Indicted for the disappearance of three Uruguayans and a Chilean worker, both in 1973, the former commander of the Mateo Durruty Blanco Mountain Engineer Regiment blames his subordinates as a "troop of disloyal men." "Mamo" calls him a "traitor." "Mamo" raised his voice and launched the accusation: "Colonel Mateo Durruty is lying and evading his military responsibility by trying to shift it onto the DINA, and that is called military treason." The former commander of the Puente Alto Mountain Engineer Regiment defended himself: "All of this was a DINA invention; I never signed anything, nor did anyone report the detained persons to me (...) I have nothing to do with it, no one told me anything, it was a troop of disloyal men." The confrontation between the former DINA operations chief, General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras, and Colonel (Ret.) Mateo Durruty, was heating up in Judge Colomba Guerrero's office. The colonel did not accept Contreras's accusation, which charged him with being the one who, with a signed document, sent two detainees from the regiment to Villa Grimaldi in September 1973. Contreras rejected the claim that the DINA had taken the detainees from the barracks. Both prisoners survived. But what mattered was that the colonel persistently denied that the regiment he commanded had served as a center for political imprisonment and torture following the military coup, a fact not publicly disclosed until now. A handful of those who were his subordinates, but mainly the conscripts who were performing their military service in those barracks at that time, stated the opposite in the proceedings and admitted to the existence of detainees. Aside from his altercation with "Mamo," Colonel Durruty's situation was already complicated in any case, since despite pleading innocence and ignorance of everything that happened in the regiment under his command, by 2006 he was already being prosecuted as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and forced disappearance of the worker Juan Llanca Rodas, an event that occurred on September 17, 1973, and as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and forced disappearance at the end of that same month and year of the Uruguayan citizens Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuk Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres. In other words, not only had torture occurred in that regiment under his command, but also the forced disappearance of persons. To the river Before Juan Llanca was killed and his body thrown into the Maipo River to make him disappear, his executioners at the Mountain Engineers in Puente Alto fed him ground glass to cause him severe internal injuries. A witness to this torment was his fellow captive Alfonso Brizuela Durán, as he recounted in the judicial investigation not only before the judge, but also face-to-face with Mateo Durruty himself, who of course refuted the fact and denied everything once again: "I never knew anything, there were never any detainees in my regiment," he insisted. It was Manuel Contreras who confessed to Judge Guerrero on September 22, 2005, that according to information gathered among officers and non-commissioned officers of the Mountain Engineers—"direct actors in the event"—Juan Llanca was tortured in those barracks, killed, and then his body was thrown into the Maipo River. All because the victim, along with the other two people whom Colonel Durruty sent to Villa Grimaldi, had had a fight in a bar on September 16, 1973, with the regiment's non-commissioned officer Temístocles Navarrete Becerra, for which they took revenge in those barracks. In the case of the Uruguayans, the story was different. Six of these citizens were detained at the end of 1973 by officials from the San José de Maipú sub-precinct inside an abandoned mine in the mountain sector of the Puente Alto commune, while they were trying to cross clandestinely into Argentina, fleeing the military coup. They had arrived in Chile fleeing the coup d'état in Uruguay. They were taken by the police to the Mountain Engineers in Puente Alto, where they were tortured. At the end of September 1973, they were taken out of the barracks, as they were told, to be taken to the Estadio Nacional, but on the way, Arcos, Povaschuk, and Pargadoy were separated from the rest, disappearing to this day. The weight of the evidence However, well into the democracy and up to the time when General (Ret.) Juan Emilio Cheyre was commander-in-chief, the Army continued to provide partial information to the courts, confirming what plaintiff lawyers continued to denounce in the various cases regarding crimes against humanity. The entire repressive situation at the Puente Alto Engineers was led by its commander, Mateo Durruty, through his team of men from the regiment's military intelligence, among whom were the "intellectuals" who did the analysis work, and those who stained their hands with blood, as in any intelligence community. Nevertheless, the Army, through its chief of staff, General Javier Urbina, informed Judge Colomba Guerrero on August 10, 2004, via official letter 1595/1178, in response to her direct inquiry, that in the Puente Alto Mountain Engineer Regiment, "having reviewed the institutional records, it was established that it did not include a Department or Section II of Intelligence." Curiously, Judge Guerrero and later Minister Marta Hantke, in charge of the investigation into Llanca Rodas, as well as Minister Joaquín Billard, who is investigating the case of the three Uruguayans, already had at that date dozens of testimonies from officers and non-commissioned officers, and even those of Generals (Ret.) Fernando Martínez Benavides and Manuel Contreras, who affirmed without any doubt that a Section II of Intelligence did indeed exist at the Puente Alto Mountain Engineers. In train cars According to the investigations of the proceedings for these four victims, hundreds of detainees passed through the regiment that Colonel Durruty commanded until December 1975, suffering torments similar to those applied in the clandestine DINA barracks. The prisoners were kept in subhuman conditions, locked in train cars used as collective cells. From there, they were taken out at different hours of the day and night to face the torments applied by officers and non-commissioned officers of the regiment's Section II of Intelligence. A section that was non-existent, according to the Army's report to Judge Guerrero, but which the investigation was able to identify by each of its members. During that period of high repression, Colonel Mateo Durruty had as the second-in-command of the regiment Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, who later joined the DINA general staff along with the "stars" Marcelo Morén Brito, Miguel Krassnoff, and Pedro Espinoza, among others. Although the Army initially denied the magistrates in charge of these inquiries the lists of conscripts who had completed their military service in this regiment in the first months after the coup d'état, claiming they were "secret," the institution later handed them over. The judges required them to begin interrogating them, because in that way, as has happened in other cases, they could break the silence of officers and non-commissioned officers, who were colluding to deny or distort the information requested of them. The strategy yielded good results in these cases again, since the majority of the former conscripts interrogated provided relevant data and confirmed what happened in the Mountain Engineer Regiment in the first months after the 1973 military uprising. Along with Durruty Blanco, officers (Ret.) David Miranda Monardes and Pedro Teyssedre Cartagena, both former heads of the regiment's Section II of Intelligence, and the non-commissioned officers (Ret.) who were part of the same section, Luis Canales Pino and René Cruces Tapia, are being prosecuted for these crimes.

