According to testimonies appearing in the book Labradores de la Esperanza (Laborers of Hope), the current director of the Investigations Police, Nelson Mery Figueroa, is responsible for the torture of MIR militants at the Linares Artillery School in 1973, and could shed light on the whereabouts of six MIR militants who remain forcibly disappeared.

They were detained when the Investigations unit of which Mery was a member operated out of the Artillery School, which had been converted into a torture center. In the VII Region, 81 people were forcibly disappeared or murdered, and thousands of others were apprehended between September 1973 and 1974.

Former political prisoner Odette Alegría accuses "Judas" Nelson Lenin Mery Figueroa of "sexual abuse." She states that in 1999, Mery's name was removed from the lawsuit filed by former political prisoners of Linares against those responsible for torture, murder, and disappearances.

The lawyer Sergio Monsálvez (PS) sponsored that lawsuit but omitted Mery's name. However, the charges were recorded during the interrogations conducted by Judge Marcelo Vásquez of the Third Court of Linares.

The investigation did not progress while it remained under Military Justice. In 2000, Sergio Monsálvez took office as the governor of Curicó. Odette Alegría retains both documents: the original and the one that was ultimately filed.

In the first, Mery is mentioned—without specifying charges—among those accused of subjecting approximately 40 people to torture. In the second, his name does not appear. Alegría, who was detained in November 1973 and subjected to torture and sexual abuse, points out that Mery was always present during the torture, and these facts were known to some of the other female detainees.

Alegría recounted the torture in 1990 to Codepu, where she was treated by Dr. Paz Rojas. Odette remained at the Artillery School until June 1974. Last week, at the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, she delivered her testimony and that of other women who suffered similar sexual abuse during their time at the Artillery School.

The former vice commander-in-chief of the Army, Lieutenant General (ret.) Jorge Zincke, who is being prosecuted for the disappearance of prisoners from the Artillery School, confirmed that Mery was an "interrogator" while he served as head of the Department of Investigation and Development at the Linares Artillery School.

In the case, Judge Solís has prosecuted Generals (ret.) Carlos Morales and Humberto Julio, and Colonels (ret.) Juan Morales Salgado, Félix Cabezas Salazar, and Claudio Lecaros Carrasco, as well as Sub-officer (ret.) Antonio Aguilar and former Investigations official Héctor Torres Guajardo.

Humberto Julio challenged Judge Solís, through the newspaper La Segunda, to confront him with Mery. Julio, who is accused of the kidnapping of María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez, points out that Mery arrested her.

According to Mery’s own words: "The mission assigned to me, and I always understood it as such, was to arrest only Patricia Contreras... for me, it was a surprise to encounter the detention of María Isabel."

Patricia Contreras notes in the book Difícil envoltorio (Difficult Wrapper), by Mónica Echeverría, that they were arrested together and taken up together, and that the person directing the entire operation was Mery.

Patricia Verdugo’s book Tiempo de días claros (Time of Clear Days) reproduces the testimony of Efraín Sepúlveda, who recounts that in Linares, "along with María Isabel Beltrán, they took us to look for the supposed weapons. Patricia was staying at the house where María Isabel lived, and for that reason, they took them both."

"They also participated in the interrogations and torture"

The Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared (AFDD), along with its branches in Linares and Parral, denounced Mery when he assumed the directorship of Investigations, holding him responsible for torture and for knowing the fate of the disappeared in Linares, whose remains are being sought by the visiting judge Alejandro Solís.

Among the cases is that of María Isabel Beltrán, whose remains are reportedly located inside the General Bari Polygon. "The face of detective Nelson Mery remained etched in the memory of those detained and tortured at the Linares Artillery School.

Nineteen years later, they recognized him and accused him of being a torturer," states a 1993 report by Punto Final. "On March 28, 1992, after General (ret.) Horacio Toro was dismissed and replaced by Nelson Mery, the president of the AFDD of Linares, Solidia Leiva, stated that Mery could not be the person in charge of the Investigations police 'because he, during the military regime, tortured and trampled on human rights in this area' (El Heraldo, Linares, 5-28-92)." Solidia Leiva recalls that her husband, Luis Tapia, was detained through the direct action of Mery.

Leiva was also interrogated by Mery, who raided her house in the company of a platoon from the Artillery School and foreigners, presumably from Colonia Dignidad.

On September 12, 1973, El Heraldo de Linares published "Bando Nº1" (Proclamation No. 1) from the Provincial Plaza Command, signed by Colonel Gabriel del Río as Intendant and Plaza Chief. Proclamation No. 9 announced rigorous sanctions: "Peasants must work calmly... they must immediately denounce those who are inciting them against the authority (...) if not, they expose themselves to being considered subversives, on equal terms with the provocateurs, and therefore will suffer the same sanctions as them," which meant torture, forced disappearances, and executions.

On September 20, the local press reported on detainees for the first time. The Artillery School was the center of interrogation and torture par excellence in Linares, and Colonia Dignidad in Parral. "In the School, there was a large room where all the detainees arrived.

In some display cases, just like a museum, they had flags, books, papers, and some weapons, as if they were trophies. The military had designated a room per party; the carabineros interrogated the socialists, the detectives the members of the MIR, and the military the communists.

There, they divided the prisoners into two groups: those who went 'incommunicado' and those who went to the jail in 'free speech' status. The detectives had been transferred from the San Javier unit to Linares to take charge specifically of the process against the MIR.

The person in charge was Héctor Torres. Detectives Nelson Mery, Espinoza, Oliveros, and Volta also participated in the interrogations and torture," states the book Labradores de la Esperanza, Truth and Justice Series, 1992, Codepu, p. 73.

The Military Prosecutor's Office operated inside the School. Hundreds of people were tortured. The person in charge of the interrogations from the beginning was the Director of the School, Colonel Gabriel del Río, of whom Mery was the "liaison."

Testimonies of survivors

Belarmino Sepúlveda: "They pulled out my fingernails, they applied electricity to my whole body, they tied me to a ladder, naked, and they beat me, they hung me with chains. Other times they took us to the bridges, blindfolded, and left us hanging, tied with chains... the torturers would arrive drunk and spend their time locked in the bathrooms, vomiting.

Later, they started using drugs. That’s when they became even more savage. Besides, they were 'imported' from San Javier; they were brought specifically to carry out the investigation against the MIR." Viviana Montecinos recalls: "One of the detectives said that it was time to 'change treatment.' He opened a door and I saw a room with a cement floor; it was wet, there were devices for applying electric current, rubber truncheons, and other things...

I also remember there were bags of wet sand." Silvia Sepúlveda: "They took me back to the Artillery School... they left me sitting in a room where you could hear screams and lamentations... they stripped me of my clothes with beatings until I was naked... There were 7 men, they asked me if I felt ashamed... In the end, I was spitting pure blood and my whole body was bruised."

Between September 1973 and June 1974, 9 people were detained and forcibly disappeared at the Linares Artillery School, and 2 were executed: José Campos Morales (MIR), agricultural worker, president of the Moisés Huentelaf Agricultural Union; Alejandro Mella Flores (MIR), Sociology student at the University of Concepción; Rubén Bravo Bravo (PS), farmer; Anselmo Cancino Aravena (MIR), president of the Peasant Communal Council, secretary of the Nuevo Horizonte Federation; Hernán Contreras Cabrera (MIR), student, CORA official; María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez (MIR), Music Pedagogy student at the University of Chile; Waldo Villalobos Moraga, no political affiliation; Guillermo del Canto Ramírez (MIR), agricultural engineer, CORA official; Luis Tapia Concha (JJCC), plumber, CUT leader; Bernardo Cuevas Parra (PC), teacher, CORFO agent; Waldo Alfaro Retamal (PS), nurse.

Mery remained in Linares from 1963 until 1975. From 1975 to 1977, he was a commissioner in San Javier. He was part of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), which was acknowledged by Mery himself when he testified in 1976 in the case regarding the disappearance of Alejandro Mella.

Silvia Sepúlveda: "They beat me with rubber truncheons, they hit me on the head and on the abdomen so that my child wouldn't be born... Later they would pass me to Mery. He would ask me about what I had said; he played the 'good torturer.' He would tell me to say everything I knew, that now I had to worry about myself and that way I would get out faster." Solidia Leiva notes about Mery: "He was the ideologue.

He was outside the torture room but decided when to take them out so they would 'cooperate'."

In the case regarding the disappearance of Alejandro Mella, Mery acknowledged his detention but claimed he did not participate: "I submit to Your Honor that if the detainee Mella is not being prosecuted, it is because he was released." The truth is that he was forcibly disappeared.

Silvia Sepúlveda adds: "Mery, as the person in charge of the MIR cases, knows all the disappeared... one day they took Alejandro Mella out of the torture room. I saw him and I started to cry. That’s when Mery passed by. Mella told me that Mery wanted to force him to sign his release and he was resisting, and also that he had hit him with a truncheon."

On December 18, 1973, María Beltrán Sánchez was detained by military personnel and two civilians. One of them was Mery. María Beltrán’s mother, Rogelia Sánchez, states: "I will never forget his face because he arrested my daughter in my presence and later took my statement in Linares." María Isabel and 5 other MIR militants were taken out on January 12, 1974, from the Artillery School, and their whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Viviana Montecinos recounts what happened to Anselmo Cancino: "They had broken his right arm, he was complaining of pain... The last time we saw him he was in very bad shape; they had him thrown on the floor in a corner of the hallway.

The only thing he said was that he was worried about his partner who was pregnant; he didn't say anything else. I have the impression that the detectives had already told him they were going to kill him."

Torture in "democracy"

"Judas" Nelson Lenin Mery stated, at the end of 1992, that he would resign from his position if his subordinates were found to be involved in the torture and rape of the Brazilian psychologist Tania Cordeiro Vaz, who was accused of belonging to the MAPU-Lautaro.

In the case, which became a political problem for the government, torture, mistreatment, and false accusations were proven. Cordeiro Vaz was released, but Mery did not resign. Nor did he do so when Juan Pablo Acevedo died inside the Investigations barracks in Constitución in January 1993.

