On October 7, 1973, starting at 9:45 p.m., eleven people belonging to three peasant families from the Isla de Maipo sector were detained in their respective homes. The operation, which took about an hour and a half, was carried out by Carabineros officers from the Isla de Maipo station, who were traveling in a pickup truck belonging to the owner of the estate where the detainees' homes were located.

The agents did not carry arrest or search warrants; despite this, the homes were searched, and family members were terrorized and, in some cases, subjected to unnecessary violence. The detainees taken to that station were: Enrique René ASTUDILLO ALVAREZ, 51 years old; Omar ASTUDILLO ROJAS, 20 years old; Ramón ASTUDILLO ROJAS, 27 years old; Carlos HERNANDEZ FLORES, 39 years old; Nelson HERNANDEZ FLORES, 32 years old; Oscar HERNANDEZ FLORES, 30 years old; Sergio MAUREIRA LILLO, 46 years old; José MAUREIRA MUÑOZ, 26 years old; Rodolfo MAUREIRA MUÑOZ, 22 years old; Segundo MAUREIRA MUÑOZ, 24 years old; and Sergio MAUREIRA MUÑOZ, 27 years old. Eyewitnesses to the events reported to this Commission that the detainees were loaded into a pickup truck, tied up, and laid face down. The Carabineros agents stood on top of them. Once they arrived at the station, they proceeded to beat them.

On the same day, four young men who were in the plaza of Isla de Maipo were detained by Carabineros agents and taken to the same station. They were: Miguel BRANT BUSTAMANTE, 22 years old, agricultural worker; José HERRERA VILLEGAS, 17 years old, sporadic laborer; Manuel Jesús NAVARRO SALINAS, 20 years old, bicycle shop worker; Iván Gerardo ORDOÑEZ LAMA, 17 years old, no occupation.

After some time, the families' searches proved fruitless, and a writ of amparo was filed in 1974 on behalf of the eleven detained peasants. During the processing of that appeal, the acting head of the Isla de Maipo station stated, in an official letter addressed to the Court of Appeals of Santiago: "they were indeed detained in the month of October of last year by personnel of this unit, and were sent with an unnumbered minute, dated the 8th of the same month, for the reasons indicated therein, to the Estadio Nacional prisoner camp, where they were received in good order, as evidenced by the signature registered on the back of the copy of the minute which, it seems, says Sergeant 2nd Class González, a photocopy of which is attached."

However, following an anonymous tip received by the Catholic Church at the end of 1978, which reported the existence of human remains in an abandoned mine in Lonquén, a judicial investigation was initiated by the Visiting Judge, Adolfo Bañados Cuadra, and later, due to his declaration of incompetence, by the Military Prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Swett.

The Carabineros agents who participated in the detention testified before this Visiting Judge and the Military Judge, providing the following version: on October 8, 1973, around 1:00 a.m., they decided to transfer all the detainees to the Estadio Nacional detention center, stopping at the Lonquén lime kilns because one of the detainees had allegedly communicated that there was hidden weaponry in an abandoned mine in the area.

They took the detainees out at that location, and while they were walking toward the kilns, an attack with firearms began against the entire group. As a result of that action, all of the detainees were allegedly killed, with no casualties among the uniformed officers.

Fearing reprisals from the victims' families, the Carabineros officer in charge decided to hide the bodies in the abandoned kilns.

On April 4, 1979, the Visiting Judge issued a resolution declaring himself incompetent to continue hearing the case, referring it to the Second Military Court of Santiago. This resolution contains various considerations establishing that the bodies buried in the Lonquén lime kiln correspond to the fifteen people detained on October 7, 1973, in Isla de Maipo, and that the head of the station at the time had "interference and direct responsibility" in the deaths of these people, "without prejudice to that which may affect those who acted under his command.

Likewise, from the terms of his confession, it also emerges that he incurred in these acts during or on the occasion of police service."

In considerations No. 8 and 9 of the resolution, it was established that the version provided by the head of the station not only contradicted the evidence gathered in the investigation but "is intrinsically implausible (and the same can be said of the statements of his subordinates).

Indeed, it is impossible to imagine that, in the alleged confrontation that occurred in the middle of the darkness, the opposing projectiles only hit the detainees and not the police officers who were practically right next to them, and that the impacts were so accurate that they uniformly caused the instantaneous death of the victims, without, moreover, leaving traces or marks elsewhere.

That on this aspect, it is worth pointing out that in none of the fifteen skeletal remains studied by the Legal Medical Institute were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of vestiges found that could be related to firearm projectiles impacting a living organism, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes."