Source: La Nación, January 14, 2007

New conviction issued against "Mamo" Contreras

The presiding judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Joaquín Billard Acuña, issued a sentence in the case known as "Armando Jiménez" and sentenced the former head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras, to fifteen years in prison, and the former military prosecutor of San Antonio, David Miranda Monardes, to twelve years.

After his investigation, Billard resolved that both were co-perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide of six port union leaders from San Antonio, which occurred on September 21, 1973, in that port.

That day, military personnel from the Tejas Verdes Engineer School detained the port leaders Armando Jiménez Machuca, Samuel Núñez González, Guillermo Alvarez Cañas, Héctor Rojo Alfaro, Raúl Bacciarini, and Fidel Bravo Alvarez at the San Antonio stevedores' union and at some private homes in the city.

However, later the entire town was shaken to learn that the six unionists had been executed. According to a military communiqué issued shortly after, the death of the leaders occurred because, while being transported in a military truck from the Tejas Verdes regiment to another location near Bucalemu, they attempted to escape, and therefore the "law of flight" was applied to them.

However, the investigation determined that the leaders were forced to get out of the truck and were riddled with bullets. At the time, Contreras held the rank of lieutenant colonel and was the head of the San Antonio military zone, while Miranda had been appointed military prosecutor.

Contreras is currently incarcerated at the Penal Cordillera in Peñalolén, serving a sentence for the crime against the tailor Miguel Ángel San Martín, and several other sentences that have been issued against him. Minister Billard did not apply amnesty or the statute of limitations due to the passage of time, considering that these are crimes against humanity.

Source: La Nación, June 13, 2008

Six officers (Ret.) convicted for Tejas Verdes victim

Among them are Army officers who had not been sentenced before in another case for crimes against humanity. Six retired officers were sentenced by Judge Alejandro Solís to prison terms, among them once again the former head of the DINA, Manuel Contreras, as co-perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of Rebeca Espinoza Sepúlveda, who has been missing since January 3, 1974, from the Tejas Verdes concentration camp in the city of San Antonio in the Fifth Region.

Among those convicted are Army officers who had not been sentenced before in another case for crimes against humanity. The perpetrators affected by prison sentences are Contreras, 15 years and one day; the prefect of the Investigative Police, Nelson Valdés Cornejo, 5 years and one day; Lieutenant Colonel Raúl Quintana Salazar, 5 years and one day; Lieutenant Colonel David Miranda Monardes, 5 years and one day; Colonel Claudio Kossiel Hornig, 5 years and one day; and the doctor with the rank of colonel, Vittorio Orvietto Teplitzki, 5 years and one day.

For all of them, except for Contreras who is already serving time for other cases, the prison sentence will be effective once the judgment becomes final after being reviewed by the Santiago Court of Appeals and the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, provided that the courts maintain the applied sentences and do not reduce them, granting benefits to the convicted that would allow them to serve the sentences in freedom.