The second autopsy performed on the body demonstrated the existence of injuries caused by third parties in the area of the collarbones and genitals.

1994 reports by Amnesty International (AI) and the International Association Against Torture (AICT) denounced torture and mistreatment at the Investigations barracks at General Mackenna No. 1314, José Pedro Alessandri No. 1880, the Investigations Prefecture of Assaults (PRIA) of San Miguel, and the Police Intelligence Brigade (BIP).

From March 1992 to August 1993, 21 people had suffered torture at the hands of Investigations, most of them accused of belonging to the subversive groups Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), MAPU-Lautaro, and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

Source: El Siglo, July 2003

"Everyone knew and no one said anything," a journalist warned a few months ago on a television program, commenting that the practice of paying salary supplements in the public administration was old and widespread, but no one seemed to have ever cared until it started to matter.

The same could be said of the accusations of sexually abusing a political prisoner that today have the once-powerful director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, in the position of a "dead man walking": everyone knew, but no one said anything... or almost nothing.

"I don't know that lady or young woman. I never interrogated or interviewed her. Those are false imputations she is making against me," Mery said in 1999 to the now-defunct newspaper El Metropolitano, which published an extensive cover story collecting the allegations of Odette Alegría, although without the details she has now provided regarding the sordid episodes that Mery allegedly perpetrated during her detention at the Linares Artillery School.

With few variations, that is what he has repeated in the multiple interviews he has given since the case "re-erupted" a couple of weeks ago.

The Metropolitano story was not the only one. A few weeks earlier, the magazine Qué Pasa had speculated about a time bomb for the Lagos candidacy with Mery as the detonator, and the local press in Linares and Talca had given extensive coverage to Alegría’s testimony, which was part of the first lawsuit for torture—filed in court on April 29, 1999—to be presented in Chile after Pinochet’s arrest in London, despite the fact that at the last minute, Mery’s name was not included among the accused.

Even so, the issue quickly disappeared from the public scene.

The accusation made in 2000 by the writer Mónica Echeverría, wife of the DC leader Fernando Castillo Velasco, also did not go further. In her book Difícil envoltorio, she tells the story of Tamara Callejas, a young daughter of forcibly disappeared persons who was raised by Pinochet-supporting parents and only found out about her true origin as an adult.

Her mother, María Isabel Beltrán, was detained by a patrol that included Nelson Mery. She disappeared from the Linares Artillery School without a trace. Echeverría confided to LND that Mery tried subtly to convince her not to publish the book.

But now Odette has a witness who heard her version 30 years ago. Inés Carrasco, her cellmate at the Buen Pastor women’s detention center, tells LND that after arriving from the Artillery Battalion, Odette told her in detail about the sexual abuse and expressly mentioned Nelson Mery.

La Moneda lets him fall

Palace sources admit that Odette Alegría’s version is possible, that at 25, Mery may have committed some sins and later transformed himself; perhaps he is an opportunist or a man whose intelligence allowed him to remain and ascend in the institution under the UP, the dictatorship, and democracy.

But for the case, it is the same, they affirm, because in one way or another, Mery has been key in all the progress that has been made on this long and tortuous path to truth and justice.

Even so, the reappearance of the accusations against him—in whose origin there does not seem to be a right-wing operation, as the socialist parliamentarians who have staked their reputation on him claim, contradicting the newly inaugurated president of their party, Gonzalo Martner—has this time unleashed a scandal of proportions that will end with a new director of Investigations, regardless of whether the current one is guilty or not.

Why? First, because the accusations reappeared at a bad time, just as the government was preparing to present its proposal on human rights. Second, La Moneda believes it is impossible to reinstate him in his position, even if the complaint were debunked, due to the political and media context.

Proof of this is that the government moved quickly to approve a law that had been in Congress for a year, according to which the director of the civil police will serve only six years in the position and may be a civilian.

A radically different attitude from the one the Palace had held until now during the 11 years the policeman has been in charge of Investigations, basically because Mery has played a key role in human rights investigations at the risk of his own life—on Friday he told Siete +7 that he has been threatened with death several times—and his hand has not trembled when he has had to enforce orders as complicated as arresting Manuel Contreras, who was barricaded for weeks at his Viejo Roble estate.

Mery’s iron will is not in question. He declared to the same weekly that "they are not going to break me," making it clear that his intention is to fight, that he is used to playing hard, that he knows the adversary well, and that what happened to others less tough than him is not going to happen to him.

The right throws stones

Despite this, there is no one in the government who does not consider Mery a lost cause. Especially now that the right, led by Pablo Longueira, can throw stones at him over human rights issues, a scenario unthinkable before he presented his own project for a solution to the issue and thus reduced his own skeletons in the closet to ashes.

Until then, the right had only criticized Mery for police inefficiency or for an excess of it. In RN, Pía Guzmán, his most acidic detractor, always claimed that he used his position to accumulate political information, the same work for which his predecessor, Horacio Toro, was fired, who after the liaison exercise took the Aylwin government by surprise, decided to launch the "Halcón" plans to find out what the military—who at that time were quite a bit more "restless"—were up to.

Until they caught him.

The scandal kept Mery as interim for a long time, but Patricio Aylwin would confirm him, not without first having the then-deputy for Linares, Jaime Naranjo (PS), investigate, who built his political career on the defense of human rights.

The former secretary to Bishop Carlos Camus found nothing wrong with the trajectory of the policeman who did his secondary studies and then spent ten years as a detective in that city, despite the fact that Mery’s work as a liaison between the military command and Investigations in '73 was public knowledge and that he had his own office at the Linares Artillery School, a detention and torture center after September 11.

The '99 reaction

When it appeared in El Metropolitano in '99 that Mery had abused Odette Alegría, Naranjo never found out because he does not read the local press and because that newspaper, he says, "was marginal." The now-senator, in any case, speaks now of Mery as a "convert," a word that in his mouth has a special meaning, due to the closeness of this socialist to the church.

The government, meanwhile, was not concerned because it was only an accusation and because in the torture lawsuit filed by the former political prisoners of Linares, Mery’s name did not appear. It had been erased by the socialist lawyer, the same one who later became governor of the area.

Although letters were sent to the Minister of the Interior of the time, Raúl Troncoso, and to the president of the PS, Ricardo Núñez, warning them of the accusations against Mery, no one gave a response.

But in 2003, the scenario is different and it seems that Mery has accumulated too much in his eleven years in charge of Investigations: the police errors in Alto Hospicio and the Red Paidos, for which subordinates ended up paying; the purchase of intelligence reports from a character as dubious as Lenin Guardia—although other important government figures had done the same for years—and that to this day he has not been able to find Paul Schaeffer in Colonia Dignidad, despite the publicized and massive raids in recent years; veiled suspicions of relationships with the FPMR that would have allowed the escape of some accused in the kidnapping of Cristián Edwards; covert operations hand-in-hand with Marcelo Schilling in "La Oficina" to dismantle subversive groups, and even accusations of belonging to protection networks for gold trafficking.

Attack as defense

But Nelson "Judas" Lenin has not done badly in defending himself. It did not seem strange to anyone that years ago Mery publicized his connection to the influential Freemasonry, considering that in general the press has more suspicions than certainties about the "brotherhood" status of some public figures. They were a support.

Nor that, gradually, the police officers with the most profile to succeed him left the institution, to the point that the person who substitutes for him now, Luis Henríquez, has no more contact with La Moneda than having been there on September 11. Another reason to rush the "express" law on Mery’s succession.

The policeman’s iron will to help justice in human rights cases, from the assassination of Orlando Letelier to the arrest of high-ranking officers, has earned him a good share of gratitude among lawyers dedicated to this issue.

During his mandate in the institution, he has participated in the investigation of more than 3,000 cases of this type, some of great notoriety and which have meant a great cost for the former military and civilian authorities of the dictatorship, such as the Prats case, Carmelo Soria, the Caravan of Death, Operation Albania, and, lately, in the forensic examinations of illegal exhumations of the remains of forcibly disappeared persons.

Reconstructing Nelson

Of Mery’s stay at the Artillery School in the months following September 11, 1973, there are many testimonies, his own confession, and dozens of judicial statements. Of his participation in detentions and his presence in torture sessions, there are also some judicial statements.

But of his direct intervention in the abuse of the prisoners who were there, only one: the shocking account of Odette Alegría, detained in November 1973, when she was 18 years old.

"Maybe it’s a bit crude to say it, but since they took me to see the torture, many times I was left alone, because it was from 9 in the morning until 8 at night, and he (Mery) often passed from his office to the bathroom and, upon leaving the bathroom, he would come with his zipper down and his penis out, he would shake it in my face and put it in my mouth.

This happened at least three or four times," she stated before the television screens on July 11.

The reappearance of Odette Alegría recounting with crudeness what happened to her while she was detained in Linares is undoubtedly the most shocking element of this chapter of history that concerns us.

But it was not the one that started it. The events of this week started with an interview with General (ret.) Humberto Julio, one of the seven prosecuted by Judge Solís for the disappearance of María Isabel Beltrán, published in La Segunda on July 2.

Alegría herself gives an account of this:

-Julio mentioned Mr. Mery as a participant in the detention of María Isabel Beltrán, an issue that affects many of us who were detained in this area. As a result of that, the mayor of Linares, Carlos Villalobos, made some statements to the regional press where he mentioned Mr.

Mery’s time in Linares. He was asked about some specific cases of detained people, he gave my name, and a television channel, Megavisión, in honor of the truth, came to my house, they spoke with me, and I accepted to tell my version, which is already well known and which, if you excuse me, I am not going to repeat again—she says in an interview with La Nación Domingo.

Odette Alegría Vargas is currently 48 years old, has a son, Arturo, who is a teacher in Linares and whom she conceived with many problems, which led her to lose two others. Odette is now also a grandmother, but when she was detained in Linares in November 1973, she was 18, studying at the city’s polytechnic high school, and played basketball.

Inés, the witness

"She was one of the prettiest and youngest women; the rest of us were old, old women," Inés Carrasco, Odette’s cellmate at the Buen Pastor in Linares, tells LND, the detention center where they were taken after their time at the torture center that operated at the Artillery School.