Subsequently, the Military Prosecutor issued an indictment against the Carabineros agents who were serving at the Lonquén station, as perpetrators of the crime of unnecessary violence causing the death of all the aforementioned detainees.

Later, a sentence was issued, through which the defendants were totally and definitively acquitted of the crime of unnecessary violence, by virtue of the provisions of the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law. That sentence was confirmed by the Court Martial.

Regarding the delivery of the victims' bodies, the Second Military Prosecutor's Office ordered the Legal Medical Service to hand over the identified remains to their families. In that order, it was stipulated: "...You shall deliver for burial the remains of Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, upon verification of the kinship of the next of kin as accredited in the corresponding filiation certificates. ...

Being impossible to identify the remaining bones according to the merits of the case, proceed with their burial in accordance with the law in the town of Isla de Maipo, as it corresponds to the place of their death."

On the same day the order was sent, the families gathered at the Recoleta Franciscana Church to hold a funeral mass. While they were waiting for the arrival of the remains, they learned that the bodies had been buried by Legal Medical Service officials in the Municipal Cemetery of Isla de Maipo in a mass grave, with the exception of Sergio Maureira Lillo, without prior consultation with them.

Faced with this fact, the families filed a complaint against the head of the Second Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago for the "fault and abuse committed by not strictly complying with the order to deliver the bodies... and determining the measures conducive to remedying the grievances caused to the complaining party."

The Court Martial accepted this complaint, applying the disciplinary measure of written censure to the Military Prosecutor. The Supreme Court set aside this disciplinary measure because, as it ruled in its sentence of January 4, 1980, "...it was the judges themselves who imposed it upon him who indicated the procedure he employed..."

The remains have not been exhumed since.

In accordance with all the aforementioned elements and without prejudice to what was established by the Justice system, this Commission is convinced of the direct responsibility of the State agents who were serving at the Isla de Maipo station at that time for the death of the fifteen detainees and the subsequent concealment of their bodies, and consequently, all of them are considered victims of the violation of their right to life.

Miguel Angel Arturo Brant Bustamante, 19 years old, single, agricultural worker, with no political affiliation, was detained on the morning of October 7, 1973. He had left his home to take a walk through town, as it was a Sunday.

He was detained in the Plaza de Armas of Isla de Maipo, in front of numerous witnesses, along with three other young men: José Herrera Villegas, 17; Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, 20; and Iván Gerardo Ordóñez Lama, 17. The detention was carried out by Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo police station, the facility to which they were subsequently taken.

Miguel Angel’s aunt, Marta Brant Solar, with whom he lived, went to the police station, where the young man's detention was denied. She also went to the Red Cross, Talagante authorities, and detention centers without obtaining information on her nephew's whereabouts.

Carabineros informed the families of the other young men that they had all been transferred to the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, where they were also not located.

On that same day, October 7, at nightfall, eleven peasants from the area, workers from the Fundo Naguayán, were detained. Their arrest was carried out by a Carabineros patrol belonging to the Isla de Maipo police station.

The detained peasants were: Enrique René Astudillo Alvarez, 51, and his sons Omar and Ramón Astudillo Rojas, 20 and 27 respectively; the brothers Carlos, Nelson, and Oscar Hernández Flores, 39, 32, and 30 years old; Sergio Maureira Lillo, 46, and his four sons, José, Rodolfo, Segundo, and Sergio Maureira Muñoz, 26, 22, 24, and 27 respectively.

All the detainees were taken to the Isla de Maipo police station; this facility was the last place they were seen alive.

On November 7, 1975, Chile's delegate to the United Nations, Sergio Diez, stated in his presentation before the Third Committee of the General Assembly that "many of the alleged disappeared have no legal existence," while others "were located in records of the Instituto Médico Legal of Santiago." Of the fifteen detained in Isla de Maipo, eight appear on the lists: one of them, Sergio Maureira Muñoz, as having no legal existence, and the other seven as deceased: 1) Enrique Astudillo Alvarez, entry 3166, date of death: October 7, 1973, at 14:00 hours. 2) Nelson Hernández Flores, entry 3238, date of death: October 11, 1973, at 14:30 hours. 3) Oscar Humberto Hernández Flores, entry 3201, date of death: October 9, 1973, at 12:30 hours. 4) José Manuel Herrera Villegas, entry 3130, date of death: October 6, 1973, at 11:30 hours. 5) José Manuel Maureira Muñoz, entry 3263, date of death: October 11, 1973, at 20:30 hours. 6) Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz, entry 3332, date of death: October 15, 1973, at 13:00 hours. 7) Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, entry 3335, date of death: October 15, 1973, at 16:00 hours.