Rebeca Espinoza was 40 years old, had five children, no known political affiliation, and was a secretary at the Institute of Agricultural Development (INDAP) when she was detained in the vicinity of the Plaza de la Constitución along with José Miguel Rivas Rachitoff and José Leonardo Pérez Hermosilla, socialist militants, who had a similar itinerary to Espinoza's and are also currently missing.

Among the Army officers who operated in Tejas Verdes is the current mayor of Providencia, Colonel (Ret.) Cristián Labbé, who has been interrogated in the cases of those who disappeared from this concentration camp.

There are several former prisoners who mention Labbé's presence in that place; they even accuse him of witnessing torture, but so far no one has charged him with personally committing the torments. In the case of the military doctor Vittorio Orvietto, after being indicted by Judge Solís, he returned from the United States in April 2005 to turn himself in.

After examining them, Orvietto was the one who gave the go-ahead for prisoners to continue being tortured. On September 11, 1973, when the DINA began to be formed a few days later, Manuel Contreras held the rank of lieutenant colonel and was the head of the state of siege zone of the San Antonio province.

Working closely with him was the journalist Carlos Roberto Araya Silva, who became a DINA agent and later joined Televisión Nacional, and in 1975 was part of the Rinconada de Maipú setup, along with journalists Julio López Blanco and Claudio Sánchez. For this, they were sanctioned by the Journalists' Association and later sued for their complicity in the DINA operation.

Source: La Nación, July 16, 2008

As co-perpetrators of the kidnapping and disappearance of communist militant Miguel Heredia

Judge Solís sentences six officers (Ret.) for Tejas Verdes In the first-instance resolution, military personnel (Ret.) little known in the repression appear, apart from the "repeated" former head of the DINA, Manuel Contreras.

In the sentence, the journalist Roberto Araya is mentioned as a "spectator" of torture. One of the episodes of the repression less known publicly, that of the Tejas Verdes concentration camp in the Fifth Region, in which military personnel who are making their "social debut" continue to appear, is beginning to enter its final stage under Judge Alejandro Solís.

Yesterday, the magistrate issued a new conviction against six Army and Investigative Police officers (Ret.) for the kidnapping and disappearance in December 1973 from that place of the communist militant Miguel Heredia Vásquez.

The 15-year prison sentence for former DINA head Manuel Contreras as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and disappearance of Heredia appears, however, irrelevant for someone like Contreras, who already has two life sentences for the double crime of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert, plus another number of years for other sentences that exceed 100 years, which undoubtedly indicates that "Mamo" will never know freedom again and will die in prison.

The others sentenced are the lieutenant colonels (Ret.) David Miranda Monardes, former military prosecutor at Tejas Verdes, Raúl Quintana Salazar, and the colonels Claudio Kossiel Hornig, better known among his peers as "the German who stutters on his R's," and Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky, who was the military doctor of that camp and whose duty it was to verify the health status of the prisoners to give the go-ahead on whether or not they could continue to be tortured.

All of them were sentenced to five years and one day in prison, also as co-perpetrators of the kidnapping and disappearance of Heredia. The novelty of this resolution is that in it, the former conscript and former prisoner Arturo Farías Vargas denounces that the tortures applied to him at Tejas Verdes were in the presence of Contreras, Kossiel, and others; he also recognized the journalist and former DINA agent Roberto Araya as a "spectator," who was recently expelled from the Journalists' Association for his participation, along with his colleagues Claudio Sánchez, Julio López Blanco, and others, in the setup of the case called Rinconada de Maipú, for which lawyer Hugo Gutiérrez requested the prosecution of all these press professionals. Araya was Contreras's right-hand man in San Antonio when "Mamo," still holding the rank of lieutenant colonel, assumed the command-in-chief of the state of emergency zone in the San Antonio province, just after the military coup occurred. Foreign citizens also disappeared from the Tejas Verdes prison camp, including two Uruguayans. The well-known "law of flight" was also applied there, by which the murder of prisoners was justified, for example, that of a group of port union leaders. In the sentence, Minister Solís establishes in detail the trajectory of the former prisoners inside the camp, as well as the places where they were tortured. Colonel (Ret.) Claudio Kossiel emerges from the events of Tejas Verdes as an "illustrious unknown," but he is recognized by former detainees as one of the cruelest officers in that facility. Civil conviction In his ruling, Minister Alejandro Solís also ordered the convicted to pay the sum of 50 million pesos to Miguel Heredia's relatives for moral and psychological damages. In this way, Judge Solís accepted the civil lawsuit filed by Heredia's relatives within the framework of the criminal investigation. The amount of money stipulated by the magistrate must be paid by the convicted "jointly and severally," meaning the amount must be paid collectively among all those sentenced.