Inés is perhaps also the first person to whom Odette told what happened with Mery. "She asked me first what they had done to me; I told her that they had flogged me a lot."

• She told me, "I haven't been flogged, nor have they kicked me, but it has been worse." I asked her, "What have they done to you? Tell me!" "Look, uh, they groped me and, suddenly, Mr. Mery comes out of the bathroom, when he goes to the bathroom he comes out with his fly open... and he passes it by my face, by my mouth... and he puts it in my mouth." I ask her, "Once? Twice?" "No," she tells me, "every time they send for me."

Inés still lives in Linares, in the commune of Villa Alegre, near the train tracks, and what she would most like is to forget and continue with her life without shocks. But she cannot. Inés is indignant about what the socialist deputy Juan Bustos said about her friend. "Never, never; if she had been from Patria y Libertad, she wouldn't be my friend, nor would the group have accepted her; besides, in Linares everyone knows her.

I don't forgive the PS for that," she says.

Villalobos, the organizer

Indeed, Odette Alegría has been a member of the group of former political prisoners of Linares since its formation, and in 1999 she was part of the board. As was Carlos Villalobos, a lifelong PS militant, current mayor of Linares, and another of Mery’s accusers.

Villalobos clarifies that he was never tortured by Mery, but he witnessed some of the sessions to which he was subjected while he remained at the Artillery School.

Villalobos also tells this outlet that since 1990, former political prisoners had tried to organize in Linares, but without results until 1999. From the beginning of democracy, they even tried to file lawsuits for the torture they had suffered, but no lawyer wanted to take the case.

In '99, it was also very difficult for them to find one who wanted to represent them, which is why he is "very grateful" to Sergio Monsalve, also a socialist, despite the fact that the professional withdrew Mery’s name from the document at the last moment without consulting them.

Odette Alegría explains: "When the lawsuit was going to be filed, we were given a draft that included the name of Nelson Mery; we read it, corrected names, and saw the details. The next day it was filed and we, as the board, and other people accompanied lawyer Monsalve to the court.

Then we went to a room in the Governor’s office that we obtained to talk about this procedure. In front of everyone, Mr. Monsalve takes the floor and says, 'Odette, my friend, I owe you an apology. You know, I took out Nelson Mery’s name.' 'But how, Sergio,' I told him, 'if you know about my situation.' 'Yes,' he told me, 'but it doesn't matter because what was filed is enough; it will be known anyway.' We were all stunned.

It is difficult to understand, and I have never been able to understand the matter in depth," says Odette. And she adds:

-After this impasse, there was a press conference where I said that I had been abused by Mr. Mery. I didn't tell all the details because it was very crude.

-Why didn't the issue cause more impact at that time?

• The coverage was more than anything local and provincial, somewhat regional, but not beyond that with all the channels coming to Linares like now—says Odette.

But there are suspicious people who note that Monsalve was appointed provincial governor in March 2000, when Lagos took office.

Alegría’s lawyer, PPD deputy Laura Soto, attempts another explanation: "Perhaps the conditions were not right, perhaps the great influence of Mery weighed in, the shield that protects him, perhaps the fact that there were thousands of worse cases also influenced it," she says from her broad experience as a defender of these causes.

Pedro Matta, the writer

The week that just ended, Pedro Matta sent two emails to 33 Concertación deputies, one on Wednesday and the other the following day. In both, he provided some data on the Mery case and offered a folder of documents that could clarify some episodes of history.

As of the closing of this edition, no honorable member had contacted him (the closest was a call from Laura Soto’s secretary to tell him that they would talk again on Monday).

-Journalists, those have called me, from all the media. It seems that the deputies use the press as a figurehead—he comments.

Pedro Matta Lemoine is a former political prisoner who went through "Venda Sexy" and Villa Grimaldi in 1974. At the time of the coup d'état, he was the political secretary of the PS youth at the Law School of the University of Chile; after being released, he went into exile in the United States, and 15 years later he returned to the country and immediately began to participate in the organization of the National Association of Former Political Prisoners (ANPP).

Today, Pedro Matta lives in one of those middle-class chalets that still remain in Vitacura, is a representative of Trinity College in Santiago, and continues with his investigations into human rights violations during the dictatorship, even for trials held abroad.

Matta, as a national leader of the ANPP, was present at the filing of the lawsuit for arbitrary detention and torture that was presented in Linares on April 29, 1999, and keeps a copy of the first draft of the lawsuit.

He also keeps in his folder the original of a sketch that Odette Alegría made for him in April 1999, where she indicates the layout of the facilities of the Linares Artillery School, when she told him about the sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of Mery.

• At some point, I showed disbelief, so she took the paper and detailed the location of where she was in relation to Mery’s office and the bathroom, and that paper is available to be handed over to the court.

Matta was also the one who alerted, in one of his emails to the deputies, to the existence of the letters that the ANPP sent to the Minister of the Interior of the Frei government, Raúl Troncoso, and to the president of the PS, Ricardo Núñez, on May 17 and 18, 1999, respectively. In fact, copies of both are in the folder he offered to the deputies.

Consulted on the matter, Troncoso told LND that he does not remember receiving the letter, that he will find out. Núñez does remember it, but says that among so many things that were happening then, his memory does not register what happened with it. "Pinochet was detained in London and that occupied almost all of national politics.

Besides, those who sent it did not insist on it. I think that perhaps, in the midst of all that, we did not realize its importance," he told LND.

De Arteagabeitia, the advisor

When we asked Matta why he thinks the case causes commotion now if it didn't before, he says he doesn't know for sure. But he remembers a story that, he believes, could shed some light.

-A couple of days after we sent the letters to Troncoso and Núñez, I received a phone call from the then-public relations officer of Investigations, Mr. Rodrigo de Arteagabeitia, who requested a personal meeting. That meeting took place at the Tavelli in Providencia—he says.

Rodrigo de Arteagabeitia—who in reality is and has been all this time the communications advisor to the Director of Investigations—Matta met on the occasion of the inauguration of the Park for Peace that was built on the ruins of Villa Grimaldi and, furthermore, he knew of his status as a former official of the Vicariate of Solidarity.

-He stated to me that he could assure me with absolute certainty that Mr. Mery had not tortured, nor had he been a participant in torture at the Linares Artillery School, and he requested that the Mery issue not continue to be moved.

-And what did you answer him?

• I stated to him that, between what a former political detainee and victim of human rights violations said and what a former member of the interrogation and torture teams through which that same detainee passed said, through a third party, I had no doubt about where I positioned myself...

Consulted by LND, De Arteagabeitia admits to the meeting at the Tavelli. "I met with him to know what he was going to do because I knew that they were trying to set up a lawsuit to position the issue of torture that had been excluded from the Rettig Report," he says. He also says that he offered him the interview with Mery "but he never asked for it."

Source: La Nación, July 20, 2003

General (ret.) Jorge Zincke reported that Mery interrogated in Linares but did not transport people.

The former vice commander-in-chief of the Army, Lieutenant General (ret.) Jorge Zincke, who is being prosecuted for the disappearance of prisoners from the Linares Artillery School, confirmed yesterday that the general director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, operated as an interrogator of the detainees in that regiment.

"That is correct, he interrogated," said Zincke briefly after being subjected to a new interrogation by the visiting judge Alejandro Solís, who on June 6 declared him a defendant for the kidnapping and disappearance of José Campos Morales and Alejandro Mella Flores. Zincke also affirmed that Mery had nothing to do with the transport of people.

At the time of the military coup of September 1973, Zincke was the head of the Department of Investigation and Development of the Linares Artillery School. Yesterday, lawyer Jorge Mario Saavedra, sponsor of the defamation lawsuit filed by Mery against the former detainee Odette Alegría, who accused him of sexual abuse, declared to Radio Agricultura that Mery "never interrogated; he only interviewed the detainees, because he was only a bird of passage through the Artillery School."

The director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, was also interrogated at the time by Judge Solís in the case of the disappeared from Linares. Given the revelations that Mery was an active man in that regiment during the first months of the military regime, the government asked him to take a vacation.

In the case, Judge Solís also prosecuted Generals (ret.) Carlos Morales Retamal and Humberto Julio Reyes. He also charged Colonels (ret.) Juan Morales Salgado, Félix Cabezas Salazar, and Claudio Lecaros Carrasco, as well as Sub-officer (ret.) Antonio Aguilar Barrientos and former Investigations official Héctor Torres Guajardo.

The other seven forcibly disappeared persons from Linares are: Rubén Bravo Bravo, Anselmo Cancino Aravena, Hernán Contreras Cabrera, María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez, Waldo Villalobos Moraga, Guillermo del Canto Ramírez, and Luis Tapia Concha.

According to the leader of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared of Linares, Zolidia Leiva, Mery personally arrested Tapia Concha, who was her husband.

Source: La Nación, July 17, 2003

On June 3rd, before Judge Alejandro Solís, the director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery Figueroa, testified in the case regarding the detention and disappearance of the young woman, María Isabel Beltrán.

In five pages, the head of the civil police recounts part of his time at the Escuela de Artillería de Linares and acknowledges having participated in the detention of another woman, Patricia Contreras, but states that he had nothing to do with the capture of Beltrán.

He identifies General (R) Humberto Julio as the person responsible. In the same case, when questioned in September 2002, Contreras stated that she was apprehended with her friend in Santiago on December 18, 1973, and transferred to the city in the Seventh Region.

Other former political prisoners, detained in 1973, also testified against Mery, stating that he had witnessed the torture to which they were subjected.

Belarmino Antonio Sepúlveda Bueno was detained on October 22, 1973, by a contingent of Carabineros, taken to the Escuela de Artillería de Linares, and tortured within that military facility. According to him, several other detainees suffered the same fate, and he holds the current director of Investigations, Nelson Mery Figueroa, responsible for those acts.

He says that the head of the civil police did not torture personally but witnessed the interrogations in which he was beaten and subjected to electric shock sessions.

"He had a schedule of the MIR and wanted me to tell him what my position was within it, even though I was not a member of the MIR. He told me that if I did not speak, I would be punished," he recalled a few days ago to El Periodista. He added: "there was no detainee who was not interrogated by Mery."

