The man who gave the most headaches to Juica and the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police was Hernán Miquele, known as "el facho" (the fascist) among his colleagues at the CNI. He is a former FACH officer and subsequent civilian officer of the CNI.

Hernán Miquele was detained last year and later released due to a lack of evidence, and his is perhaps the case that presented the most complexities for Judge Juica and the team from the Fifth Department of Investigations (DV).

This is because the former agent, in 1999, managed to evade the reach of justice for almost a year by using a false identity, dyeing his hair, changing his address, and traveling through various cities in the country.

On that occasion, the DV tracked him to La Serena, where he had relatives, but they did not find his whereabouts. Civil police officers later located him in the city of La Unión, Tenth Region, where he was working as security personnel at the company of another acquaintance.

Investigations located him and attempted his arrest, but just one day before raiding the place, he had departed for an unknown destination, according to qualified sources who spoke to this outlet. In police jargon, there is an old adage: everyone who flees from justice returns to the fold.

Miquele had a partner in the commune of Maipú and, knowing this, the DV conducted "fixed points" (surveillance) for weeks, until one day the former agent arrived at the location. The detectives attempted his arrest and, faced with Miquele's resistance, the officers made use of physical force.

But this year, at the beginning of October, following several testimonies that implicated him in Operation Albania, the judge ordered his arrest once again and indicted him.

Source: El Mostrador, Saturday, November 4, 2000

Against an active DINE commander and a former FACH officer. Juica indicts two other officers for the Albania case

The indictments were issued in mid-October and had been kept under extreme secrecy by the judge presiding over the case, Milton Juica. Visiting Judge Milton Juica, who is investigating the case known as Operation Albania, indicted Lieutenant Colonel Eric Silva, an active-duty officer of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), as a perpetrator.

Additionally, he indicted the former Air Force officer and civilian employee of the defunct National Information Center (CNI), Hernán Miquele, known among his peers as "el facho," also as a perpetrator.

The information was obtained exclusively by El Mostrador from military, judicial, and police sources. Both were indicted approximately fifteen days ago, but until now their names had not reached the press, as Judge Juica has maintained extreme secrecy in his investigation.

Juica's discretion is due to the fact that former CNI officers and lower-ranking personnel have begun to confess how the defunct intelligence service set up an operation to cover up the kidnapping followed by the homicide of 12 militants of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, on June 15 and 16, 1987, in four different locations in Santiago, as indicated by the indictments issued by the magistrate.

Juica had also kept the indictments secret because in the coming days he was going to add them to another list of defendants that he will make public.

Source: El Mostrador, November 4, 2000

Major sentence against retired general for crimes during the dictatorship Operation Albania: Supreme Court confirms life imprisonment for Hugo Salas Wenzel

The Supreme Court confirmed this Tuesday the life sentence against retired general Hugo Salas Wenzel, former director of the National Information Center (CNI), for his responsibility in the crime of twelve members of the Front in June 1987, within the framework of Operation Albania.

Salas Wenzel was sentenced as the intellectual author of the murders, which were planned as one of the acts of revenge for the attack on Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, which occurred in September 1986. With this resolution, the former head of the repressive agency became the retired general who has received the longest sentence for human rights violations committed during the military dictatorship.

The decision was adopted by the Second Chamber (Criminal) which also ruled on the sentences that Judge Hugo Dolmestch issued against fourteen other former uniformed officers who participated in the operation, also known as the Corpus Christi Massacre.

In court, it was explained that since Salas Wenzel began to be tried before the law was modified, a simple life sentence will be applied to him, which allows him to access some type of benefit after 20 years in prison.

The highest court also decided to increase from 15 to 20 years in prison the sentence against the former operational chief of the repressive agency, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, who is already serving time for other human rights violations perpetrated during the military dictatorship.

Meanwhile, it maintained the 10-year prison sentence against retired Carabineros commander Iván Quiroz Ruiz, while it increased the punishment against former CNI agent Enrique Neira Donoso from 7 years and one day to 8 years in prison.

These four former members must serve their punishment in prison alongside former agent Manuel Morales Acevedo, who had initially been sentenced to three years in prison, but the Supreme Court increased his punishment to five years and one day.

Meanwhile, former agents Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, Rodrigo Pérez Martínez, César Acuña Luengo, Patricio Miquel Carmona, and Fernando Burgos Díaz were sentenced to five years and one day in prison, while Eric Silva Reichart received a five-year prison sentence.

Gonzalo Maas del Valle, José Miguel Morales Morales, and René Valdovinos Morales were sentenced to three years in prison, while Hugo Guzmán Rojas received a punishment of 541 days in prison. The Supreme Court also confirmed the acquittal of 11 agents who participated in the operations and who had already been exonerated by Dolmestch and the Santiago Court of Appeals, among whom are former agents Kranstz Bauer and Jorge Vargas Bories, as well as former Carabineros prosecutor Luis Acevedo.

Last June, the State Defense Council (CDE) and the victims' relatives reached a reparation agreement in which the Treasury committed to paying an indemnity of $300 million to each family group. Plaintiffs celebrate the decision Lawyer Nelson Caucuto, representative of the victims, highlighted that this is the first life sentence for a military officer with the rank of general, which in his opinion reveals "the gravity of the facts judged and the importance of this case." "We have managed to establish the truth of what happened and high criminal sanctions, where there is a life imprisonment sentence and also finally there is reparation. In a single sentence, we have managed to bring together the three aspects that comprise a complex concept such as justice, which are truth, criminal sanction, and reparation," he maintained. "It seems extraordinary to me to have closed this chapter with these sentences that the highest court has issued," he pointed out.

Source: El Mostrador, August 29, 2007