Source: La Nación, August 5, 2008

Manuel Contreras receives new 15-year sentence

The visiting minister Alejandro Solís Muñoz, in charge of the process known as Tejas Verdes, issued separate sentences against the DINA leadership, including the head of the disappeared organization, Manuel Contreras.

The magistrate is investigating the qualified kidnapping of Félix Marmaduke Vargas Fernández, which occurred starting in January 1974 at the San Antonio military facility. For the crime, he set a sentence of fifteen years against Contreras Sepúlveda, and five years and one day in prison for Nelson Valdés Cornejo, Raúl Quintana Salazar, David Miranda Monardes, Klaudio Kosiel Horning, and the doctor Vittorio Orvietto Tiplitzky.

All the defendants, with the exception of Orvietto, must pay an indemnity of fifty million pesos each to Bernardo Vargas Fernández as compensation for damages. In the series of crimes being investigated regarding the investigative file called "Tejas Verdes," this is the fourth conviction by Minister Solís against the same group of people, with the previous ones corresponding to the victims Rebeca Espinoza Sepúlveda, Miguel Heredia Velásquez, and José Orellana Meza, and José Pérez Hermosilla, respectively.

Source: La Nación, March 4, 2009

Manuel Contreras was sentenced to a "joint payment" to torture victims

The visiting minister Alejandro Solís issued a first-instance sentence against former General Manuel Contreras—five years and one day in prison, without benefits—in addition to the "joint payment" of indemnities to 20 victims of the crime of torture.

The affected individuals suffered illegal coercion at the Tejas Verdes detention center, in the San Antonio commune, after the 1973 military coup. Meanwhile, in the civil aspect, it was determined that the convicted Manuel Contreras, Vittorio Orvieto, Raúl Quintana, Nelson Valdés, and Klaudio Kosiel must pay, jointly and severally, the sum of 10 million pesos to each of the 20 victims.

While the convicted David Miranda and Jorge Núñez must pay, jointly and severally, the sum of 10 million pesos to the six victims for whom they were convicted.

The sentenced and their sentences are

Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, five years and one day. No benefits for torture of 20 victims. Nelson Valdés Cornejo, five years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, for torture of 20 victims.

Raúl Quintana Salazar, five years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, for torture of 20 victims. Klaudio Kosiel Horning, five years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, for torture of 20 victims.

Vittorio Orvietto Tiplitzky, five years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, for torture of 20 victims. David Miranda Monardes, three years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, for torture of six victims.

Jorge Núñez Magallanes, three years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, for torture of six victims. The victims of coercion at Tejas Verdes were: Nelly Andrade Alcaíno, Segundo Cerda Troncoso, Iván Contreras Puente, Juan Chacón González, Margarita Durán Fajardo, Arturo Farúas Vargas, Patricio Mac-Lean Labbe, María Nuñez Malhue, Mario Orellana Silva, Guillermo Ormazábal Silva, Luis Ovando Donoso, Luis Quilodrán Alcayata, Ramón Quilodrán Alcayata, Juan Ramón Ramírez Cortez, Juan Pablo Rodríguez Rodríguez, María Rojas Silva, Ernesto Salamanca Sepúlveda, Luisa Stagno Valenzuela, Luis Valenzuela González, and Anatolio Zárate Oyarzún.

Source: Cooperativa, August 9, 2010

Sentence for the crime of kidnapping of Nelsa Zulema Gadea Galán and Julio Cesar Fernández Fernández

Sentence issued by the presiding judge, Joaquín Billard, which sentences Nelson Patricio Valdés Cornejo, Vittorio Orvieto Tiplizky, Gregorio del Carmen Romero Hernández, Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Valentín del Carmen Escobedo Azua, and Ramón Acuña Acuña to a penalty of six years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, for their participation as perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Julio Cesar Fernández Fernández and Nelsa Zulema Gadea Galán, from the months of October and December 1973 to date.

Manuel Contreras and David Adolfo Miranda Monardes are also sentenced for their participation as perpetrators of the crime of kidnapping to a penalty of ten years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree.

Source: Londres38.cl, July 25, 2012

THE CRIMINAL RECORD OF THE 10 "TENANTS" OF THE PENAL CORDILLERA

Manuel Contreras, Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren Brito, Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, César Manríquez, Hugo Salas Wenzel, Odlanier Mena, David Miranda, and Jorge del Río are serving long sentences at the Peñalolén facility. The first four alone account for more than six centuries of prison sentences.

Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda (84), alias “el Mamo,” a retired Army general from the Engineering branch, postgraduate of the School of the Americas in Panama, and former director of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), was—until this Friday—a tenant of cabin No. 1 at the “5-star” Cordillera prison. As of August 2013, he had final convictions totaling 273 years and 14 days.