His testimony was recorded on page 358 of the case initiated under No. 5073 in the 2nd Criminal Court of Linares.

THE CASE

A month ago, Magistrate Alejandro Solís, the first to issue a ruling that did not consider the 1978 amnesty, decided to prosecute the following individuals in the case in which Belarmino Sepúlveda testified: Generals (R) Jorge Zincke, former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army; Carlos Morales, former director of the Escuela de Artillería de Linares; and Humberto Julio, former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs; as well as Colonels (R) Félix Cabezas and Juan Morales.

They were joined by: Claudio Lecaros Carrasco, commander of the Artillery Group and military intelligence officer; Sergeant Major (R) Antonio Aguilar Barrientos; and civil police officer (R) Héctor Torres Guajardo.

The reason?: the disappearance of six people: Rubén Bravo, a 55-year-old farmer and socialist; Waldo Villalobos Moraga, 48, with no political affiliation; and the MIR members María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez, a 21-year-old student; Alejandro Mella Flores, a 19-year-old student; Anselmo Cancino Aravena, a 25-year-old agricultural worker; and Hernán Contreras Cabrera, 21, an employee of the CORA.

In the case, which consists of 14 volumes and thousands of pages, there was, however, a new development. Many survivors remembered a young detective, then 31 years old, as the liaison between the Investigative Police and the Linares regiment, the last place where the disappeared persons were seen alive: Nelson Mery Figueroa.

For this reason, eight days before issuing the indictment, Judge Solís went to the offices of the Investigative Police Directorate at General Mackenna 1314 to ask the director of that institution about his connection to the events that occurred 30 years ago.

In his judicial statement, ordered by the Supreme Court in anticipation of the potential closure of the summary proceedings, Nelson Mery relates that "on September 12, 1973, I was appointed as a liaison officer at the Escuela de Artillería de Linares, an order given to me by Commissioner Ricardo Hernández."

Immediately, Solís asked him who was in command of that unit, to which the head of the civil police replied: "the director was Colonel Gabriel del Río; Lieutenant Colonel Félix Cabezas Salazar served as deputy director; there were also Majors Sergio Pérez Hormazabal, Jorge Zincke Quiroz, and Juan Saldía; and Captain Humberto Julio, who was the aide to Colonel del Río, the latter also being the head of the plaza."

In Solís's resolution, however, neither Colonel del Río, who was in charge of the regiment, nor the prosecutor Carlos Romero, who was an Army captain at the time, were prosecuted. Those who followed them were, including the commander's aide, the then-Captain Julio.

Mery, in his statement, recounted that a few days later, Captain Claudio Lecaros took charge of the Linares Intelligence Service and that, on one occasion, he was called to his office where the officer—Aguilar—asked him if he knew Patricia Contreras Farías.

And Mery declared: "I knew her because I was a friend of Elena Contreras, her sister; I even happened to be at some parties. The question surprised me, but I decided to tell the truth and answered that I did know her.

I was ordered to go to Santiago because she was allegedly involved in the concealment of weapons in Panimávida." Although in his June statement he says, "I imagine" the order was given by Lecaros because it was transmitted to him by Aguilar, a month later, to the newspaper La Segunda, the director of the civil police asserted that it was Lecaros who gave him the order.

Mery, who in the following paragraphs of his judicial statement maintains that he traveled to Santiago to carry out the order in a military jeep driven by the then-Captain Julio, only acknowledges that he detained his friend's sister and transferred her to the Escuela Militar.

He adds: "I lost sight of her there for the whole night. The next day, on the way back to Linares, I was in the jeep, the vehicle stopped, and a truck was coming behind us; at that moment, I was worried about what was happening with Patricia Contreras.

I also found María Isabel Beltrán; the latter was detained by military personnel, and that must have happened after we detained Patricia and having already gone down the building's stairs. For this reason, I attribute the fact that I am also accused of the detention of María Isabel Beltrán, but that is not factual."

However, both in the Rettig Report and in the statement of Patricia Contreras, which is on page 2,359 and following of the same case, it is asserted that both women were detained simultaneously. "While I was visiting María Isabel's house for about four or five days, on December 18, 1973, during the night, while the curfew was in effect, I was detained along with María Isabel Beltrán by a military patrol and security agents dressed in civilian clothes.

Of the officials who participated in our detention, whom I knew beforehand, I remember Sergeant Aguilar, another military man named Humberto Julio, and the detectives Neves, Mery, and Torres," testified Patricia Cristina Contreras Farías before two detectives of the Investigative Police at her French residence, where she has lived for years.

According to her account, upon finishing the search of the house, they took them to their vehicles, "forcing us to get into a military jeep. The vehicle was driven by a driver, accompanied by one of the detectives, I don't remember if it was Mery or Torres." Contreras, in her statement, maintains that the next day she was transferred to Linares with her friend in a military jeep and not in a truck as Mery asserted.

Belarmino Sepúlveda and another witness say that Norma Montecinos Parra, currently residing in Sweden, participated in the detention of María Isabel Beltrán. She had been taken to Santiago from Linares, where she had been detained, so that she could point out the exact place where Contreras and Beltrán were.

The prisoners remember that the latter disappeared around February 25, 1974. How do they know? They sent her cigarettes through the guards until that day.

Another person who fires back at the director of the Investigative Police is the then-Captain, now General (R), Humberto Julio, who was prosecuted in the case based solely on the mention Mery makes of his participation in the events.

Julio, who says that Mery is the "main person involved" and who requested that the judge confront him with the policeman, told the newspaper La Segunda that "what I have not had the opportunity to tell the judge, because he has not questioned me about it, is that what we placed at Mery's disposal, by instruction of the Military Institutes Command, was a patrol to collaborate with what Mery and company were doing." When asked by journalist Lilian Olivares if he participated in the detention, the retired officer, who spent 9 days in detention and is currently released on bail, asserts that "no, because the operation was theirs." And he added: "if someone is given a mission to come from Linares to detain a person and he says he doesn't know how he arrives with two, the picture doesn't add up to me. They force someone else into the vehicle..."

María Isabel Beltrán, who was pregnant at the time she was detained, gave birth in captivity, and her daughter was handed over, without the knowledge of her grandparents, to a middle-class family sympathetic to the military regime. Her case, fictionalized, gave rise to the book "Difícil Envoltorio" by writer Mónica Echeverría.

The official report, as stated in the Rettig Report, said that Beltrán was transferred from the regiment to be treated for a spontaneous abortion and that she never returned to the Linares barracks.

On June 19, 1974, Colonel Carlos Morales Retamal, Intendant and Head of the Plaza of the Province of Linares, wrote to María Isabel's mother and informed her that her daughter, whom she had seen alive inside the regiment until January 1974, had been released that month "so that she could undergo specialized medical treatment, with the promise of presenting herself to the Garrison Command in Linares once discharged, a promise that she has not fulfilled to date."

On May 30 of that same year, the Minister of the Interior informed the Court of Appeals that "...María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez was not being held by order of any administrative authority and that this Ministry is unaware of her current whereabouts..." She has been disappeared ever since.

According to Mery, the last time he saw her alive was when Colonel Carlos Morales Retamal was received at the School in February 1974, a time when the regiment's aide was Lieutenant Iturriaga and Captain Julio was in the capital on an information course to subsequently enter the Santiago War Academy.

The director of Investigations himself, according to his judicial statement, left his "status as an attaché to the Army" on December 28, 1973, although he admits that in January or February of the following year he was called to take a new statement from Patricia Contreras because the previous one had disappeared.

On that occasion, according to Mery, he learned that the detainee had "been tortured by Lecaros, Aguilar, Torres, and Volta." He was also able to realize, according to what he remembers from those years, that they were investigating "a possible infiltration by some military man, policeman, or detective helping the Leftist parties," and he takes the opportunity to say that the detainee Patricia Contreras, when she was admitted to prison after their meeting, told her companions that she had been lucky that Mery interrogated her because he had helped her 'a lot'."

Regarding the torture, however, Patricia Contreras says in her 2002 statement that it was carried out by "Torres, Neves, Aguilar, and Captain Lecaros." She does not mention Volta.

According to the International Human Rights Project, the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) operated at the Escuela de Artillería, which was in charge of Captain Claudio Lecaros Carrasco and was formed by Lieutenants Luis Arce Bulo and Raúl Díaz Jara, Sergeant 1st Class Antonio Aguilar Barrientos, Carabineros Captain Sergio Gallardo López, and Investigative Police officials Héctor Torres Guajardo, Nelson Mery Figueroa, Carlos Neves Acosta—who was from the San Javier detachment—Sub-commissioner Luis Espinoza Weber, and detectives Juan Manuel Véjar Varas and another with the surname Olivares.

At the military facility, according to the version of those who suffered torture there, "the detainees were basically placed in two sectors: one was a classroom known as the 'TV room,' because there was a TV set.

In this room, there were about 30 prisoners who remained on benches, without blindfolds or ties, but unable to speak to each other, from where they were taken for interrogations and torture. Another section consisted of isolated and walled-up cells, located in another sector of the School, where those held incommunicado were kept."

OTHER CASES AGAINST MERY

On the day Judge Solís prosecuted the five uniformed officers, curiously, a reaction against him emerged from Linares because, according to many of the plaintiffs, he should have included Nelson Mery among the accused. In the case, there are 42 people who initiated legal actions against the current director of the civil police.

While the president of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of that city, Teobaldo Peña, said that several of those indicted were Mery's direct superiors at the Escuela de Artillería, Sergio Rojas, brother and son of disappeared persons, who was tortured inside the military facility, declared from his residence in Germany that "Mery was the intellectual; he was the one who mobilized all the people inside the School and the one who distributed them to one destination or another." On the same subject, Viviana Díaz, secretary of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, maintained that "Together with the associations of Linares and Parral, we made that complaint, where the director of Investigations was allegedly a participant in the detention of people who are now disappeared."

