One of the six executed in the setup staged by Army personnel on January 18, 1974, did not die immediately at the scene of the massacre but was transported along with the five corpses of his companions to the Engineer Regiment, where he arrived dead.

The bodies were handed over to their relatives in coffins tied with barbed wire, and they were forced to bury them in consecutive niches at the El Mayaca Cemetery, where they remained guarded by armed soldiers, who for some time prevented the mourners from approaching even to leave flowers...

These are some of the chilling details contained in the Resolution issued by Judge Gabriela Corti upon indicting eight retired uniformed officers as authors of the crimes of qualified homicide of six leftist militants and the repeated qualified kidnapping of three political leaders: former mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza (PS), lawyer and socialist leader Rubén Cabezas Parés, and peasant leader and MAPU militant Levi Arraño Sánchez.

Judge Corti went to the Second Criminal Court of Quillota to notify the plaintiff lawyers of the indictments issued last Saturday against eight former uniformed officers implicated in the slaughter. Originally, there was talk of ten indicted individuals, because the judge only notified them one by one, sending them to be detained in Army and Carabineros units, but their names and charges were not disclosed.

Visiting Judge The judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Gabriela Corti, no longer holds the status of "Ministra de Fuero" (Special Jurisdiction Judge) for this case, because with the definitive dismissal of the case against the former dictator and former senator-for-life Augusto Pinochet, there is no defendant or accused person with special immunity (in this case, parliamentary).

Under these circumstances, and as a Visiting Judge, Judge Corti set the Second Criminal Court of Quillota as the seat for her work, where the first complaints and lawsuits regarding this case were filed.

On this occasion, Judge Gabriela Corti met with all the lawyers sponsoring the various lawsuits accumulated in her investigation: Héctor Salazar, Hugo Gutiérrez, Nelson Caucoto, Julia Urquieta, and Hiram Villagra.

They were joined yesterday by Quillota lawyer Elmita Puebla, who sponsored the first lawsuits immediately after the events occurred, and the CODEPU attorney, Federico Aguirre. The Indicted The indictment, only six pages long—a document of at least 15 was expected—does not abound in details about the facts established by the magistrate, limiting itself to a brief summary that, nevertheless, allows for the confirmation of many of the suspicions and background information held by both the victims' families and this journalist.

