The story of the crime against Father Gerardo Poblete Fernández could be made into a film. Its main plot, beyond the torture that killed him, would be betrayal. But above all, it would be the concealment of the truth about his death, not only by military and police officers, but by members of his own congregation.

It was this last point that triggered the departure of his friend and Salesian seminarian Ricardo Salgado from the congregation, deeply disillusioned, a couple of years after the tragic events. Salgado had been detained and tortured alongside Poblete on October 21, 1973, in Iquique by Carabineros. “With everything I saw, a fracture occurred between me and the institution of the church, more so than with my faith,” he told La Nación Domingo last March, when “The Hidden History of the Crime of Father Gerardo Poblete” was published.

The report shook the Salesians. Days after the publication, the congregation, for the first time, reached out to the family, acknowledging their long absence. Finally, today the Salesians will vindicate the memory of Father Gerardo Poblete in a Eucharist to be held at 3:00 PM at the Templo de la Gratitud Nacional, at the corner of Alameda and Cumming.

The entire congregation will attend, as well as students, parents, guardians, family, and friends. A small urn will contain the priest's bones, whose remains were exhumed last April by order of Judge Daniel Calvo.

After 28 years It took 28 years for the congregation, in January 2001, to finally file a complaint for the homicide of its member, sponsored by FASIC lawyer Nelson Caucoto. In October 2002, the family also filed a complaint.

Judge Daniel Calvo began issuing rulings and prosecuted retired Colonels Gustavo San Martín Ravanal and Enzo Meniconi Lorca, and retired Non-Commissioned Officers Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez, all of the Carabineros, as perpetrators and accessories to the crime.

When this event occurred, the director of the Salesian community of Iquique in 1973, Maximiano Ortúzar Cariola, claimed that Father Poblete “died of a heart attack.” Even the Bishop of Iquique in 1973, José del Carmen Valle, wrote a letter to a military commission that arrived in that city to “investigate” the causes of the priest's death, in which he expressed his willingness to collaborate for the common good of Chile.

Days after the murder of Father Poblete, the Salesian school in Iquique served as an espionage center for the Army, which set up to monitor the population with binoculars. The seminarian Salgado was a witness. Everything is documented in the case file of Judge Calvo’s proceedings.

Source: La Nación, October 20, 2003

Three retired Carabineros convicted for 1973 murder of priest

Judge Joaquín Billard of the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced retired Sergeants Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez to 10 years and one day of effective prison time, and retired Major Enzo Meniconi Lorca to three years and one day.

The Chilean justice system today convicted three former members of the militarized police force, the Carabineros, for their responsibility in the murder of Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández, which occurred in 1973 in the north of the country, judicial sources reported.

Judge Joaquín Billard of the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced retired Sergeants Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez to 10 years and one day of effective prison time as perpetrators of the homicide.

Meanwhile, retired Major Enzo Meniconi Lorca was sentenced to three years and one day as an accessory to the crime and was granted supervised release. The 31-year-old clergyman was a philosophy teacher and was detained by Carabineros at the Colegio Don Bosco in the northern city of Iquique on October 21, 1973, along with seminarian Ricardo Salgado Torres, and they were taken to a police station.

The priest died that same day as a result of the torture suffered during interrogations, while the seminarian survived.

Source: Emol.com, November 5, 2007

Human Rights: Three former Carabineros convicted for homicide of Salesian priest

Judge Joaquín Billard convicted three former members of the Carabineros yesterday for their responsibility in the homicide of Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández, which occurred in Iquique on October 21, 1973.

In the resolution, the magistrate sentenced retired Sergeants Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez to 10 years and one day of effective prison time. Both as perpetrators. Meanwhile, he imposed a sentence of three years and one day on retired Major Enzo Meniconi Lorca as an accessory to the crime.

The latter will be able to access the benefit of supervised release. The clergyman was detained by Carabineros personnel at the Colegio Don Bosco in Iquique, along with seminarian Ricardo Salgado Torres. The former uniformed officers took them to the police station where they were subjected to physical abuse that caused the priest's death.

Source: La Nación, November 6, 2007

Human Rights: Three former Carabineros convicted for homicide of Salesian priest

Judge Joaquín Billard convicted three former members of the Carabineros yesterday for their responsibility in the homicide of Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández, which occurred in Iquique on October 21, 1973.

In the resolution, the magistrate sentenced retired Sergeants Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Mondaca Sáez to 10 years and one day of effective prison time. Both as perpetrators. Meanwhile, he imposed a sentence of three years and one day on retired Major Enzo Meniconi Lorca as an accessory to the crime.

The latter will be able to access the benefit of supervised release. The clergyman was detained by Carabineros personnel at the Colegio Don Bosco in Iquique, along with seminarian Ricardo Salgado Torres. The former uniformed officers took them to the police station where they were subjected to physical abuse that caused the priest's death.