According to data from the Human Rights Observatory of the Universidad Diego Portales, of the total number of these sentences ratified by the Supreme Court, the effective prison time amounts to 231 years and 14 days. The remaining 42 years correspond to supervised release or conditional remissions. In any case, “el Mamo” is constantly accumulating new indictments.

The only sentence Manuel Contreras served and was subsequently released from (at Punta Peuco) was for the assassination of Orlando Letelier. Visiting Judge Adolfo Bañados sentenced him to 7 years, and in 1995 the ruling was ratified by the Supreme Court.

He began serving that sentence the same year, and it concluded in January 2001, but he subsequently remained under house arrest due to the cases that followed against him.

The most significant of these is the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert. On July 8, 2010, the Supreme Court sentenced him to 17 years in prison as the perpetrator of both qualified homicides, plus another 3 years and 1 day for illicit association.

This is his most substantial sentence because—contrary to what has been repeatedly reported—he has no life imprisonment convictions. Judge Alejandro Solís sentenced him to life imprisonment in the first instance for this case, but the Supreme Court reduced the penalty.

KRASSNOFF ALSO PASSED THROUGH THE AMERICAS

Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko (57), alias “Caballo Loco,” “Capitán Miguel,” and “el Ruso” due to his Cossack origin, a retired Army brigadier, who took a counterintelligence course at the School of the Americas and was head of the DINA’s Halcón group when he was a lieutenant, was a user of cabin No. 2 at the Cordillera prison.

As of August 2013, he had final convictions totaling 141 years and 188 days in prison (103 effective and 38 remitted, though he continues to accumulate cases).

The first sentence ratified against him by the Supreme Court dates back to November 17, 2004, when he was sentenced to 10 years and 1 day for a qualified kidnapping (forcibly disappeared). His most substantial sentence is 15 years, handed down on May 30, 2006, for another qualified kidnapping.

Krassnoff’s most well-known victim is the MIR member Lumi Videla, whose body was thrown into the garden of the Italian embassy in 1974.

MOREN BRITO WENT TOO FAR: HE KILLED HIS NEPHEW

Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito (78), alias “Coronta” and “el Ronco,” a retired Army colonel, commander of the DINA’s Caupolicán Brigade, and one of the heads of Villa Grimaldi, was a tenant of cabin No. 3 at the Cordillera resort. As of May 2012, he had final convictions totaling 162 years (35 on supervised release and 3 remitted), but he is constantly accumulating new cases.

His most substantial sentence, and in fact the first one ratified by the Supreme Court on November 17, 2004, is 11 years in prison for a qualified kidnapping. Among his victims, the most well-known is again Lumi Videla.

However, Moren Brito has been under indictment since December 2012 for the homicide of his nephew, Alan Roberto Bruce Catalán, whom—according to witnesses—he tortured and killed with his own hands.

According to the accounts of surviving prisoners of Villa Grimaldi, when they commented to Alan Bruce that he was lucky because his uncle was the head of the camp, he replied that they were mistaken, that he would surely die, because what concerned Moren most was that his superiors would not consider him weak.

Said and done. According to the evidence investigated by Visiting Judge Alejandro Solís, Moren hanged his nephew with a wire and, to be sure, placed his head in a plastic bag to finish suffocating him. Alan Bruce, a civil engineer, was 24 years old and is now one of the 119 forcibly disappeared persons of Operation Colombo.

ESPINOZA ALSO SERVED TIME FOR THE LETELIER CASE

Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo (81), a retired Army colonel and former deputy director of the DINA, was an occupant of cabin No. 4 at the Cordillera prison. He is sentenced to 71 years in prison in rulings ratified by the Supreme Court, 16 of which are under the benefit of supervised release. However, he has more than 60 pending cases, so he will surely continue to add years to his sentence.

Like Manuel Contreras, his most significant penalty is the 17-year prison sentence for the qualified homicides of General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, plus another 3 years for illicit association in the same case. Along with Contreras, he was sentenced by Judge Adolfo Bañados for the assassination of Orlando Letelier, but only to 6 years.

JOSÉ ZARA CUTS THE GRASS AT THE CORDILLERA PRISON

José Octavio Zara Holger (70), a retired Army brigadier, commando, paratrooper, and deputy head of the DINA’s foreign department, was a tenant of cabin No. 3 at the Cordillera prison. He has been under a final conviction since July 8, 2010, to 15 years and 1 day in prison for the qualified homicides of General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, plus another 100 days for illicit association in the same case.

He is characterized by being very servile to his superiors. In 1988, shortly before the plebiscite in which the "NO" vote won, he offered Pinochet the "hardened daggers" of the commandos against the opposition. That servile spirit has led him to take on gardening duties at the Cordillera prison, where he cuts the grass and maintains the green areas.