Following the details of the statements, confrontations, reports, and documents reviewed, she indicted Sergio Carlos Arredondo González (lieutenant colonel and director of the Cavalry School in 1974; he had arrived at the end of 1973 after having participated as an operational officer in the "Caravana de la Muerte"), Francisco Javier Pérez Egert (then a captain, he personally directed the "operations" to murder the nine victims), Pedro Alberto Durcudoy Montandón, Daniel Javier Walker Ramos (both officers of the Cavalry School, with direct participation in the murders), Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos (non-commissioned officer, one of the cruelest repressors known in the area), Sergio Placencia Sepúlveda (non-commissioned officer, specialized in "intelligence," participated in the planning and arrests), Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez (Army non-commissioned officer, participated actively), and Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya (Carabineros non-commissioned officer, also characterized by the cruelty of his repressive actions). The document details that the aforementioned former uniformed officers are charged "as authors of the crime of repeated qualified homicide of Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Julio Arturo Loo Pardo, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Eduardo Manzano Cortés, Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, and Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, provided for and sanctioned in Art. 391 of the Penal Code, and as authors of the crime of repeated qualified kidnapping of Pablo Gac Espinoza, Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Parés, and Levi Segundo Arraño Sancho, provided for and sanctioned in Art. 141, Paragraph 4 of the same Code." In a first reading, the paragraphs described above make it clear that the six crimes perpetrated at the San Isidro underpass and the three executions committed inside the Cavalry School, from where the remains were made to disappear, were carried out by the same uniformed officers. Interrogations and Confrontations During her nearly two years of inquiries, Judge Corti interrogated more than thirty witnesses, defendants, suspects, accused persons, and relatives of the victims, many of whom are named in the indictment. Great responsibility for the success of the inquiries lies with the detectives of the Investigations department, both from the Fifth Department and Interpol. While the former were in charge of a huge number of proceedings in the country, the latter located and interrogated witnesses in various cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The participation of some of the indicted was until now unknown to the victims' families, such as officers Pedro Durcudoy and Daniel Walker and non-commissioned officer Raúl Muñoz. Also, several of the people who provided statements both in the country and abroad are unknown to the families. Such are the cases of the retired Army officer Mario René del Carmen Díaz Pérez, interrogated by Interpol in the United States, and Ángel Rafael Muñoz Pavez, interrogated in Amsterdam, Holland, whose statement was kept in a separate volume from the main file. The relationship of Marcelino Bugeño Bugueño, Segundo Aladino Jofré Morales, Ismael Enrique Villavicencio Carrasco, and José Arnoldo Escobar Ojeda, all declarants in the process, is also unknown, some of whom are allegedly military personnel. As is Carlos Varas Frederick, who was an officer at the Cavalry School, where he stood out as an equestrian. On page 572, there is the statement of the civilian Osvaldo Romo Mena, a former leftist militant who became one of the cruelest torturers in the operations and detention centers in Santiago, but whose relationship with the events in Quillota was unknown until now. Succinct account of the facts The account of the facts established by the judicial investigation is succinct in the document that indicts the eight former uniformed officers. For this reason, the plaintiff lawyers requested the Visiting Judge to have access to the summary, which they will only be able to do starting this Friday; that is, one day after the deadline for the indicted to appeal or file any legal recourse expires. However, while omitting some background, it reveals chilling details about what happened in the early hours of January 18, 1974. The document specifies that based on the background, interrogations, confrontations, and accumulated reports, "it can be established" that on January 17, 1974, "military personnel took six people, union leaders, all militants or sympathizers of the left, from the Public Jail of Quillota, who were led by them to the Engineer Regiment No. 2 'Aconcagua' of said city, where they remained detained; a place to which three others, also leftist militants, presented themselves voluntarily that same day following a summons made to their homes and workplaces by military personnel, this time dressed in civilian clothes, also remaining detained, the latter being the Mayor of the city, the Prosecutor of the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA) based in the city of Quillota, and the president of the Peasant Committee of the San Isidro sector." The latter are Pablo Gac, Rubén Cabezas, and Levi Arraño, respectively. "It could be called an ambush" The account of the established facts continues by pointing out that in the final hours of January 17 or the early hours of January 18, 1974, all the detainees were put into vehicles that, "in the number of four and heavily guarded by a military contingent, would transport them to the Armored Cavalry School of Quillota, which said military column did not reach." The trajectory was interrupted, according to the document, "due to the fact that when it crossed the underpass known as San Isidro, in what could be called an ambush, since 'grenade explosions' and 'machine gun bursts' occurred from both sides of the pass, which reached the vehicles that composed it," it was verified later that one of the jeeps had caught fire. Likewise, it was verified that "of the military contingent, only one resulted with an injury whose nature was not proven." Indeed, we recall that Captain Pérez Egert appeared with a bandaged hand and it was reported that he was the only soldier wounded in the "extremist assault" and "intense skirmish with terrorists." One detainee did not die immediately The account contained in the judicial Resolution adds that after the explosion of grenades and the machine gun bursts, however, among the detainees, "one of them was wounded and five were found deceased as a consequence of the multiple injuries caused to their bodies by projectiles" (the words in bold have been highlighted as such in the judicial document). In Quillota, it was learned days later that the autopsy protocols—carried out by doctors Oracio Bruzzone and Jorge Abde—established that all of them presented dozens of bullet impacts fired from behind. The Indictment Resolution details that after the attack with heavy fire by the military against the unarmed and handcuffed civilians, the bodies of the five murdered and the wounded one "were taken back in the same vehicles toward the Regiment from which they had left moments before, a place from which all were transported by military personnel toward the local morgue, because the detainee who had remained wounded had also died." It is not detailed under what circumstances the sixth victim died, who could have been finished off with a coup de grâce or died in transit from bleeding or the effects of the projectiles. It is pointed out next that all these victims were handed over by the Military Governor (Colonel Ángel Torres) to their relatives "in closed coffins tied with barbed wire, leaving the face of each one of them exposed for their recognition, which were then buried in adjacent niches in the local Cemetery, said niches remaining open for a space of two or three days, always guarded by military personnel, for the purpose that the relatives could obtain authorization from the Governorate for their burial in family vaults." All of the above, according to the Magistrate, "constitutes the crime of repeated qualified homicide" of the six leftist militants already enumerated. Three forcibly disappeared Regarding the forcibly disappeared, the document expresses that "the other three detainees, Pablo Gac Espinoza, Rubén Cabezas Parés, and Levi Arraño Sancho, were seen there—San Isidro underpass—for the last time, a situation that persists until today, so that, their current whereabouts being unknown, it is established that their detention has been prolonged for more than fifteen days, thus constituting the crime of repeated qualified kidnapping."