Source: La Nación, November 6, 2007

Court of Appeals ratifies conviction of three Carabineros for priest's death

However, it modified the participation of Enzo Meniconi Lorca in the events, changing it from accessory to perpetrator of qualified homicide, increasing the sentence to 10 years and one day of imprisonment.

The Eighth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, in a split decision, confirmed the conviction of three retired Carabineros accused of the qualified homicide of priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández, which occurred on October 21, 1973, in the city of Iquique.

The appellate court ratified the sentence handed down on October 11, 2007, by visiting judge Joaquín Billard against Blas Barraza Quinteros, Froilán Mondaca Sáez, and Enzo Meniconi Lorca; however, it modified the participation of the latter from accessory to perpetrator of qualified homicide, increasing the sentence to 10 years and one day of imprisonment.

Initially, Judge Billard had sentenced Barraza Quinteros and Mondaca Sáez to 10 years and one day of imprisonment, and Meniconi Lorca to 3 years and one day with the benefit of supervised release, but the appellate court assessed the latter's participation differently.

The majority ruling is supported by Judge Emilio Elgueta Torres and lawyer member Carlos López Dawson, who confirmed the first-instance decision; meanwhile, Judge Cornelio Villarroel Ramírez cast the minority vote, applying the statute of limitations to the criminal action.

This is the eighth conviction in human rights investigation proceedings handed down by the Santiago Court of Appeals in 2008, and the 46th sentence from this appellate court since 2004.

Source: Emol.com, June 26, 2008

Sentence for retired Carabineros officer in Gerardo Poblete case increased to 10 years

Judge Iván Elgueta and lawyer member of the Eighth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Carlos López, prevented the president of the chamber, Judge Cornelio Villarroel, from applying the statute of limitations to one officer and two non-commissioned officers of the Iquique Carabineros, all retired, who on October 21, 1973, murdered Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández in a police station.

Thus, by a vote of two to one, the chamber confirmed the sentences that Judge Joaquín Billard applied to the police officers in October 2007. With the difference that this new resolution transformed the main culprit, the then-commissioner of the Iquique Prefecture, Enzo Meniconi Lorca, from an accessory according to Billard—who in 2007 applied only three years of imprisonment—into a perpetrator of qualified homicide.

Therefore, it raised his sentence to ten years and one day, which means effective service of the sentence. Elgueta and López maintained the ten-year sentences for non-commissioned officers Blas Barraza Quinteros and Froilán Mondaca Sáez as perpetrators of the homicide.

Villarroel, who presided over the chamber, defended his dissenting vote, confirming his invariable position in favor of the military and civilians who committed crimes against humanity during the military oppression, as a supporter of amnesty, the statute of limitations, and opposed to the thesis of kidnapping as a permanent crime in the case of the forcibly disappeared.

Judge Villarroel always voted in favor of Pinochet, every time he was subjected to the stripping of immunity in the Santiago Court of Appeals in the cases for which he was later prosecuted. Now, the final instance remains in the Supreme Court, which has been substantially reducing sentences for human rights violators through the cassation process.

The case of Father Poblete produced deep discrepancies within the Salesians, as the congregation remained silent for years about the true cause of the priest's death and did not demand justice for the crime until 2001, as the victim's sister, Edmee Poblete, stated in March 2003.

The director of the Salesian community in Iquique in 1973, Maximiano Ortúzar Cariola, participated in the concealment of the truth about the clergyman's death. He admitted in the proceedings and later ratified in an interview with LND that "I wanted to save the honor of the Carabineros and I proposed to the police that they say Father Poblete died of a heart attack." This was what was reported to the family and officially to the congregation. "I did it because I felt fear," said Ortúzar.

But General Carlos Forestier, then head of the VI Army Division in Iquique, improved the version: "he died from injuries sustained when falling from the step of a Carabinero van," he said in a statement.

Source: La Nación, June 27, 2008

Supreme Court convicted retired Carabineros for 1973 priest crime

Retired non-commissioned officers Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Moncada Sáez were sentenced to 6 years in prison as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete. SANTIAGO.— The Supreme Court issued a final sentence for the homicide of Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández, which occurred on October 21, 1973, in Iquique, convicting two retired Carabineros non-commissioned officers.

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the highest court sentenced Blas Barraza Quintero and Froilán Moncada Sáez to 6 years in prison without benefits as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide of the priest.

Judges Jaime Rodríguez, Hugo Dolmestch, and Carlos Künsemüller were in favor of applying the sentence, while magistrates Nibaldo Segura and Rubén Ballesteros were in favor of applying the statute of limitations to the criminal action. Salesian priest Gerardo Poblete Fernández died after being tortured while working at the Colegio Don Bosco in Iquique.

Source: El Mercurio, September 10, 2009