INDICTED FOR VÍCTOR JARA AND MIGUEL ENRÍQUEZ

César Manríquez Bravo, a retired Army general and former head of the DINA’s Metropolitan Brigade, was a passenger in cabin No. 4 of the Cordillera prison. He has been under a final conviction since June 19, 2012, to 5 years and 1 day for the qualified kidnapping of Héctor Vergara Doxrud, which occurred beginning on September 17, 1974.

He is under indictment in multiple cases, but undoubtedly the most important are for the qualified homicides of Víctor Jara and Miguel Enríquez, former secretary-general of the MIR. Manríquez was commander of the Estadio Chile and was indicted in 2008 by special judge Juan Belmar. The case regarding Miguel Enríquez is being handled by Visiting Judge Mario Carroza.

SALAS WENZEL, THE ONLY ONE SENTENCED TO LIFE

Hugo Iván Salas Wenzel (77), a retired Army general and former director of the National Information Center (CNI), was a user of cabin No. 5 and is the only one of the 10 inmates of the Cordillera prison sentenced to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court sentenced him on August 28, 2007, as the perpetrator of 5 simple homicides and 7 qualified homicides in the context of Operation Albania.

ODLANIER MENA ENJOYS SUNDAY LEAVE

Odlanier Rafael Mena Salinas (87), a retired Army general and the first director of the CNI after the dissolution of the DINA, was a passenger in cabin No. 4. He has been under a final conviction since December 3, 2008, to 6 years in prison for three qualified homicides in the Caravan of Death case. He is the only one who has had the benefit of Sunday leave since June 10, 2011.

MIRANDA COMMITTED HOMICIDES AT TEJAS VERDES

David Adolfo Miranda Monardes (79), a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former member of the DINA, was a user of cabin No. 5 at the Cordillera prison. He was sentenced to a final term on November 19, 2011, to 6 years in prison for six qualified homicides committed in 1973 at the Tejas Verdes regiment in San Antonio, where he served as a military prosecutor. He also has pending cases.

DEL RÍO IMPRISONED FOR CRIMES IN TEMUCO

Jorge Nibaldo Del Río Del Río (69), a retired Army colonel and tenant of cabin No. 2 at the Cordillera prison, has two convictions ratified by the Supreme Court: one from June 9, 2009, to 5 years and 1 day for three qualified homicides committed in Temuco, and another from October 5, 2011, to 100 days for 4 illegal detentions, also in Temuco.

Source: La Nación, September 27, 2013

Penal Cordillera: Exclusive criminal resort to be closed

In a healthy consequence of the revelations and denunciations that emerged with the recent commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the coup d'état, President Sebastián Piñera announced today that the Penal Cordillera, which houses military leaders convicted of human rights violations and crimes against humanity, will be closed.

The Penal Cordillera is a military facility located in Peñalolén that was conditioned to house conspicuous human rights violators during the dictatorship, particularly the bosses of the DINA and the CNI, who have been convicted in criminal cases in which they had criminal participation.

This miserable political decision to create special and privileged prison conditions for the most prominent and proven criminals in uniform was made by former president Ricardo Lagos, in an attitude very typical of his pusillanimous and cowardly position on human rights issues, very typical of the connivance with the repressors of the Chilean people, very typical of the Concertación and its “justice to the extent possible.”

These privileges and special conditions were publicly known through various reports in recent weeks, which demonstrated the “apart resort” category of the facility. Even Manuel “Mamo” Contreras took the luxury (among many others) of giving interviews in which he boasted and bragged about his perks and status.

These characteristics become one more symbol of impunity and a new aggression toward the relatives of the victims who had to endure the mockery of the lifestyle allowed to the convicts. To this fact must be added the impudence and cynicism of the authorities, as the maxim of “equality before the law” is a myth, a falsehood, if one compares the conditions that these label-wearing convicts have or had with respect to the rest of the convicted inmates who populate the overcrowded and deplorable Chilean prisons.

Finally, these privileges and de facto status enjoyed by the convicted repressive leaders are crowned by the humiliating and degrading subordination of the gendarmerie personnel in charge of their custody (to call the de facto act of working shifts in that facility something), since more than guards, they have been turned into lackeys, orderlies, and servants for the arrogant military inmates.

Remaining at the Penal Cordillera are, among others, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, former head of the DINA; Pedro Espinoza Bravo, César Manríquez Bravo, Marcelo Morén Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Marchenko, and José Zara Holger, all former DINA leaders; in addition to Odlanier Mena Sepúlveda and Hugo Salas Wenzel, both former top chiefs of the CNI.