Source: July 18, 2003, Zonaimpacto.cl

Gac, Cabezas, and Arraño were thrown into the sea

The then-Army Captain Daniel Walker allegedly gave the coup de grâce to a prisoner who remained alive. The bodies of the nine victims had been taken from the scene of the massacre to the Engineer Regiment.

According to an officer who provided his testimony, when Walker realized that one was still alive, he arranged to put him in a jeep and take him to the place where they had carried out the setup of the fake "patrol assault" and there, on a pile of dirt, he shot him to cause his death.

Afterward, they returned with the corpse to the Regiment. Until now, it is not known which of the victims was so coldly finished off by the uniformed officer. These and other chilling details are established—thanks to witness statements—in the voluminous file of Case Roll No. 35,738, which is being investigated by Visiting Judge Gabriela Corti for kidnapping and qualified homicide, referring to the episode wrongly called the "patrol assault," which in the early hours of January 18, 1974, left a toll of nine leftist militants dead in Quillota.

The background information flows from about thirty pages of the process, a photocopy of which was delivered to this media outlet by the son of one of the massacre's victims. On that occasion, the military authority carried out a setup to kill the nine leaders and then maintain that the detainees were being transported from the Engineer Regiment to the Cavalry School, and that on the way, the patrol had been assaulted by "extremist elements," leaving six prisoners dead.

The remaining three—former socialist mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza, lawyer and socialist leader Rubén Cabezas Parés, and peasant leader Levi Arraño Sancho, of the MAPU—had allegedly escaped, according to the communiqué issued at the time.

Everything was planned According to the background information gathered during the two years of inquiries led by Judge Corti, the order to detain leftist militants and leaders Manuel Hurtado, Hugo Aranda, Arturo Loo, Eduardo Manzano, Ángel Díaz, and Víctor Fuenzalida (some of whom were already in prison) along with Pablo Gac and Rubén Cabezas, was allegedly given by Colonel Sergio Arredondo González, who had been the operational chief of the "Caravana de la Muerte"—which left a hundred dead throughout Chile—and who at the time was the director of the Cavalry School.

Levi Arraño had allegedly been detained since before at the same School. The massacre was allegedly planned in advance, with the participation—even—of civilians, who advised the military and collaborated by supporting the actions.

The nine prisoners were concentrated on the night of January 17, 1974, at the Engineer Regiment, where the officers and non-commissioned officers summoned for those purposes were also arriving. In charge of the entire operation was the then-Captain Francisco Pérez Egert.

Some of the participants acknowledge that they were summoned "only to collaborate in the transport" of the prisoners from one military unit to another. Grenades and machine gun bursts What is established is that at the Regiment itself, the three detainees who would be declared fugitives were separated from the remaining six.

Everyone left after midnight in a caravan of four vehicles that headed along Yungay to Freire and from there to the Camino a San Isidro, which leads to the Cavalry School. But meters from the railway underpass, the caravan stopped and Captain Pérez ordered all the detainees to get out, handcuffed as they were, placing them to the side of the vehicles.