The origin of these lists and those responsible for their creation could never be established. Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Instituto Médico Legal took responsibility for them.

During the month of November 1978, a Catholic priest received, under the seal of confession, information about a place where numerous human remains were located.

Considering the gravity of the matter, a Commission was formed to verify the accuracy of the information before filing a formal judicial complaint.

This commission was composed of Monsignor Enrique Alvear, Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago; Monsignor Cristián Precht, Vicar of Solidarity; Jaime Martínez, Director of the weekly "Qué Pasa"; Abraham Santibáñez, Sub-Director of the magazine "Hoy"; and lawyers Alejandro González and Máximo Pacheco.

The Commission met on November 30, 1978, at the site of the discovery, an abandoned lime kiln located in the town of Lonquén, a small village 14 kilometers from the city of Talagante and near the town of Isla de Maipo. There, they were able to confirm the existence of two kilns, approximately nine meters high, in one of which a large number of human remains were found.

Once the information was verified, Bishop Monsignor Alvear and lawyers Pacheco and González filed the respective complaint the following day, December 1, with the President of the Supreme Court, Mr. Israel Bórquez, requesting that he report it to the Plenary of that Court.

This initiated the judicial investigation that allowed for the determination that the remains found belonged to the fifteen locals detained on October 7, 1973, who were executed by Carabineros and their remains illegally buried in the kilns.

The victims' families requested the release of the bodies to give them a proper burial. The Court Martial ordered the Military Prosecutor to hand over the remains to whoever could legally prove kinship.

The Prosecutor ordered "strict compliance with that order," but finally, on the day of the funeral, he ordered that, due to the impossibility of identifying the remains—except for those of Sergio Maureira Lillo—they be buried in the town of Isla de Maipo.

On the same day this order was issued, the families had gathered at the Recoleta Franciscana Church awaiting the remains to hold a funeral mass, only to learn at that moment that the bodies had been buried by officials of the Servicio Médico Legal in the Municipal Cemetery of Isla de Maipo in a common grave, with the exception of Sergio Maureira Lillo, who was buried in an individual grave.

The Military Prosecutor also refused to authorize the registration of the deaths in the Civil Registry and Identification Office. This resolution was confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Days later, a funeral ceremony for the eternal rest of these victims was held at the Cathedral of Santiago, without the presence of their remains. Years later, the Lonquén Kilns, which by that date had become a place of pilgrimage, were dynamited.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On November 26, 1976, a complaint for alleged disappearance, Case File 24.996 4, was filed in the Talagante Criminal Court.

The Court requested reports on the affected person from hospitals and clinics in Santiago and the area near Isla de Maipo, which invariably responded that they had no records of the victim. The Civil Registry offices of Talagante and Isla de Maipo reported the same, and the Central Identification Office did not send a filiation extract "because no person with that name is registered." Inquiries made at cemeteries in the area and in Santiago, as well as the Instituto Médico Legal, also provided no data regarding the young man.

For its part, the Minister of the Interior, in response to two official letters, stated that he had no records of Miguel Brant, no order affecting him, and no record of him leaving the country after October 1973.

The latter was subsequently corroborated by the Department of Immigration and International Police. It should be noted that several of these proceedings were incorporated during the investigation, accepting the express requests made by the complainant to the Court.

Regarding the information received from police services, the Investigations department reported that there was no record in the files of the Technical Advisory Department of an arrest warrant against the affected person.

For its part, Carabineros submitted several reports. In the first, it states that the Corporal of the Isla de Maipo police station in charge of carrying out the investigation order verified that the Unit's Guard Books corresponding to the years 1973 and 1974 had been sent to the base unit to be incinerated, so the detention of Miguel Brant could not be verified.

In an official letter sent later, the Lieutenant in charge of the same station reported that he had no record of detention in that police unit either before or after the date of the letter. In response to a third official letter from the Court, the Isla de Maipo station sent the list of people detained by personnel of that unit during the month of October 1973, in which neither Miguel Brant nor any of those detained on October 7, 1973, appear.

About a year later, the Judge requested that the station clarify the contradictory information appearing in the official letters, to which Carabineros responded that the Guard Books were incinerated, not the Crime Statistics Book, the register from which the list of detainees was copied.