Regarding other statements linking him to human rights abuses in the very case that Solís is investigating, such as that of Silvia Sepúlveda—partner of Anselmo Cancino—who asserted that Alejandro Mella told her that Mery had tortured him, the director of Investigations declared on June 3rd that "that is impossible," and although he acknowledged that he knew Mella, he said that "in '76 I spoke with people from the MIR, who on behalf of Mella's mother wanted to obtain information about the young man's detention, at which time I pointed out to them that I did not detain him nor did I interrogate him, but that the group of Neves, Volta, and Torres did."

According to Mery, the detainees of those years do not see what he was, a detective without much authority, but rather relate him to his current position. "I did not direct the information; it was only my job to take it, whether by machine or by hand, then I handed it over to Intelligence, who processed it.

I can say that I am attributed a role that I never had at that time, and furthermore, I have never tortured anyone in my professional activity."

Before 2000, when a group of tortured people filed a complaint regarding the events in Linares, it was mentioned that it would include the director of the civil police, and even the magazine Qué Pasa maintained that at the last minute, speculating on pre-electoral political reasons, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs decided to withdraw Mery's name.

Sergio Monsalvez, a PS militant, said that this was not factual but was done for "procedural reasons," to prevent the director of the civil police from filing a counter-complaint against the former political prisoner with the initials A.O. who, according to what had transpired, accused Mery Figueroa of "sexual abuse."

1. A detective's memory "Regarding the names indicated to me as victims of the Escuela de Artillería, I can say the following: Anselmo Cancino Aravena: I knew him from before, but I did not know that he had been a detainee at the Escuela de Artillería.

I never saw him in that military unit. José Gabriel Campos Morales: I remember that case, he was a peasant leader nicknamed "el Chupalla Campos," I don't know the circumstances of his detention, but I do know that he was at the Escuela de Artillería.

I remember that a relative of his approached me to find out if José Campos was detained at the School. In this way, I learned that this peasant leader was transferred to that unit by Captain Hernán Morales, who was the governor of Constitución; through comments at the School, I learned that this was done at night.

Héctor Contreras Cabrera: I remember he was detained at the Escuela de Artillería de Linares, where I never saw him, but I knew about it through Héctor Torres Guajardo; he indicated to me that he was detained in a guardhouse located in front of the non-commissioned officers' casino.

He was known by the nickname "el Picho." Arturo Riveros Blanco: I don't remember that case, I have no information whatsoever. José Alfonso Saavedra Betancourt: another case from Constitución, I don't know him.

Jaime Torres Salazar and Jorge Yánez Olave: they were detained in Cauquenes, and a radiogram was sent to Linares; I remember that well; in the communication, political background information on these people was requested. Furthermore, the father of the latter told me that his son had finally been taken to Constitución."

2. Indictment Order 1.- Carlos Edmundo Morales Retamal, in his capacity as author of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Héctor Contreras Cabrera. 2.- Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, in his capacity as author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Arturo Enrique Riveros Blanco, Jaime Bernardo Torres Salazar, and Jorge Bernabé Yánez Olave. 3.- Félix Renato Cabezas Salazar, in his capacity as author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Anselmo Antonio Cancino Aravena, José Gabriel Campos Morales, and Alejandro Robinson Mella Flores. 4.- Jorge Ernesto Mario Zincke Quiroz, in his capacity as author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of José Gabriel Campos Morales and Alejandro Robinson Mella Flores. 5.- Claudio Abdón Lecaros Carrasco, in his capacity as author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez, Anselmo Antonio Cancino Aravena, José Gabriel Campos Morales, Héctor Hernán Contreras Cabrera, and Alejandro Robinson Mella Flores. 6.- Antonio Aguilar Barrientos, in his capacity as author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez, Anselmo Antonio Cancino Aravena, and Alejandro Robinson Mella Flores. 7.- Héctor Armando Torres Guajardo, in his capacity as author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Anselmo Antonio Cancino Aravena and Alejandro Robinson Mella Flores, and 8.- Humberto Lautaro Julio Reyes, in his capacity as author of the crime against María Isabel Beltrán, illicit acts whose execution began between September 1973 and February 1974, continuing to this date.

Source: El Periodista, July 6, 2003

Former general insists on firing back at Nelson Mery

The "military family" was shocked when, a month ago, Judge Alejandro Solís prosecuted General Humberto Julio for his responsibility in the detentions and disappearance of people in the city of Linares. Julio was imprisoned in a military facility in Peñalolén and is currently still being prosecuted but is on conditional release.

General Julio is 59 years old, has three children and three grandchildren. He retired from the Army after serving as Commander of Logistics Support, Director of Rationalization, and Vice Commander-in-Chief of the II Division. Before that, he was Pinochet's Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs.

Julio considers that he had no responsibility for the acts he is accused of, as he was not in charge of the operations, and points to others as responsible. "To suppose that subordinate personnel could act on their own initiative and risk, overriding the authorities they depended on, is an insult to intelligence," he tells El Mostrador.cl.

He adds that "it would be unworthy of me to judge my comrades who, following orders, had to fight the dirty war while others, among whom I count myself, were able to continue our careers quietly. It's a different story when you're the one holding the guitar. In any case, those who gave the orders should answer for them. That has been and continues to be the doctrine in the Army."

Thirty years ago, Humberto Julio was a captain. He asserts that he had "no participation whatsoever in the detentions carried out in Linares, as that was outside my duties as an aide." However, he adds that "while in charge of a unit in Santiago, between October 13 and December 20, 1973, I collaborated, by superior orders, in the search of a property where an operation had been carried out by a patrol from Linares, led by Nelson Mery, and where two people were detained.

One of them allegedly disappeared later in Linares."

• Is it true that in this process, which already has about nine thousand pages and has been under investigation for years, your name did not appear until Nelson Mery mentioned you last June?
• It is true that Nelson Mery mentions me as being present during the detention, but without greater precision regarding my activity. His most recent statement in La Segunda makes it clear that he is no longer so sure of his claims.

• What was Nelson Mery's exact participation in the events that Minister Solís is investigating, to your knowledge?
• Regarding the two detentions that allegedly took place on December 18, 1973, I have learned that this mission was allegedly given to Nelson Mery through the Intelligence Officer of the Escuela de Artillería. Nelson Mery was the Investigative Police liaison officer to the Director of the School, who was also the Intendant and Head of the Plaza.

• If you knew about this participation of Nelson Mery in the detentions and disappearances in Linares in 1973, why didn't you make it known before being prosecuted, General?
• On July 14, after being prosecuted, was the first occasion on which I was questioned regarding the detention of María Isabel Beltrán, and I was able to provide my version.

• If I understand the situation correctly, Nelson Mery was the one who commanded the political detentions, and you supported one of those operations with a military patrol so that Mery and his people could move around during the curfew; is that correct?
• Mery was sent from Linares to detain these people, and at the same time, the Escuela de Artillería requested support and protection from the Military Institutes Command, which I reported to. In practice, said support, as far as I can remember, translated only into the registration of a large amount of documentation. Mery returned to Linares with the two detainees he handed over to Intelligence, and I remained in Santiago until my unit was relieved. I insist that this was the only time we supported this type of activity, and I don't even remember Mery coming. He is the one who says so.

• I understand that you were an aide to Colonel Gabriel del Río in Linares. What participation did he have in the events?
• Colonel Del Río, as Garrison Commander, is the only person who could have ordered or authorized the sending of a patrol to Santiago.

• The ad hoc prosecutor in Linares was Captain Carlos Romero, isn't that correct?
• That is correct.

• What was the exact participation that Romero had in the cases being investigated, more precisely in the detention and disappearance of María Isabel Beltrán?
• I imagine the Prosecutor must have interrogated those detainees who were placed at his disposal, in particular the disappeared person.

• Why do you think that neither of them, neither Colonel del Río nor the then-Captain Romero, have been prosecuted in this case?
• For me, it is incomprehensible. But I am unaware of their statements.

• Reliable sources indicate to me that both Captain Romero and Colonel del Río are members of Freemasonry, just like Nelson Mery; do you know anything about this?
• I was unaware that they were Freemasons, but I understand that the brotherhood of the lodge cannot go to the extreme of creating a setup that leaves them out while involving someone who has nothing to do with the matter.

• Has either of these two people, del Río and Romero, tried to talk to you in this last while, when you were detained, for example?
• Yes.

• For what purpose?
• Colonel Del Río spoke with me before, as he wanted me to help him remember an episode relative to the death of four detainees from San Javier, a situation for which he has allegedly been prosecuted today. Captain Romero visited me continuously during my detention. We exchanged points of view that I would not like to air in public yet.

• What was General Zincke's participation in these events?
• Major Zincke initially served as Intelligence Officer. I had no working relationship with him, but I can say that he is a gentlemanly person with a good character. I could say nothing regarding the way he handled matters under his responsibility since I am unaware of them.

• In your opinion, what is the most efficient way to obtain information about the whereabouts of these forcibly disappeared persons, General?
• I agree with Clara Szczaranski's proposal, in general. Regarding this case, one would have to focus on the final destination of the person who disappeared in Linares and not be diverted by "smoke screens" regarding who detained her in Santiago.

• Can you be more precise in relation to this case?
• In my position as an aide, I had no function related to detainees. That is regulated, and in a unit, one does what one is supposed to do and not what one would like. I could not have come with Mery from Linares since I had been in Santiago for more than two months. This is backed by my Service Record. Mery has acknowledged that he was ordered to carry out the detention. If I had been in charge, the order would have been given to me. That is military logic; the rest is an absurdity. When the disappeared person was last heard of on February 25, 1974, according to a report by El Periodista—between January and March according to Mery—I was a student at the War Academy, a fact also duly accredited. Can any sane person continue to maintain that I had anything to do with her disappearance? This is the central point, which until now remains obscured by the detention in Santiago.

• Will you avail yourself of the Amnesty Law?
• In no case. I will not avail myself of the Amnesty Law. It would be a dishonor to my family. I committed no illicit act, nor did I know of any, that should be amnestied. I am not defending my skin but my honor.

Source: El Mostrador, July 23, 2003

She did not cry in an explosive manner, although during the part of the session in which she recounted the sexual abuse to which she has denounced being subjected by the Director General of Investigations, Nelson Mery, tears fell down her cheeks and she sought support from her two main defenders: PPD deputies Laura Soto and Jorge Tarud.

