On February 26, visiting judge Mario Carroza sentenced former detectives Eduardo Rodríguez Zamora and Nelson Lillo Merodio to five years of imprisonment in its minimum degree as perpetrators of the homicide of journalism student and MIR militant José Eduardo Jara Aravena, who died in 1980 as a result of kidnapping, confinement, and torture perpetrated by members of the self-styled “Comando de Vengadores de Mártires” (“Covema”).

In addition to that sentence, both former police officers received another 541 days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as perpetrators of the crime of torture against fellow journalism student and friend of Jara, Cecilia Alzamora Vejares.

Around noon on July 23, 1980, Eduardo Jara and Cecilia Alzamora were traveling in a shared taxi toward the central campus of the Universidad Católica when they were intercepted at the intersection of Eliodoro Yáñez and Los Leones streets (Providencia) by a group of armed men dressed in civilian clothes, who forced them into a pickup truck.

They were taken blindfolded to the Cuartel Borgoño and later to a safe house owned by the Policía de Investigaciones (PDI), located at Calle Obispo Orrego N°241 (Ñuñoa).

The “Covema” had emerged only days earlier after a MIR commando assassinated the director of the Army Intelligence School, Roger Vergara Campos. Composed of a group of PDI officials from the Homicide, Assault, and other brigades—who acted outside of any judicial authorization—it “officially” presented itself on August 4, 1980, through an insert in the newspaper La Segunda: “Gentlemen, given the incapacity of the security and police forces, as of this date we have formed the ‘Comando Vengadores de Mártires’ (Covema).

We assume the responsibilities that you and society have evaded.”

After being taken to the house located on Obispo Orrego, Eduardo Jara and Cecilia Alzamora were victims of systematic torture. In the early hours of August 2, 1980—and after more than a week of confinement—they were abandoned in a vacant lot in the upper sector of the La Reina commune.

Jara, 28 years old and a father of one child, died a few hours later at the Posta 4 in Ñuñoa. Nelson Lillo Merodio, one of the two convicted for the homicide of Eduardo Jara, was, along with José Laureano Opazo (deceased), one of the leaders of the Covema, a commando responsible for at least 14 other kidnappings.

In the ruling, Carroza upheld the civil claims for moral damages against the State, setting compensation of $50 million in favor of Eduardo Jara’s son and Cecilia Alzamora Vejares.

Seven other members of the Covema prosecuted in this case as perpetrators of the crimes of homicide and torture (Erick Concha Arias, Mario Escárate Escárate, Domingo Pinto Arratia, Manuel Hernández Fernández, Jaime Cifuentes del Campo, David Mesa Fuentes, Wilfredo Indo Etchegaray, and Juana Moreno Arellano) were acquitted.

Source: ciper.cl, February 27, 2018