While the extraordinary visiting judge Hugo Dolmestch awaits responses to the indictments issued in Operation Albania, Primera Línea gained access to key documents from the investigation: the rosters of agents from the National Information Center (CNI) who participated in the violent crime, which served as the basis for clarifying the events of June 15 and 16, 1987.

In the extensive file on the so-called Corpus Christi Massacre, it can be observed page by page how the evidence collected by judges Dolmestch and Milton Juica served to elucidate what happened over those two days, which resulted in the deaths of twelve former members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez.

Now that the magistrate is practically on the verge of definitively concluding this chapter, it is increasingly important to understand how the dissolved CNI concealed data or modified records, making it difficult for the courts to approach the truth.

There were two brief, classified official documents that the courts requested from the CNI, which only contributed to creating difficulties, as they reported aliases rather than true identities, which greatly complicated the work of the courts.

The true identities

However, it was not until December 15, 1998, 11 years after the deaths, that the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police was able to determine to whom the false identities corresponded and thus configure the operational group that participated in the action.

The document indicates the aliases and the true identities to which they correspond. It is thus indicated that Eduardo Correa Valenzuela is in reality Emilio Enrique Neira Donoso; Gustavo Ruiz Cornejo is the alias of René Armando Valdovinos Morales, also known as "El Catanga"; Felix Catalan Cueto is Francisco Daniel Zuñiga Acevedo; Oscar Hernández Santa María corresponds to Kranstz Johans Bauer Donoso; and Carlos Fuentes Contreras is in real life Miguel Angel Morales Acevedo, also known as "El Bareta".

The identities and aliases continue: Manuel Sandoval Rojas corresponds in reality to Héctor Juan Jaque Riffo; René Morales Rojas is Ricardo Abraham Bozo Salgado; Andrés Montalva Díaz is the alias of Iván Leopoldo Cifuentes Martínez; César Sanz Urriola is Rodrigo Pérez Martínez; José Velasco Fernández is Iván Raúl Belarmino Quiroz Ruiz; Manuel Apablaza Núñez corresponds to Gonzalo Fernando Mass del Valle; Rodrigo Vidal Saez is José Aníbal Rodríguez Díaz; and José Carmona Gutiérrez has as his true name José Miguel Morales Morales.

The unknown that remains in the air is the identification of the alias of Marcos Aravena Guzmán, which would correspond—supposedly—to Pedro María Rojas Vasquez.

No progress has been made regarding the true names of seven aliases: José Cáceres Sánchez, Juan Ordenes Flores, Israel Durán Marchant, Germán Fuenzalida Sagredo, Jaime Martínez Fuentes, Carlos Ramírez Muñoz, and Benjamín Urzúa Figueroa.

The CNI official documents

But the history of the contradictory official documents began to be woven a few days after the crimes. On August 25, 1987, the National Director of the CNI, Brigadier (Ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel, responded to the first official document sent to him by the ad-hoc military prosecutor, Fernando Torres Silva.

In a two-page text, Wenzel recounts which agents participated in the raids on the houses at Varas Mena 656 and 417 in the commune of San Miguel. Along with this, he provides the identities of the officials injured in this activity.

To the surprise of the courts, the names did not match real identities but were the aliases used by the agents. Falling into absolute obstructionism, in which the Army Auditor's Office—which surreptitiously provided advice to the officers involved in the illicit acts—played a decisive role, the information confused more than it contributed to the investigation.

The inquiries continued, and for a second time, a classified official document was sent to the prosecutor of the Second Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago. It briefly indicated the identities of the officials who had allegedly participated in the events.

Dated August 28, 1989, the document signed by the CNI deputy director, Marcos Derpich Miranda, added more confusion to the ongoing inquiries, but even so, it was not entirely challenged by the judicial authorities.

Faced with the surprise of the judicial authorities, and specifically the investigating judge of the case, Hugo Dolmestch, a clarification was requested from the authorities regarding the true names of the persons involved in the crime.

The response came from Major General (Ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel. On July 2, 1990, the high-ranking officer maintained that "in relation to the official document indicated in reference, it is reported that the names consulted do not appear among the personnel assigned to the Chilean Army." He added that "the information contained therein (in the official document of August 28, 1989) does not correspond to reality.

