest of the detainees, they were transferred to the Tacna Regiment, where they remained until September 13.

Source: Thursday, August 7, 2008 La Nación