Another proceeding carried out at the request of the complainant was the appearance of the parish priest of Isla de Maipo, who declared that he had indeed gone to the station in October 1973 at the request of the detainees' families, and there he was informed that they had been transferred to the Estadio Nacional in Santiago.

On the other hand, and as a result of publications appearing in newspapers in December 1977, in which the General Secretariat of Government reported the clarification of 1,200 cases of disappeared persons, that Secretariat was requested to inform whether Miguel Brant was among the clarified cases.

To this request, the Minister Secretary General of Government sent a letter stating that "the information requested is not within the competence of that Secretariat."

The Court requested information from Carabineros about Officer Lautaro Castro, who in October 1973 served as head of the Isla de Maipo station. The Carabineros Personnel Directorate indicated that Captain Lautaro Castro Mendoza belonged to the staff of the Potrerillos Sub-station, dependent on the 4th Precinct of the Copiapó Prefecture.

Because of this, a request was sent to the El Salvador Court of Letters for the summoning and interrogation of the aforementioned Carabineros officer. On May 5, 1978, he appeared before the Court, declaring that he was in service at the Isla de Maipo station between 1971 and early 1974.

He noted that "between the months of September and October of that year (1973), countless detentions were recorded, more than 150 people, making it practically impossible to remember with precision the dates and places where these occurred." Regarding whether four young men were detained on that occasion for alleged marijuana consumption, he stated that "it is impossible for him to state with certainty what was asked by the Court" since marijuana consumption was a frequent occurrence among the unemployed youth of the area.

He also does not remember families with the surname Brant Bustamante and Navarro Salinas.

On October 30, 1978, the summary was declared closed and the case was temporarily dismissed because the crime was not sufficiently proven, a resolution that was approved by the Santiago Court of Appeals on November 22 of the same year.

On December 1, 1978, the Vicariate of Solidarity, represented by the Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, Monsignor Enrique Alvear Urrutia, and the Episcopal Vicar, Monsignor Cristián Precht Bañados, presented a complaint to the Supreme Court regarding the discovery of human remains inside two old kilns used for mineral processing on the slopes of the Lonquén hills, in the Department of Talagante.

This information had been provided days earlier by a person to a priest, under the seal of confession.

Prior to the presentation to the Supreme Court, the ecclesiastical authorities formed a Commission that went to the indicated place, verifying the truthfulness of the information.

In the presentation, signed by Bishop Monsignor Enrique Alvear, Vicar Monsignor Cristián Precht, and lawyers Máximo Pacheco and Alejandro González, they requested that the Supreme Court "adopt measures to ensure a rapid and exhaustive investigation."

The Supreme Court referred the background information to the Talagante Criminal Court to instruct the respective summary, initiating case file 27.123 3. As a first step, the magistrate went to the site on December 1, located about 3.5 km from the town of Lonquén, confirming the existence of a stone construction, approximately 9 meters high by 16 meters wide, in which there were two kilns, each with an entrance opening of 1 meter by 80 cm, and in the upper part of which there were two pits that showed a large accumulation of earth and stones.

Inspecting one of the entrances and removing some debris, remains, pieces of fabric, and hair were extracted; observation inside allowed for the discovery of other human remains.

In successive excavations, human remains were extracted and also sent to the Instituto Médico Legal for analysis. Some projectile casings were also found.

On December 6, the Plenary of the Supreme Court appointed the Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mr. Adolfo Bañados Cuadra, as Minister in Extraordinary Visitation to continue the investigation into the discovery of the Lonquén remains.

Several peasants residing in the vicinity of the kilns were summoned to testify. They indicated that a few days after September 11, 1973, Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo station informed them of an order prohibiting passage toward the sector where the kilns are located, as there was a "hideout for extremists." Other peasants said they had seen military vehicles and heard gunshots.

Regarding the construction of the kilns themselves, a report from the Investigations Department of Infrastructure indicated that part of it was old, more than 60 years old, while inside one of the kilns there was an iron platform on which a screed or slab based on stone and brick joined with lime or plaster was executed, and whose age was no more than 8 years.

The report ends by indicating that "apparently, this work was executed by throwing the mixture first from the upper opening of the kiln, and then the rest of the material, since an orderly placement of the elements is not observed, which suggests that it was executed by non-specialized personnel."

Regarding the ballistic analysis of three casings found, the Forensic Ballistics section of the Investigations Criminalistics Laboratory reported that the 7.62 NATO casings had been fired by a Swiss-made SIG automatic rifle, caliber 7.62 NATO SG 510 4; all were fired by the same weapon with the indicated characteristics.