The roster that was sent corresponded to the information provided by the CNI coordinator to military prosecutors, in accordance with the court's requirement. Currently, inquiries are being carried out to determine the identities of those who participated in the fulfillment of the judicial orders of that time, taking into consideration the difficulties represented by the time elapsed, the fact that the organization in charge of carrying out said orders has been dissolved, and the numerous personnel who have retired."

The crossed information forced the judicial authorities to initiate a process for falsification of an official document against Derpich, an investigation that was dismantled by the Court Martial.

But the series of denials, rectifications, and clarifications from the CNI continued with an upward escalation. Interrogated on September 2, 1994, the deputy director of the CNI, Marcos Spiro Derpich Miranda, explained in his defense that he only signed a document with supposed agents of the Center and that he was unaware of the veracity of these reports provided by his subordinates.

In a clarification crucial to the judicial investigation, Derpich recounts that "in the official document in question, number 212,093 of August 1989, it is said that the officials who appear there had—dubitatively—participated in the events." He adds that "the officials of the National Information Center possessed an operational identification, that is, internal documentation where their work name was recorded and by which they were known.

You will also know that when the identities of the apprehenders or participants in clashes with terrorist elements were reported to military courts, it was done with the supposed or work identity, a procedure that was structured from before my entry into the CNI; so much so that the internal documentation related to the functions of its members was done with this work or operational name."

And the statements of the retired officers continue to add up to the point that the courts are still waiting for an official confirmation to know definitively who participated in the operation.

Source: primeralinea.cl, June 5, 2002

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 Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez in June 1987, within the framework of Operation Albania.

Salas Wenzel was sentenced as the mastermind 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 dictated 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, which allows for some type of benefit to be accessed after 20 years of imprisonment.

The highest court also decided to increase from 15 to 20 years of imprisonment the sentence against the former operational head 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 the Commander (Ret.) of the Carabineros, Iván Quiroz Ruiz, while it increased from 7 years and one day to 8 years of imprisonment the punishment against former CNI agent Enrique Neira Donoso.

These four former members must serve their punishment in prison along with 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 sentence of five years in prison.

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 the former Carabineros prosecutor Luis Acevedo.

Last June, the State Defense Council (CDE) and the relatives of the victims reached a reparation agreement in which the State 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 finally there is also 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 dictated," he pointed out.

Source: El Mostrador; August 29, 2007

Case File No. 39.122-C: Case of the Aggravated Kidnapping of Julián Peña, Alejandro Pinochet, Manuel Sepúlveda, Gonzalo Fuenzalida, Julio Muñoz

1.- That the following are sentenced

RAÚL DEL CARMEN DURÁN MARTÍNEZ, LUIS ALBERTO SANTIBÁÑEZ AGUILERA, VÍCTOR EULOGIO RUIZ GODOY, JUAN ALEJANDRO JORQUERA ABARZÚA, HERNÁN ANTONIO VÁSQUEZ VILLEGAS, SERGIO AGUSTÍN MATELUNA PINO, JOSÉ ARTURO FUENTES PASTENES, JUAN CARLOS ORELLANA MORALES, ROBERTO HERNÁN RODRÍGUEZ MANQUEL, ALEJANDRO FRANCISCO ASTUDILLO ADONIS, JOSÉ GUILLERMO SALAS FUENTES, HERALDO VELOZO GALLEGOS, MARCO ANTONIO PINCHEIRA UBILLA, JORGE RAIMUNDO AHUMADA MOLINA, JOSÉ MIGUEL MORALES MORALES, EMA VERÓNICA CEBALLOS NUÑEZ, and PATRICIO LEONIDAS GONZÁLEZ CORTEZ, already identified in the case files, for their participation as authors of the crimes of Aggravated Kidnapping of Julián Peña Maltés, to the penalty of FIVE YEARS AND ONE DAY OF MAJOR IMPRISONMENT IN ITS MINIMUM DEGREE, and the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and positions and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles during the time of the sentence, and the payment of the costs of this case.

Source: Judiciary, October 14, 2013