This is how the parliamentarians of the lower house's Human Rights Commission described the appearance of the former political prisoner from Linares, Odette Alegría.

In her statements to the press and later to the working group, she fully ratified the accusations that have left Mery in limbo; he is currently on forced leave following a pact with La Moneda and has slim chances of returning to lead the police institution.

After hearing Alegría's testimony, the legislative body agreed to summon Mery to testify at its next session. The president of the commission, the socialist Fulvio Rossi, noted that new information had come to light in Alegría's account, which "merits continuing this investigation to carry out serious work."

Rossi explained that the Human Rights Committee decided to request that the Minister of the Interior, José Miguel Insulza, provide police protection for the complainant and the mayor of Linares, the socialist Carlos Villalobos, who is another of Mery's accusers and who accompanied Alegría during her intervention yesterday.

Rossi, who is a member of a party like the PS that has been hit hard by the Mery case, admitted that "her statements seemed quite credible to me."

Explanations

For her part, Odette Alegría explained that she felt satisfied with the statements she had given and indicated that what she expects is "justice." She stressed that this demand would be met with Mery removed from his post.

The woman who has brought Nelson Mery to the brink of collapse, due to his time at the Artillery School of Linares, where in 1973 he performed duties as an interrogator of political prisoners, arrived at Congress around 1:00 PM and was received by the PPD deputy for Linares, Jorge Tarud, and deputy Laura Soto, who has taken on her defense against the lawsuit Mery filed against Alegría.

When speaking to the press, the former detainee rejected the assertion of socialist parliamentarian Juan Bustos, who has pointed out that she was related to the Rolando Matus Command, of the National Party, and Patria y Libertad during the UP. "Do you think that being a detainee I could have been part of Patria y Libertad?

I want to clarify that I am not a militant of the Socialist Party; I am on the left, but independent," the former political prisoner asserted.

She added that "it is regrettable what is happening with the PS, because these are people who do not know me."

When asked about Mery's situation, Alegría expressed that he, "out of morality," should resign.

Rejection

Likewise, she rejected being part of a plot against Mery and specified that, in her capacity as a leader of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Linares, she is indeed maintaining a lawsuit against the state to achieve financial reparation that she considers "just."

She added that she does not feel pressured and said that she has not received threats, notwithstanding which—she reported—she already has permanent protection from the Carabineros.

"This is not an opportunity for me; I am acting absolutely alone. Behind me, obviously, is my association, but the UDI is not, nor have I ever had contact with any official from this group or any political party," she said emphatically when asked about the version that she could be being manipulated by the right-wing to bring down Mery.

Meanwhile, in Santiago and in the judicial arena, the magistrate of the 23rd Criminal Court of Santiago, Lucía Vaganay, set the first conciliation hearing between Mery and Alegría for Monday, July 21, at 10:00 AM, following the lawsuit for serious public libel filed by the head of the civil police against the woman.

Joaquín Lavín asserted yesterday that the accusations against the police chief "are serious" and criticized the Executive's actions, since—he asserted—in other similar situations it has taken measures immediately. "The government's attitude in other similar cases has been different.

There are other quite recent cases that have involved a branch of the Armed Forces, and the government decided that for similar cases, the individuals must leave (their posts) immediately," he stated.

"This (Mery's) is a position of trust of the President of the Republic, and he is the one who has to act," he added.

Mery's lawyer hopes to reach a settlement with Odette Alegría

Jorge Mario Saavedra, the lawyer for the Director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, asserted that he hopes to reach a settlement with Odette Alegría in the lawsuit filed by the head of the civil police.

"We are going to do everything possible to notify Mrs. Odette so that she appears in court on Monday, or otherwise we will have to postpone the hearing. And hopefully, we will reach a settlement," he stressed after meeting with the PPD bench.

Regarding Odette Alegría, the lawyer maintained that "for us, it is very painful to be against a person who was in that situation, but we believe that she has mistaken the person. I cannot say who is responsible, but at that time there were about seven people prosecuted for carrying out torture in Linares and at the Artillery regiment.

But Mr. Mery has not been prosecuted or summoned, not even in the process they mention."

Likewise, the lawyer reiterated today that his client does not intend to resign and intends to finish the Fénix II plan for the restructuring of the civil police.

"He does not intend to resign because he feels committed to the Fénix plan, the mission he can carry out, and his vocation. (...) He has been in the position for 11 years, and so far I don't think there is anyone in the public opinion who would say he has done it badly. There are three or four things, but in 11 years I think it is normal," the professional stated.

Regarding the project dispatched by the Defense Commission to limit the term of the Director of Investigations to six years and leave it in the hands of any professional Chilean, the lawyer indicated that "I do not have a political opinion, but I believe that once again in Chile, problems are being solved with a problem from long ago.

They have to sit down and see how to solve the issue, because it is a very technical position that cannot be taken by just anyone; it cannot be improvised like that and just arrive and set dates. It is not fair to remove someone if they are doing it very well."

Source: La Nacion, July 17, 2003

Pamela Pereira: "Nelson Mery has atoned for his sins"

The lawyer Pamela Pereira defended the questioned Director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, today by pointing out that he "has atoned for his sins" due to the way he has led the institution when it comes to complying with proceedings regarding human rights.

"Mr. Mery has atoned for his sins during the entire period that he has been in charge of the institution, and I say atoned for his sins because he has indeed had conduct of great democratic conviction and respect for fulfilling his mission to investigate, and he has done so with great strength, and he has done so on the issue of human rights," she stated to Radio Cooperativa.

The professional also acknowledged having received in the past testimonies from relatives of the forcibly disappeared from the Linares area in which the director of the civil police was linked to disappearances and torture against opponents of the dictatorship.

"I cannot fail to acknowledge that, indeed, within the circle of families of the forcibly disappeared, it had been known for many years that he had indeed been present in Linares and was involved, and there were complaints that affected him in relation to cases of forcibly disappeared persons and acts of torture," she indicated.

Pamela Pereira endorsed the words of the president of the Corporation for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of the People, Dr. Paz Rojas, who asserts that "it is not possible for people to distinguish between who is applying the electric cattle prod and who was asking the questions."

The lawyer called on Nelson Mery to recognize and assume the degrees of participation he had in the aforementioned events, since his acts have been sufficient to cleanse his sins, but he must point out what they are and indicate publicly: "I had this conduct and things were like that, but when I had the opportunity to rectify my conduct, I did so."

Source: Tercera, July 23, 2003

Former prisoners gather more testimonies against Mery

About twenty former political prisoners from Linares met yesterday in that city with PPD deputy Jorge Tarud, an occasion during which new testimonies were related pointing to the fact that the Director General of Investigations, Nelson Mery, had witnessed torture in 1973 while serving as a liaison officer at the Artillery Regiment.

The meeting was attended by, among others, Odette Alegría—the woman who accuses the police chief of having subjected her to sexual abuse—and two former detainees whose account of the events has become a fundamental part of the former's defense.

On that occasion, it was agreed to gather more information from those who were held incommunicado at the military facility and who, "overcoming fear, can give their testimony," explained the president of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Linares, Teobaldo Peña.

After reporting the constant transit of Investigations vehicles with their beacons on outside Odette Alegría's home, she went to a notary to delegate her representation in the trial with Mery to PPD deputy Laura Soto. In this regard, it is estimated that the complainant will not personally face the police authority at the hearing scheduled for this Friday.

Meanwhile, Dr. Paz Rojas referred to the testimony given to her in 1990 by Odette Alegría, who began treatment for the chronic post-torture depression she suffered. Although the neuropsychiatrist said that the patient did not hold Mery responsible for the abuses of which she was a victim, she did include him among the names of the Investigations group that was at the Artillery Regiment.

Likewise, the specialist recalled the testimony of another woman detained at those facilities, who does describe him as a perpetrator of torture.

Source: Tercera, July 23, 2003

New complaint from former prisoner complicates Mery

One of the tensest moments of Nelson Mery's visit on Wednesday to the Chamber of Deputies' Human Rights Commission was when Renovación Nacional deputy Pía Guzmán read to the Director of Investigations the testimony of Silvia Inés Sepúlveda Bueno, another former political prisoner from the Artillery School of Linares, who accuses the police chief of being present while she was being tortured while pregnant in September 1973.

According to the parliamentarian, Mery replied that this was "one out of 300 cases in Linares."

La Tercera spoke yesterday in Talca with Sepúlveda, who confirmed the testimony read by Pía Guzmán and accused Mery of witnessing the torture. "He entered on one occasion while they were torturing me. Sometimes he would enter and leave immediately; on other occasions, he would linger a bit and then leave.

I cannot say that he entered to torture, but I can say that he entered the rooms while they were torturing," she said.

The former leftist political leader remembers those days at the Artillery School with pain: "They would take me into the torture room, they would start asking me questions, and since I didn't know things, they would start hitting me; they hit me harder and harder, on my head, on my arms, I was left full of bruises.

They also hit me on my belly, despite being three months pregnant." And she adds: "I remember that on one occasion, while they were hitting me, I saw Nelson Mery enter the room where they were beating me; he entered to ask something and left."

Sepúlveda remembers that when she was interrogated by Mery, he did not hit her. However, she says that for her, the current head of the civil police "was the same as everyone else, the same as (Héctor) Torres, (Claudio) Lecaros, and everyone who is now involved."

Memory of Odette Alegría

The former political leader states that everything that is happening to Mery today shows "that things, even if done in secret, still have to come to light. Today many things that happened in Linares are being known; I think it is painful for him, but for us too, because we have to relive everything that happened to us."

Silvia Sepúlveda says that in her judicial statements she did not name the police chief, due to the nervousness that overcame her when she arrived to testify. "Many things passed me by as a result of having to remember everything I had to live through," she adds.

Sepúlveda remembers that Odette Alegría "would arrive crying, she would scream, she would bathe a lot; I don't know what was going through her head, I only remember that she talked a lot with Inés Carrasco; she was like her confessor."

Finally, the former political prisoner says that her son, who was born while she was detained, allowed her to fight and survive.

