Judge Daniel Calvo has prosecuted two former Carabineros for their participation in the murder of the priest Gerardo Francisco Poblete Fernández on October 21, 1973. The clergyman was detained after the military coup in Iquique.

Former Carabineros Colonel Gustavo San Martín was charged as the perpetrator of the crime of qualified homicide, and Enzo Meniconi was charged as an accessory. While the former remains detained in Carabineros facilities, the latter will remain in his home due to his age, 73, and his state of health.

Judge Calvo stated that the priest "was detained without any judicial order or justifying motive" from inside the Don Bosco school, which is under the Salesian Congregation, along with seminarian Ricardo Salgado, and both were taken to a police station.

He added that "there they were interrogated using kicks, punches, blows with rifle butts, and other blunt objects, a situation that ultimately caused the death of Father Poblete Fernández," while Salgado managed to survive.

Source: March 20, 2003, La Nación

Mass held in memory of murdered priest

The story of Father Gerardo Poblete Fernández's murder could be made into a movie. Its main plot, beyond the torture that killed him, would be betrayal. But above all, it would be the concealment of the truth about his death, not only by military and police personnel, but by members of his own congregation.

It was this latter fact that triggered the departure of his friend and Salesian seminarian Ricardo Salgado from the congregation, deeply disillusioned, a couple of years after the tragic events. Salgado had been detained and tortured alongside Poblete on October 21, 1973, in Iquique by the Carabineros. "With everything I saw, a fracture occurred between me and the institution of the Church, more so than with my faith," he told La Nación Domingo last March, when "The Hidden History of the Crime of Father Gerardo Poblete" was published.

The report shook the Salesians. Days after the publication, the congregation approached the family for the first time, acknowledging their long absence. Finally, today the Salesians will vindicate the memory of Father Gerardo Poblete in a Eucharist to be held at 3:00 PM at the Templo de la Gratitud Nacional, at the intersection of Alameda and Cumming.

The entire congregation will attend, as well as students, parents, guardians, family, and friends. A small urn will contain the priest's remains, which were exhumed last April by order of Judge Daniel Calvo.

After 28 years It took 28 years for the congregation to finally file a complaint in January 2001 for the homicide of its member, sponsored by the FASIC lawyer, Nelson Caucoto. In October 2002, the family also filed a complaint.

Judge Daniel Calvo began issuing rulings and prosecuted retired Colonels Gustavo San Martín Ravanal and Enzo Meniconi Lorca, and retired non-commissioned officers Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez, all from the Carabineros, as perpetrators and accessories to the crime.

When this event occurred, the director of the Salesian community of Iquique in 1973, Maximiano Ortúzar Cariola, claimed that Father Poblete "died of a heart attack." Even the Bishop of Iquique in 1973, José del Carmen Valle, wrote a letter to a military commission that arrived in that city to "investigate" the causes of the priest's death, in which he expressed his willingness to collaborate for the common good of Chile.

Days after Father Poblete's murder, the Salesian school in Iquique served as an espionage center for the Army, which set up to monitor the population with binoculars. Seminarian Salgado was a witness. Everything is documented in the case file of Judge Calvo's proceedings.

Source: October 20, 2003, La Nación

Human Rights: Three former Carabineros convicted for murder of Salesian priest

Judge Joaquín Billard convicted three former members of the Carabineros yesterday for their responsibility in the murder of Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández, which occurred in Iquique on October 21, 1973.

In the resolution, the magistrate sentenced retired Sergeants Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez to 10 years and one day of effective prison time. Both were convicted as perpetrators. Meanwhile, he imposed a sentence of three years and one day on retired Major Enzo Meniconi Lorca as an accessory to the crime.

The latter will be eligible for supervised release. The clergyman was detained by Carabineros personnel at the Don Bosco School in Iquique, along with seminarian Ricardo Salgado Torres. The former officers took them to the police station, where they were subjected to physical duress that caused the priest's death.

Source: November 6, 2007, La Nación

Sentence increased to 10 years for retired Carabineros officer in Gerardo Poblete case

Judge Iván Elgueta and the presiding lawyer of the Eighth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Carlos López, prevented the president of the chamber, Judge Cornelio Villarroel, from applying the statute of limitations to one officer and two non-commissioned officers of the Iquique Carabineros—all retired—who, on October 21, 1973, murdered Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández in a police station.

Thus, by a vote of two to one, the chamber confirmed the sentences that Judge Joaquín Billard had applied to the police officers in October 2007. With the difference that this new resolution transformed the main culprit, the then-commissioner of the Iquique Prefecture, Enzo Meniconi Lorca, from an accessory—as Billard had ruled in 2007, applying only three years of imprisonment—into a perpetrator of qualified homicide.

Consequently, his sentence was increased to ten years and one day, which means effective fulfillment of the sentence. Elgueta and López maintained the ten-year sentences for non-commissioned officers Blas Barraza Quinteros and Froilán Mondaca Sáez as perpetrators of the homicide.

Villarroel, who presided over the chamber, defended his dissenting vote, confirming his unwavering position in favor of the military and civilians who committed crimes against humanity during the military oppression, as a supporter of amnesty, the statute of limitations, and opposed to the thesis of kidnapping as a permanent crime in the case of the forcibly disappeared.

Judge Villarroel always voted in favor of Pinochet whenever he was subjected to the stripping of immunity in the Court of Appeals in the cases for which he was later prosecuted. The final instance now remains at the Supreme Court, which has been substantially reducing sentences for human rights violators through the cassation process.

The case of Father Poblete caused deep discrepancies within the Salesians, as the congregation remained silent for years about the true cause of the priest's death and did not seek justice for the crime until 2001, as the victim's sister, Edmee Poblete, stated in March 2003.

Maximiano Ortúzar Cariola, the director of the Salesian community in Iquique in 1973, participated in the concealment of the truth regarding the clergyman's death. He admitted during the proceedings, and later ratified in an interview with LND, that "I wanted to save the honor of the Carabineros and I proposed to the police that they say Father Poblete died of a heart attack." This was what was reported to the family and officially to the congregation. "I did it because I felt fear," said Ortúzar.

But General Carlos Forestier, then head of the VI Army Division in Iquique, improved the version: "he died from injuries sustained when falling from the step of a Carabineros van," he said in a statement.

Source: Friday, June 27, 2008, La Nación