On each side of the road, about 80 meters from the site, military personnel were positioned to prevent the passage of vehicles. Behind the scene of the massacre, a civilian watched from the house on his plot of land, with the mission of notifying the Cavalry School as soon as it had concluded.

At Captain Pérez's order, the explosion of grenades and machine gun bursts directed toward the nine prisoners began. It was a few seconds; enough to murder the nine leaders and set fire to one of the caravan's jeeps, with which they intended to make the massacre appear as an "extremist assault on the patrol" that was transporting detainees.

Removal of the bodies Once the shooting ended, Captain Pérez ordered the bodies to be picked up and taken back to the Regiment. There, after realizing that one of the executed remained alive, the then-Captain Daniel Walker ordered him to be put into a military vehicle to transport him personally to the place where the setup was carried out.

There he had him placed on a pile of dirt and allegedly fired the coup de grâce. Once the corpse was returned to the Engineer Regiment, it was arranged that the bodies of the three who would be declared fugitives be taken to the Cavalry School, from where, before ten o'clock the next morning, they were removed by a Navy helicopter to be thrown into the sea, off the coast of Quintero.

The remains of the other six murdered leaders were sent to the morgue of the Quillota Hospital, where doctors Jorge Abde (already deceased) and Orazio Bruzzone—who testified before the Judge—performed the autopsies.

Subsequently, the corpses were handed over to the relatives in closed coffins sealed by a funeral home chosen by the military themselves. This entire procedure departed absolutely and arbitrarily from those that correspond judicially, because the military picked up the bodies without waiting for the expertise of the Investigations department, which should have intervened immediately at the scene of the event.

Everyone denies their participation From the parts of the file to which the victims' families and ZonaImpacto.cl had access, it flows that each of the individuals involved and indicted in this case continues to systematically deny their participation, apparently respecting the already known "pact of silence." Colonel (ret.) Arredondo, who ordered the entire operation, claims to have arrived just that early morning, unaware of everything that happened.

The then-Captain Walker says he had no knowledge of what happened, as does his colleague Pedro Durcudoy, while Captain Pérez Egert also claims to have been passing by the place casually when he was surprised by the explosion of a grenade, which caused his vehicle to go off the road and caused him a traumatic brain injury and serious injuries to an arm.

He lost consciousness—he maintains—and therefore knows nothing of what occurred. However, Judge Corti has obtained overwhelming background information that allowed her to establish participation "in the capacity of authors" of kidnappings and qualified homicides, of the seven former military officers and one former carabineros officer whom she indicted last July.

They are retired colonels Sergio Arredondo, Francisco Pérez, Pedro Durcudoy, and Daniel Walker; retired major Raúl Muñoz; senior non-commissioned officers Leonardo Quilodrán and Sergio Placencia, all from the Army, and retired senior non-commissioned officer of the Carabineros Laureano Hernández.

With the exception of Colonel Arredondo, all the indicted obtained release on bail. Thirty years later Upon the thirtieth anniversary of the massacre that shocked—until now—life in the peaceful city of Quillota, the victims' relatives express themselves very distressed after learning details of what happened, but also somewhat relieved because they perceive that the diligent work of the Visiting Judge is managing to get decisively closer to the establishment of the whole truth, which will allow the responsible parties to be sanctioned.

Yesterday, Sunday, the day of the thirtieth anniversary of this cruel slaughter, the relatives and human rights organizations of Quillota remembered the date with an audiovisual exhibition next to the Monument to the Victims of Human Rights Violations, in the Plaza de Armas, and then a "velatón" (candlelight vigil) in the same place.

Surprising encounter between the son of the murdered former Mayor and two of those indicted as authors of the crimes On the morning of last Wednesday, January 14, teacher Pedro Pablo Gac went to a commercial establishment in Quillota to photocopy part of the file on the homicides of his father—former mayor Pablo Gac—and eight other leftist militants, perpetrated on January 18, 1974.