Source: La Tercera, August 1, 2003

Odette Alegría asserts that she will not retract her statements

Former political prisoner Odette Alegría said that when she appears to testify before the special judge Lamberto Cisternas, she will not retract the complaint she has made regarding the sexual abuse to which she was allegedly subjected by the current Director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, when he was a detective in 1973 and was the one interrogating the political prisoners who were detained at the Artillery School of Linares.

Mery filed a lawsuit for libel and slander against her.

She specified that she will not retract anything regarding the behavior Mery had toward her because it goes against her principles and dignity as a woman, so she is willing to go to the final consequences and even go to jail.

She acknowledged that women have been appearing to provide their testimony against Mery.

These are, she stated, people who are spontaneously willing to testify, among whom are Lidia Inés Carrasco, from Villa Alegre, and Silvia Sepúlveda Bueno, now based in Talca, and that Norma Montecinos, who lives in Sweden today, has tried to contact her to be a witness because she was detained with her at the Artillery School of Linares, and if it is necessary for her to travel, she will do so.

She added that Norma Montecinos will be a key witness in the lawsuit that the Association of Former Political Prisoners will file against Mery, because he forced her to accompany him to arrest the university student María Isabel Beltrand in Santiago, one of the forcibly disappeared women of the Linares province.

The lawsuit

Teobaldo Peña, president of the "Víctor Jara" Association of Former Political Prisoners of Linares, reported that about 25 people will travel in a bus to accompany Odette Alegría to Santiago to be present in the courts of justice when she gives statements before Judge Lamberto Cisternas.

Peña confirmed that the lawsuit that they, as an association with legal status 315, will file against Nelson Mery in the Second Court of Linares is drafted, in which he is accused of being an accomplice and cover-up for serious human rights violations when, as a detective in 1973, he was in charge of the arrests and interrogations of political prisoners who were transferred to the Artillery School of Linares facility.

He added that the same lawsuit includes everyone who accompanied him—detectives, Carabineros, and military personnel—who tortured at the military facility.

Regarding Odette Alegría, he said that she is calm and that the lawyer Laura Soto already has in her hands the documents of the statement that the former political prisoner made in 1999 against Nelson Mery, who was the person who kept control of the files of the political prisoners who entered the Artillery School of Linares, so, as he added, the head of the civil police knows a lot about who the torturers were and about the forcibly disappeared of the Linares province, who number 54.

He confirmed that 58 women who were detained at the Artillery School of Linares have been handing over their files and information, documents which they are compiling and whose identities he is keeping confidential for the moment, but who are willing to provide statements.

Source: El Mercurio, August 13, 2003

Cisternas closed the summary for the Mery-Alegría case

Special judge Lamberto Cisternas closed the summary in the Mery-Alegría case after 4 months of investigation.

The magistrate was then in a position to issue a sentence in the process initiated after the former Director of Investigations, Nelson Mery, filed a lawsuit for libel against former political prisoner Odette Alegría.

In this regard, the deputy of the Party for Democracy (PPD), Laura Soto, who acts as Alegría's lawyer, announced that she will appeal the measure. According to the parliamentarian, on Tuesday afternoon they located a privileged witness for the case, who should be investigated.

Soto, accompanied by PPD deputy Jorge Tarud, questioned the thoroughness of the work of Magistrate Cisternas. She also pointed out that she has suspicions that the closing of the summary is due to pressure from those close to Mery.

"It seems to us an irritating and stubborn injustice, which has been repeated again despite the fact that there are still pending proceedings. What's more, a testimony by rogatory commission has just arrived from Linares, and he (the judge) immediately makes the decision to close the summary. So, one is left with the feeling that the decision had already been made beforehand," said Soto.

For his part, Deputy Tarud pointed out that he has seen "how Mr. Mery was given resounding support by the Government, and that causes pressure. But the most serious thing is that in the future, anyone who says they were tortured will be judged, and that is very serious for the human rights trials that have been carried out in our country based on testimony."

The case began when Odette Alegría accused the director of the civil police of having sexually abused her while she was detained at the Artillery School of Linares in 1973.

After a few days of controversy, on July 14, Mery decided to take a vacation to begin his defense, which included this lawsuit for libel. Before he returned from his leave, the Government decided to replace him in the position, a situation that officially occurred on October 2, after 11 years at the head of the institution.

Source: El Mostrador, November 12, 2003

The Thief behind the Judge!: Nelson Mery sues Odette Alegría for $30 million

Nelson Mery filed a civil lawsuit for 30 million pesos against former political prisoner Odette Alegría, who accused him of sexually abusing her while she was detained at the Linares Artillery Regiment in 1973.

He also requests 30 million pesos in compensation, alleging moral damages due to libel. Following the responses that Mery's defense must provide, the case will be in the hands of Judge Lamberto Cisternas, who at the end of last month reopened the summary of the proceedings he is overseeing regarding the libel and slander complaint filed by the former head of the civil police against Alegría.

The magistrate adopted the decision after accepting the request of PPD deputy Laura Soto, who is acting as the former prisoner's lawyer. The measure aimed to carry out new investigative steps following the appearance of an alleged privileged witness for the case.

Meanwhile, lawyer Soto commented that the lawsuit from the former head of the Civil Police seemed "irritating" to her, because "in this case, Odette is like a double victim. She was one in '73, and she is one now that she has been prosecuted, and on top of that, they want her to pay the person who, according to her, violated her at a very specific moment."

Source: El Mercurio, December 15, 2003

Nelson Mery is confronted with former political prisoners in Linares

The former director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, is being confronted this morning with former political prisoners from Linares, including Odette Alegría, Julio Molina, and Teobaldo Peña, president of the group.

The proceeding was ordered by special judge Víctor Steinger due to the complaint filed in August of last year by the group of former political prisoners of Linares for the crimes of torture and crimes against humanity.

Mery arrived at the courthouse at 8:55 a.m. in a white car with semi-tinted windows. The confrontation is taking place after the magistrate accepted a request from the group's lawyer, Hugo Velozo.

Source: La Tercera, July 22, 2004

Nelson Mery prosecuted for torture against political prisoners

Special judge Víctor Stenger has indicted and ordered the arrest of the former director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, within the framework of a torture complaint filed by the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Linares in the Seventh Region.

The indictment, which also affected two former detectives and three former military officers, is for the crime of torment, established in Article 150, number one, of the current Penal Code, as announced by the magistrate's secretary, Silvia Martínez.

The prosecution responds to torture to which former political prisoners at the Linares Artillery School were allegedly subjected, a place where the former head of the civil police had served as a liaison after the 1973 coup d'état.

The judicial official added that all those prosecuted must appear before the magistrate's office in Talca to be notified of the resolution. According to police sources, Nelson Mery is reportedly in Santiago awaiting the outcome of the protection appeal filed on his behalf by lawyer Jorge Mario Saavedra before the Talca Court of Appeals, in order to nullify the arrest warrant.

Even if the Maule appellate court rejects the legal action, he would have the opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court, which would delay the notification process for Mery. Also prosecuted as perpetrators of the crimes were former detectives Nelson Volta and Héctor Torres, retired Carabineros sergeant Hugo González, retired Army sergeant Antonio Aguilar Barrientos, and retired Army captain Claudio Lecaros Carrasco, while retired Carabineros captain Sergio Gallardo López was prosecuted as an accessory.

On July 22, the former police director was confronted with former political prisoner Odette Alegría, who accused him of sexual abuse while she was detained at the military facility, a proceeding in which other former detainees also participated.

As a result of the complaint, Mery had to leave his post, which he held for more than twelve years, and at the same time, he filed a lawsuit for public libel against the former prisoner, who was sentenced at the end of April to a suspended 60-day sentence.

The suspended sentence meant that Alegría would not have to serve prison time, so she only has to sign in at the National Patronage of Prisoners. The magistrate also imposed a fine of 20 UTM, as he accepted the civil lawsuit for 2 million pesos filed by the representatives of the former police chief.

Otherwise, the former prisoner would have to be incarcerated. In Santiago, the head of communications for the Investigative Police, Eduardo Naranjo, assured that as of noon, there had been no report regarding the arrest of the former official and that once said procedure is carried out, it will be made known in a timely manner.

Odette Alegría: Divine justice The president of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Linares, Teobaldo Peña, expressed his satisfaction with Judge Stenger's ruling, considering that it represents a message for future generations so that these events are not repeated. "It is a great message for future generations that all of this cannot be repeated within our country.

The defense of human rights is not just for a sector of the left, or the Catholic Church, but for all of Chilean society," the leader stated. Meanwhile, Odette Alegría stated that unlike the ruling that convicted her for libel and slander, in this case, "divine justice and the justice of man" had acted. "Divine justice acted here, because if I was previously involved in a case in which he accuses me of libel and slander.

If you look at the tenor of the two complaints, ours in Linares is of much more weight and relevance, and if Mr. Mery has been prosecuted, it is because divine justice and the justice of man acted here," she pointed out in statements broadcast by Radio Chilena.

Mery detained and transferred to Santiago for torture case The former director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, was detained this afternoon after being notified of the prosecution against him within the framework of a complaint for human rights violations, torture, and other crimes against humanity that occurred after 1973.

This was confirmed by his lawyer, Jorge Mario Saavedra, who announced the filing of an amparo (habeas corpus) appeal before the Talca Court of Appeals that will seek to nullify the arrest warrant and the prosecution against him.

Mery will be transferred this same afternoon to Santiago and will be held at the Investigative Police headquarters. The legal action against him was filed by 106 members of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of the area, including Odette Alegría, in August 2003.

In addition to the former police chief, the magistrate prosecuted and ordered the arrest of six other former uniformed officers. They are the former regional intendant, Gabriel del Río, who was director of the Artillery School in the area; retired captain José Muñoz Pozo; retired sergeant Antonio Aguilar Barrientos; retired captain Claudio Lecaros Carrasco, then head of the Army's Military Intelligence Service; retired Carabineros sergeant Hugo González Yáñez; and former Investigative Police commissioner Héctor Torres Guajardo.

The interrogations brought the former police chief face-to-face with former prisoners Odette Alegría, Óscar Oróstica, Julio Molina, Pedro Sancho, Aldo Reveco, Mario Cifuentes, María Inés Bravo, Belarmino Sepúlveda, and Alfonso Aguilar.