When the Court was constituted at the Isla de Maipo station, it was verified that the 1973 logbooks had been sent to the Third Precinct of Talagante for incineration, and regarding the weaponry, three SIG SG.510 4 automatic rifles, cal. 7.62 mm, appear in the records.

In the Third Precinct of Talagante, information was obtained regarding the staff existing at the Isla de Maipo station and the Lonquén outpost, which amounted to 21 officials. The Lieutenant was Lautaro Castro Mendoza.

During the process, the list of 63 "allegedly disappeared persons who were located in records of the Instituto Médico Legal of Santiago" was reviewed, which was presented along with another list of "alleged disappeared persons with no legal existence" by the Chilean government to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1975.

The Court requested from the Instituto Médico Legal the autopsy protocols that, according to the list, corresponded to Segundo, Rodolfo, and José Maureira Muñoz. In relation to this, Dr. Claudio Molina, Director of the Institute, declared that "the inaccuracy of the list of 'presumably disappeared persons' is evident at least regarding protocol No. 3332, since the study of the body revealed that it was a woman." He added that he had seen this list in a 1975 publication and that, together with another doctor, he identified the signature as belonging to Dr.

Vargas (former Director of the Institute), "but I do not know on what this professional based himself to endorse said role."

The Judge of the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago was constituted at the Instituto Médico Legal at the request of Minister Bañados, and it was verified that none of the people on the list appeared entered in the Institute's Index Book.

The only thing that coincided between both lists were the data that appeared in the column for the day of death with the date of entry in the Registry book. At the date of this proceeding, Dr. Vargas had passed away; in the processing of case 240005 of the 1st Maipo-Buin Court, which investigates the disappearances in Paine, it was established that Dr. Vargas's signature was not the one known.

In this regard, the Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández Fernández, reported, indicating that there was no record that the list of people corresponded to any official communication issued or sent by that Ministry.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Acting, Army Colonel Roberto Soto Mackenney, reported that the aforementioned list appeared in Volume No. 2 of "The Current Situation of Human Rights in Chile," published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the month of October 1975.

The source of the data contained in said list corresponds to information provided by the Instituto Médico Legal of Santiago in the year 1975.

Ultimately, it was not possible to establish responsibilities in the creation of the list.

In February 1979, as a result of having found indications that the remains found belonged to the detainees from Isla de Maipo, proceedings began for the recognition of the clothing found in the kilns. The victims' families appeared, most of whom were able to recognize the clothing their relatives were wearing at the time of their detention.

Previously, the anthropomorphic records of these 15 victims had been delivered to the Court.

Summoned to testify, the Carabineros who belonged to the staff of the Isla de Maipo station in September 1973 appeared. Carabineros Captain Lautaro Eugenio Castro Mendoza stated that he gave the order to detain "several subjects of the Maureira family" for being dangerous people linked to the interests of the previous government who were planning to attack the barracks; in addition, "other individuals from the sector with the surname Hernández and others I do not remember until reaching eleven people" were detained.

He himself led the picket and defined the detentions, guided by a list attached to a map found in the house of one of the sons of the Maureira family. Once the arrests were finished, they were taken to the barracks where they were interrogated, confirming his suspicions "regarding their dangerousness." Castro adds that, once the interrogation was finished, he himself ordered their transfer to the Estadio Nacional, but before that, one of the detainees informed him in private that there were weapons hidden in an abandoned mine.

For this reason, they went to the abandoned mines in Lonquén in a municipal truck and a private pickup truck, with 8 to 10 Carabineros and the detainees. Once they arrived at the sector, they were suddenly attacked with firearms from the hills, to which they also responded by firing, a situation that lasted ten to fifteen minutes.

Upon proceeding to look for the detainees, they verified that all of them were dead. All the Carabineros were unharmed.

Subsequently, he decided, after consulting with the personnel, to bury the bodies in the kilns to avoid reprisals against them and their families. That is how "the bodies were thrown inside and immediately I ordered that earth and debris be thrown over them."

Asked about the statements he made in other processes asserting that the detainees had been transferred to the Estadio Nacional, he points out that he did not tell the truth out of fear, since "upon being arrested, all these subjects had an attitude of threat that seemed very serious to me in the sense that they could take revenge in any way on our own persons and family."

Regarding the note, he declares that it was signed by him but he does not recognize the signature and handwritten script at the bottom.