He had promised to deliver said photocopy to this journalist for the writing of reports for this and other media outlets, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the massacre. During the previous night and early morning, he had read the pages of the summary over and over again, and he was still shocked by the chilling details described therein.

While a clerk at the business was making his photocopies, he noticed with unusual surprise that at another machine, the employee in charge was photocopying identical writings and parts of the same file.

After hesitating for a few minutes, he asked the clients who were carrying those documents who they were. Moments later, still excited by the unusual encounter and in the calm of a café table, he tried to recover from the impression and organize his ideas. "It was a short subject, with a mustache, about 65 years old, and another taller one, somewhat younger," he told ZonaImpacto.cl. "I asked them who they were and they introduced themselves, shaking my hand: one was the retired Army non-commissioned officer Sergio Placencia and the other, retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Laureano Hernández." Two of those indicted as authors of the qualified kidnapping of his father, whose status as disappeared still remains. They are also being prosecuted for the kidnapping of Rubén Cabezas and Levi Arraño, along with the homicide of six other leftist militants. They deny everything, everything... Pedro Pablo Gac was greatly impressed by the attitude of the two indicted.

• They looked haggard, diminished. Nothing in them reflects the haughty and arrogant subjects of before, those who detained and tortured, as I understand it.

Did you know them from before?

• Not at all. I had heard about them and seen their names in the indictment. Nothing more.

Did they appear humble?

• I would say yes, although they were rather extremely kind to me. They told me about the functions they claim to have performed at the time of the massacre and assured me that they had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes.

What explanation do they have?

• I don't know, I didn't retain much, I was very impressed and also I confess that I didn't believe what they were saying.

Didn't they seem sincere to you?

• In reality, they tried hard to appear so; they told me they were at my disposal, that they would like to talk again... but Judge Corti has investigated meticulously for two years, has been connecting the dots, and indicted them as authors. I have no doubts about the Magistrate's work, so I must suspect that they are not telling the truth.

Did they ask for forgiveness?

• No! If they claim they are innocent! So the only thing they did was justify themselves, argue that they had no participation, and put themselves at the disposal of us, the relatives, to "help us" discover the truth.

But they must know it...

• They maintain that they know nothing of what happened, that it never occurred to them to find out, that they heard nothing, that it was not their job to investigate.

Don't they even acknowledge having had collateral participation?

• The former carabineros officer Hernández says he only acted as a driver in several arrests, but he doesn't know who the detainees were and doesn't remember the name of the captors.

What feeling are you left with after this experience?

• That they are cowardly people who do not want to assume their responsibilities and are not willing to pay with prison for their participation in the very serious crimes in which they participated. I think they were convinced that the hand of justice would never fall upon them and I fear that thirty years ago someone—or more than someone—must have guaranteed them total and eternal impunity. It gives the impression that now they feel bewildered, fearful, and abandoned. I was left with the feeling that they are afraid... very afraid.

Process established participation of civilians in the planning of the homicides An indeterminate number of civilians participated in the planning and execution of the homicides perpetrated by the military on January 18, 1974.

The file records interrogations of several of them, both in Chile and abroad; the former carried out directly by the instructing Judge and the others by personnel of the Fifth Department of Investigations.

The parts of the summary known to ZonaImpacto.cl demonstrate not only the meticulous and tireless work carried out by Magistrate Gabriela Corti but also by the officials of the civil police, who did not leave any proceeding unfulfilled.

Civilians An Army non-commissioned officer, in his testimony, mentions the agricultural businessman Claudio Monreal Navarro, maintaining that "this person was an 'aide' to the Army, who witnessed these events; furthermore, he himself commented to me that he was aware in advance of the planning of how the 'patrol assault' was going to occur; they prepared him for this and it was his job to make the phone call to the Cavalry School to inform them of what happened, just as he facilitated vehicles and even coordinated with the funeral home that transported the deceased.

This is an older person and he has indicated to me that he is willing to collaborate, but he is scared." Apparently, he had to overcome his fear, because he finally testified as a witness, just like Osvaldo "Guatón" Romo and Ismael Villavicencio Carrasco.