The other two luxury inmates are Jorge Nibaldo del Río del Río and David Adolfo Miranda Monardes, both former officers subordinate to "el Mamo" from Tejas Verdes.

The 10 criminals who remain until now at the Penal Cordillera will be transferred to the Punta Peuco Prison, another exclusive facility designed and built by the government of Eduardo Frei to lock up members of the armed forces and agents of the repressive apparatuses convicted of human rights crimes.

This other “apart penal” has a five-star hotel category in relation to the prison facilities in the rest of the country. But within its exclusivity and privileges, there are also differences expressed in the segregation between officers (former members of the armed forces, Carabineros, and investigations) and non-commissioned officers, troops, and convicted civilians.

The officers occupy a sector with more accommodations and comforts than the rest of their former subordinates; this is surely where the 10 guests transferred from the Penal Cordillera will arrive.

The concessions and cowardice of the Concertación governments have been exposed, once again, by this political decision of a right-wing government. A decision forced by the constant pressure from the relatives of the victims, from organizations of former political prisoners, and by the truths exposed by the 40th-anniversary commemoration.

It is not a sufficient decision to end the privileges and special treatments since the permanence of special conditions and characteristics of Punta Peuco continues, further increased by internal segregation. But it is a beginning. A beginning that the Concertación was not capable of assuming.

Source: Resumen.cl, September 27, 2013

Minister Marianela Cifuentes sentences doctor and retired Army officer for torture at Tejas Verdes

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Court of San Miguel, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced a retired Army officer and a doctor who served in the military branch for their responsibility in the consummated and repeated crime of applying torture to Juan Antonio Betancourt Román.

The illicit act was perpetrated between September 12, 1973, and April 1974, at the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School, in the commune of San Antonio.

In the ruling (case file 28-2009), the visiting minister sentenced Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, an Army lieutenant at the time of the events, and the doctor Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky to an effective prison sentence of 3 years and one day, along with the legal accessories of absolute perpetual disqualification for political rights and absolute disqualification for public offices and positions during the time of the sentences; plus the payment of court costs.

In the resolution, Minister Cifuentes established the following facts:

1° That on September 12, 1973, around 9:00 PM, Juan Antonio Betancourt Román, a militant of the Popular Unitary Action Movement (MAPU) and an employee of the Rayonhil factory in San Antonio, was detained at his home located at El Canelo No. 910 in the town of Llolleo by soldiers stationed at the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School, who transported him in a truck, along with other detainees, to the aforementioned military unit, keeping him for two or three hours outside the officers' mess, kneeling with his hands on the back of his neck, after which they took him to the San Antonio Carabineros Police Station.

2° That on September 13, 1973, at night, Betancourt Román was transferred from the San Antonio Carabineros Police Station to the prison in the same city, where he remained deprived of liberty until May 1974.

3° That during the aforementioned period, on repeated occasions, Juan Antonio Betancourt Román was taken out of the San Antonio prison by military personnel in a refrigerated truck and, immediately afterward, taken to the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School (Barracks No. 1), to a facility located in the Studies Secretariat and another under the Officers' Mess, places where he was interrogated and subjected to illegitimate coercion, that is, the application of electricity to different parts of his body, confinement in a small refrigerated chamber, and threats to his physical integrity, which left severe psychological sequelae (anxiety neurosis).

4° That the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School at that time was under the command of Army Lieutenant Colonel Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, Major David Adolfo Miranda Monardes, and Major Jorge Rosendo Núñez Magallanes, all deceased.

5° That, on the other hand, the interrogations under illegitimate coercion carried out in the basement of the Officers' Mess of the 'Tejas Verdes' Military Engineers School were in charge of Major Jorge Núñez Magallanes, Captain Mario Alejandro Jara Seguel, Captain Klaudio Erich Kosiel Hornig, Lieutenant Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, Second Sergeant Ramón Acuña Acuña, and the doctor Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky.

Source: pdju.cl, March 23, 2023

Supreme Court sentences retired military personnel for illegitimate coercion at Tejas Verdes

The Second Chamber rejected the appeals in cassation filed against the sentences that convicted Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza, Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, and Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky for their responsibility in three consummated crimes of illegitimate coercion.

The illicit acts were committed between September 1973 and January 1974, on the premises of the Army's Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School, in the commune of San Antonio.