He reiterates that the detainees were eleven and that he does not know the minors who supposedly also died that day. He was referring to Iván Ordóñez, Miguel Brant, José Herrera, and Manuel Navarro.

All the Carabineros who participated in the events were armed with SIG rifles and NATO ammunition.

Other Carabineros from the staff also appeared; several of them confirmed Captain Castro's version, adding that the detainees were tied with trintrollas (a type of cord), that they were lying on the platform of the truck, and that they used their hands and feet to throw stones and material from the hillsides into the kilns.

On March 15, 1979, the families of the disappeared from the Maureira, Astudillo, and Hernández families filed a criminal complaint for kidnapping against the Carabineros who participated in the arrest, for forgery of a public instrument against Lieutenant Castro, and for qualified homicide against those who turned out to be responsible.

The following day, Minister Bañados rejected the processing of the complaint because there was insufficient evidence to affirm that they were indeed the people found in the kilns and that, in the event that the Carabineros were responsible, that Court would lack the competence to substantiate the process.

On April 4, 1979, the Minister in Visitation declared himself incompetent. In the resolution, the Minister points out the following conclusions:

He establishes that the identity of the bodies found corresponds to the 15 detained on October 7, 1973, in Isla de Maipo.

He presumes that "multiple crimes of homicide were committed, apparently, in a single act."

He takes as established that the information given by Carabineros that the victims were taken as detainees to the Estadio Nacional is false.

He likewise takes as false the official information that the bodies entered the Instituto Médico Legal during the years 1973 and 1974.

He establishes as "intrinsically implausible" the version of Captain Lautaro Castro, who explains the death of the detainees as the result of an armed attack caused by unknown persons at night, because "it is impossible to imagine that the opposing projectiles could have impacted, under the conditions already expressed, only the prisoners and not their captors; that from the shootout that occurred there, no trace remained, in any respect; and that, in all cases, the injuries were of such a condition that they caused the instantaneous death of the victims."

He points out that, "in none of the fifteen skeletal remains studied by the Instituto Médico Legal were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of vestiges that could be related to firearm projectiles impacting a living organism verified, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes."

He considers that the Carabineros acted in the line of duty and that in the events "the Head of the Station had direct interference and responsibility, without prejudice to that which may affect those who acted under his command."

The background information was sent to the Military Justice on April 10, and in the Second Military Prosecutor's Office, the process Case File 200-79 was instructed, in charge of Prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Swett.

From this stage of the process, it is worth highlighting the statement of a witness (brother-in-law of the Hernández brothers) who was also arrested on October 7, 1973, along with them at their home. He maintains having been with the eleven detainees during the journey to the station, and upon arriving at this facility, he only remained for about half an hour and was then taken to his home by a Carabinero.

Also appearing is the former Carabineros official, Pablo Ñancupil Raquileo, discharged in 1977, who served at the Isla de Maipo station between 1971 and 1975. He points out that he was in charge of the detention of the Maureiras and the Astudillos, ordered personally by Lieutenant Castro; he does not remember having apprehended the Hernández brothers.

He adds that in the respective searches of the homes, they did not find weapons or documents that would allow them to be classified as "dangerous." In relation to this, Lieutenant Castro had previously stated that he had been guided by a list and a map of the barracks found in the house of one of Sergio Maureira's sons to carry out the other detentions.

The former Carabinero Ñancupil adds that about two days after the arrest, he saw, in a room of the police facility intended for storage, "more than 10 and less than 25 people," lying on the floor and with their hands tied behind their backs, among whom he recognized those detained by him and also three of the young men apprehended in the plaza, whom he names by their surnames: Brant, Ordóñez, and Navarro.

He also points out that he did not participate in the transfer of the detainees from the station and has no knowledge of the fate they met, although he says that, as a result of people's comments that the detainees had not appeared, he heard a Carabinero say: "How are they going to appear... if we killed them."

On July 2, 1979, the Military Prosecutor issued an indictment against Lautaro Castro Mendoza, Juan J. Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto R. Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta, as authors of the crime of unnecessary violence causing the death of all those detained on October 7, 1973.

On August 16, the sentence was issued that dismissed the case totally and definitively in favor of the defendants, by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law. This resolution was appealed and confirmed by the Court Martial on October 22, 1979.

On the other hand, the Military Prosecutor's Office did not return their remains and in September 1980 ordered that they be buried, for the second time, apart from their families. Despite the evidence that exists in the process, the death of Miguel Angel Brant Bustamante was not registered in the Civil Registry.

Source: Corporation report