The same non-commissioned officer says he gathered a series of background information on this episode, "finding out that it was not an assault but a 'show' carried out by military comrades of that time to eliminate a series of political people opposed to the military government, simulating a confrontation between a military patrol that was transporting political detainees and subversive elements." He also mentions names of other military personnel who had participation: Eladio Lara Valenzuela, René Olivares Faúndez, Carlos Retamal Salazar, René Gutiérrez Herrera.

Also a carabineros officer: Orlando Tapia Tapia. General Juan Arenas Franco, meanwhile, mentions a certain "Pepe" as another of the military's aides: "The only thing I remember from that night (the night of the massacre) is that I was on patrol accompanied by a civilian named Pepe, who was the owner of a plot of land located in front of the Cavalry School, who facilitated his pickup truck for these types of proceedings." Did the informers' dinner exist?

Upon learning these details, along with the demonstration that the slaughter of Quillota leaders was coldly planned, the complaint filed some years ago by Pablo Cabezas Salamanca, son of lawyer Rubén Cabezas, gains strength.

Pablo Cabezas claimed to have knowledge of a "social" dinner that took place days before this episode, shortly after the arrival of the then-lieutenant colonel as Director of the Cavalry School. The new military chief had allegedly selected a group of civilians who were businessmen—especially farmers—and right-wing political leaders or wealthy people who had harbored hatred toward the people of the overthrown Unidad Popular.

On that occasion, the attendees had allegedly drawn up for Arredondo a fateful list of the "most dangerous" leftist political leaders in the area. That would have been the death sentence for nine prominent social leaders of the city.

There are many names circulating about the attendees of this "social" meeting, but the versions highlight that of a farmer who was a high executive of a state company during the Pinochet regime. Other forcibly disappeared In all the interrogations of military personnel, Magistrate Corti did not fail to ask them if they knew the destination of two forcibly disappeared persons whose final whereabouts she wishes to establish.

Invariably, all those interrogated claim to have no idea and to have never heard those names before. They are Jorge Eduardo Villarroel Vilches, from Limache, then a leader of MOPARE (an organization affiliated with the government of Salvador Allende), who was detained on April 19, 1974, when he presented himself at the San Pedro Carabineros Station, where he had been summoned.

The second disappeared is Bernardino Rodríguez Cortez, a saddler who lived in Cerro Mayaca, a militant of the Communist Party, detained on March 6, 1974, inside a leather shop on O'Higgins street in Quillota.

The detention was carried out by Investigations officials from Quillota, among whom were sub-inspector Omar Mercado and detectives Juan González and Hugo Olivari. Former military governor It has drawn attention that the then-Governor, Military Chief of Quillota, and commander of the Engineer Regiment, Ángel Custodio Torres, has not testified nor was he indicted.

The authority may not have participated directly, but at the very least he would be an accessory, since he signed the communiqué deceiving the community with the version of the extremist assault. The parts of the file known to this media outlet do not shed full light on the detail, but sources close to the process assured us that the former governor is affected by total dementia.

In the file, there is a medical certificate that accuses partial memory loss due to his pronounced alcoholism. Placencia's confusions A curiosity of the process is the initial affirmation of senior non-commissioned officer (ret.) Sergio Placencia in the sense that the former captain Daniel Walker gave the coup de grâce to one of the victims who did not die instantaneously.

But when both were confronted, doubt entered Placencia's mind: "I maintain what was declared previously regarding the wounded man in the patrol assault who was subsequently finished off by an officer on the International Road.

But now, seeing my Major Walker, I cannot specify with certainty that this was said officer, maintaining in this regard the doubts that I expressed previously; that is, if it was him or if it was Jaime Bachler..." But then, faced with this latter officer, he again "gets confused": "I maintain my previous statements.

Now that I have Officer Bachler in front of me, I cannot say that this was the officer who finished off the wounded man. I insist the doubt persists if it was him or Major Walker and to clear up said doubt I refer to the confrontation that was carried out with the latter."

Source: January 21, 2004, Zonaimpacto.cl