In split rulings (case files 51.761-2024, 5.963-2025, and 15.255-2025), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of Minister Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Ministers María Cristina Gajardo and Eliana Quezada, and acting lawyers Leonor Etcheberry and Carlos Urquieta—confirmed the sentences that condemned Quintana Salazar, Carriel Espinoza, Soto Jerez, and Orvieto Tiplitzky to sentences of 5 years and 4 years of intensive supervised release, as perpetrators of the illegitimate coercion applied to Mario López Cisternas and Gustavo del Carmen Flores Quinteros; and 4 years of effective prison time for the repeated illegitimate coercion of Hernán Becerra Madrid. In the case of Carriel Soto, the Penal Chamber granted the fulfillment of the sentences under the regime of total house arrest with telematic control (electronic ankle monitor), due to his advanced age and precarious health.

In the civil aspect, the Penal Chamber maintained the sentence that ordered the state treasury to pay compensation of $50,000,000 for moral damages to the recurring victim, Flores Quinteros.

“That, in order to dismiss the appeals under analysis, it should be noted that the first and seventh grounds of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are argued—strictly speaking—in the same chapter and jointly.

As can be seen, the infringement of No. 1 of the aforementioned rule necessarily assumes that the facts were correctly established and that they constitute a crime, in order to also maintain the ground provided for in 546 No. 7, that is, having violated the laws regulating evidence, ignoring the facts established by the judge, who—on the contrary—accepts them when arguing the first motive for invalidation,” the rulings state.

The resolutions add that: “In this regard, it should be noted that the legal condition of this type of appeal does not allow them to be formalized in incompatible grounds, since, if based on them, the court of cassation would find itself unable to issue a pronouncement without this entailing accepting or rejecting contradictory background information at the same time, nor could it accept one ground in preference to the other, since to do so, it would have to disregard the way in which the appellant himself deduced it in his respective brief, which violates the doctrine supported by the provisions that regulate the appeal in cassation.”

“For these reasons, the appeals filed by the defenses of the accused will not prosper,” they emphasize.

Likewise, the rulings record: “That, for its part, the defense of Soto Jerez appeals in cassation, invoking only the seventh ground of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, denouncing as violated Articles 456 bis, 459, and 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, disputing the criminal participation that was established.

It indicates that the sentence took as proven that its represented party was part of the group of interrogators, basing this solely on a merit notation in his service record, dismissing the exculpatory evidence that proves that the convicted person did not participate in the events, altering the rules that regulate evidence, and carrying out a true collective objective imputation.

For all these reasons, it requests that the appeal be accepted, invalidating the appealed sentence, and issuing immediately and without a new hearing, but separately, a replacement sentence by which its represented party is acquitted.”

For the Penal Chamber: “(…) to dismiss the appeal under study, it is sufficient to point out that, when requesting the acquittal of the convicted person, the formalization brief of the appeal suffers from fundamental defects that impose its rejection.

Indeed, as has been stated, only the ground of the seventh numeral of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is invoked, which refers only to the infringement of the laws regulating evidence, which alone is not enough to resolve, in the replacement sentence that would proceed to be issued, in case the appeal is accepted, the acquittal of the convicted person, it being necessary for this to link said ground with another of those established in the indicated precept, since the mere mutation of the facts does not allow this court of cassation to make use of its invalidating powers by determining, ex officio, which of those other grounds—taxatively indicated in the procedural statute of the branch—that denote an erroneous application of the law corresponds to make concurrent, which is sufficient to dismiss the appeals.”

“With all that, it should be noted that the appellant questions the assessment executed by the judges, pointing out that it violates the laws regulating evidence and would not allow reaching the condemnatory conclusion arrived at.

However, beyond this assertion, it does not denounce as violated any rule related to the assessment of evidence; furthermore, the author only asserts the existence of an infringement, constructing the claim on assertions as general as those observed in the ruling and which, in reality, seek for this Court to perform an exercise forbidden in this venue, which is a new assessment of the evidentiary means which, moreover, were duly appreciated by the instance judges,” the rulings conclude.

The decision granted the fulfillment of the sentences to Carriel Espinoza under the modality of house arrest, agreed upon with the dissenting votes of the acting lawyers.

In the first-instance sentences, the extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, established that the victims, after being detained, were sent to the Army's Military Engineers School, located in the Tejas Verdes sector, commune of San Antonio.

Once in said military unit, they were subjected to interrogations under torture in the basement of the officers' mess.

At the time of the events, September 1973 and February 1974, the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School was under the command of Army Lieutenant Colonel Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, seconded by Majors David Adolfo Miranda Monardes, Jorge Rosendo Núñez Magallanes, and Mario Alejandro Jara Seguel (all deceased).

Meanwhile, in charge of the interrogations were Majors Jorge Núñez Magallanes and Mario Jara Seguel, supported by Captain Klaudio Erich Kosiel Hornig, Lieutenant Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, Second Sergeant Ramón Acuña Acuña, and the doctor Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky, among others.

Source: pdju.cl, November 19, 2025