At the end of the procedure, the statements of the former detainees were consistent, in the sense that the former police chief denies all allegations and denies his participation in illegitimate coercion and torture.

Odette Alegría is the former political prisoner against whom Nelson Mery filed a complaint for public libel and slander, after she denounced him as the perpetrator of the sexual abuse to which she was subjected during her detention at the Artillery School.

Referring at that time to her confrontation with Mery, Odette Alegría said that he had denied all the facts and even told the judge that he did not know her, that she was lying, and that he only knew of her through the media.

Julio Molina, former president of the PS in 1973, said that in the confrontation with Mery, it struck him that Mery told Judge Stenger that he was his "friend," which was true, because they knew each other.

Óscar Oróstica, a member of the MIR in 1973, said that Mery acted arrogantly when he denounced to the judge that he was the one who gave the orders when he was subjected to torture. The former policeman told him: "You're lying, you idiot."

Source: El Mostrador, August 24, 2004

Court annuls prosecution against Nelson Mery and releases him

The former director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, was released today and cleared of charges after the Talca Court of Appeals revoked the prosecution ordered against him for the crime of "torment" against 17 political prisoners.

The court adopted the determination by two votes to one after hearing the arguments of the parties for almost two hours this morning. Lawyer Jorge Mario Saavedra spoke for Mery, and professionals Hugo Veloso and Laura Soto spoke for the political prisoners.

The former director of the civil police, who until today remained detained at the Investigative Police School in Santiago, was prosecuted last Tuesday by the Maule appellate court judge, Víctor Stenger.

Along with Mery, the former regional intendant, Gabriel del Río, who was director of the Artillery School in the area; retired captain José Muñoz Pozo; retired sergeant Antonio Aguilar Barrientos; and retired captain Claudio Lecaros Carrasco, then head of the Army's Military Intelligence Service, were notified on Tuesday.

Also charged were retired Carabineros sergeant Hugo González Yáñez and former Investigative Police commissioner Héctor Torres Guajardo. Yesterday, the same court unanimously rejected the request for release that lawyer Saavedra presented as a subsidiary to the amparo appeal in favor of Mery.

The investigation against the former police chief began after a legal action filed against him by 106 members of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of the area, including Odette Alegría, in August 2003. On July 22, Nelson Mery appeared before the special judge at the Linares Artillery School, where he was confronted with eight former political prisoners from that facility in 1973.

Source: El Mercurio, August 26, 2004

Talca: Court determines that Mery must remain detained

The First Chamber of the Talca Court of Appeals today unanimously rejected the request made by the defense of the former director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, to nullify the arrest warrant issued against him.

Mery was detained yesterday afternoon after being notified of an indictment for the crime of tormenting seven detainees, following the allegations of 107 former political prisoners, at the facilities of the Linares Artillery School in 1973.

Lawyer Jorge Mario Saavedra, who represents the former head of the civil police, filed an amparo appeal yesterday to try to nullify the indictment, and subsidiarily asked that the arrest warrant be nullified, which was rejected today.

The amparo appeal will be analyzed first thing tomorrow by the same court, which today was composed of judges Luis Carrasco, Hernán González, and lawyer Roberto Salazar. Thus, Mery must remain detained at the facilities of the Investigative Police School in Santiago until the amparo appeal is resolved.

If the Talca appellate court rejects the legal action, it will be the Supreme Court that must settle the matter.

Source: El Mostrador, August 27, 2004

Former political prisoner who testified against Mery was murdered

The president of the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Linares, Teobaldo Peña, confirmed to La Nación.cl that the former political prisoner of the Linares Artillery School, who testified several times against the former director general of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, Sergio Fernández Ojeda, was found dead last night with a gunshot wound to the back of the neck.

Peña said that Fernández drove a radio taxi for the Universo company and was found by his colleagues inside the car, with nothing stolen. Peña ruled out that the motive for the crime was robbery, because "Sergio had 30,000 pesos in his possession, and they didn't take the car radio or any personal effects, as even his cell phone was left in the car." Fernández's autopsy will be performed today at 5:00 p.m. at the Legal Medical Institute of Linares.

Teobaldo Peña reported that some former political prisoners "pressured Sergio a lot to testify in favor of Mery in the trials, but he said what he saw and testified against him." Fernández had also testified against Mery in the case being investigated in Santiago by judge Alejandro Solís regarding the disappearance of María Isabel Beltrán.

In this case, retired general Humberto Julio is being prosecuted, but Mery is not, despite the fact that Mery was the one who arrested the former MIR member in Santiago and took her to the Linares Artillery School, from where she disappeared.

Retired general Julio has stated that although he supported the arrest with personnel under his command while he was a captain after the military coup, by surrounding Cienfuegos Street in Santiago to facilitate Mery's action, it was Mery who took her to Linares.

This is the case that most affects Mery, since he could be indicted for the crime of kidnapping. Retired Intelligence non-commissioned officer of the Linares Artillery School, Antonio Aguilar, who traveled with Mery in the jeep from Linares to arrest María Isabel Beltrán on December 18, 1973, confirmed in the case being investigated by judge Solís that he traveled with Mery in the jeep and that Mery was in command of the vehicle and the operation, sent by the head of Intelligence of the Linares Artillery School, captain Claudio Lecaros.

Initially, Mery denied the operation involving María Isabel Beltrán, but later acknowledged it.

Source: La Nación, September 24, 2004

Nelson Mery was confronted with retired military officer over disappearance of MIR member

The former director of the Investigative Police, Nelson Mery, was confronted this morning with retired Brigadier General Humberto Julio, former undersecretary of Foreign Affairs during the military regime, regarding the disappearance of the MIR member Isabel Beltrán, which judge Alejandro Solís is investigating.

The proceeding took place this morning at the facilities of the Investigative Police School. Julio, prosecuted for the kidnapping of six forcibly disappeared persons, including Beltrán, accuses the former police chief of having been the head of the commission that arrested the 21-year-old student and fellow MIR member Patricia Contreras.

Mery has denied having participated in the arrest of Beltrán and maintained that he only arrested Contreras, who has testified in his favor. The former director of the civil police implicated the retired general and other former uniformed officers in the disappearance of Beltrán, who at the time of her arrest—September 18, 1973—was a Music Pedagogy student at the University of Chile and an alleged militant of the MIR.

For that reason, Mery's defense maintains that the fact that Julio accuses the former police chief of having participated in the woman's arrest is due to a desire for revenge.

Source: El Mercurio, December 14, 2004

Mery to remain detained at an Investigative Police barracks in Santiago

The former director of the civil police, Nelson Mery, who was indicted for the crime of "tormenting detainees," is being transferred to Santiago as a detainee, guarded by Gendarmerie and Investigative Police personnel.

The former detective will be held at a barracks of the institution, which was not disclosed. According to Jorge Mario Saavedra, Mery's lawyer, he will remain detained until the amparo appeal filed on his behalf in the Talca Court of Appeals is resolved.

Nelson Mery appeared this Tuesday before Judge Stenger, who notified him of the indictment against him, within the framework of the complaint filed in August 2003 by former political prisoners of Linares against those responsible for the illegitimate coercion they were victims of after the military coup of September 1973.

Among the plaintiffs is Odette Alegría, who accused the former policeman of sexually violating her at military facilities in the Seventh Region, which motivated a legal action by Mery, which concluded with the conviction for libel and slander against the woman, who was sentenced to 60 days of suspended prison and to pay compensation of two million pesos.

In this regard, Alegría's lawyer, deputy of the Party for Democracy (PPD) Laura Soto, considered the special judge's resolution regarding Mery "important," as it is a precedent that can be used in the appeal of the first-instance ruling against her client.

Source: cooperativa.cl, August 24, 2004

Case No. 8-2010 Linares: Querubín Bernardo Cuevas Parra case n.-) Indictment statement of Hugo Enrique González Yáñez, on page 616, who acknowledges that: “on September 14, 1973, the Commissioner of Linares called me, along with Sergeant Lillo, informing us that the Commander of the Linares Artillery School needed two officials for interrogations at said place, related to crimes such as possession of campaign tents, possession of firearms, and theft and robbery in the fields, but not crimes of a political nature, under the charge of Lieutenant Gallardo.” Likewise, he maintains that: “I interrogated together with Lillo and Lieutenant Gallardo and we were the only Carabineros who fulfilled this function.” Finally, he states: “Regarding the statement of Sergio Gallardo López, who served as a Lieutenant of Carabineros for the year 1973, I can state that he also participated in the interrogations and from time to time asked questions to the detainees, let him not come to deny this situation now.” In this way, according to the presented background, it is possible to conclude that Sergio Germán Gallardo López and Hugo Enrique González Yáñez were added to the Linares Artillery School in the month of September 1973, forming part of the Integrated Intelligence Service. To that effect, on the occasion of September 11, 1973, a security plan was implemented inside the Linares Artillery School (page 294), which contemplated the existence of an Intelligence Service, whose main purpose consisted of dismantling movements dissident to the de facto regime. Consequently, this section was strengthened by Investigative Police and Carabineros officials, who were added in September 1973; among these, the following stand out: Nelson Volta Rozas, Carlos Neves Acosta, Héctor Torres Guajardo, Juan Vejar Varas, and Nelson Mery Figueroa (the latter as liaison), Sergio Gallardo López, Hugo González Yáñez, and Ramón Lillo Orrego. Likewise, Army officials performed intelligence duties: Jorge Zincke Quiroz (head until October 1973), Claudio Lecaros Carrasco (head), Félix Cabezas Salazar (Subdirector of the Artillery School), Juan Morales Salgado, Antonio Aguilar Barrientos, Francisco Pacheco, Carlos Romero Muñoz (Military Prosecutor); and Mario Cazenave Pontanilla (Secretary to the Military Prosecutor). The main functions of the Intelligence Section consisted of arresting persons dissident to the de facto regime (page 718), carrying out raids (page 1,309); and, finally, interrogating and torturing the detainees at the Linares Artillery School.

Source: Judiciary, December 5, 2017