“I am dying by degrees and I ask you to replace my current sentence with banishment to a foreign country where euthanasia is legally authorized,” is part of the dramatic text of a letter sent to the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, by retired Army Colonel Jorge Muñoz Pontony (76), who is serving a 15-year sentence at Punta Peuco as the perpetrator of a double homicide recorded on September 27, 1973, for which he declares himself innocent.

The letter was published this Wednesday in the Santiago evening newspaper La Segunda.

In the missive, he explains that he has requested a presidential pardon three times, without results, despite his various physical ailments.

“The confessed perpetrators of the two simultaneous homicides are in this same prison (Punta Peuco), serving sentences shorter than the one they conspired to pin on me,” the retired colonel asserts.

“I have not killed anyone nor ordered anyone to be killed,” he says at another point in the missive, and maintains that he never belonged to intelligence or security agencies of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, but rather worked in the field of education.

Leaving the country and euthanasia “would correct the criminal sanction, (…) sparing me physical, psychological, and moral suffering for something not committed,” he argues.

Wave of murders after the bloody military coup

On January 3, 2017, the Chilean justice system sentenced four retired military officers for the crimes against union leaders Luis Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán (photos left and right, respectively) committed in September 1973.

According to judicial sources, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence against Jorge Muñoz Pontony to 15 years and one day in prison; Jaime García Zamorano to 7 years in prison; and Pedro Silva Jiménez and Pedro Rivera Piña to 5 years and one day for the crimes perpetrated on September 27, 1973, at the Army War Academy in Santiago.

During the investigation stage, the minister (Special Judge) Mario Carroza (photo bottom-right) managed to establish that “on September 27, 1973, a military patrol went to the company Chilean Autos S.A. and requested the presence of two of its workers, both union leaders, Luis Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán, who upon arrival were detained by Army officials and transferred to the facilities of the War Academy, where they were interrogated.

They were kept in the unit until dawn and subsequently, their execution and the abandonment of their bodies on public roads were decided.

Luis Herrera González lost his life due to multiple thoracic-abdominal gunshot wounds, and Mario Parra Guzmán due to multiple gunshot wounds to the lower extremities and an abdominal and pelvic wound with multiple perforations of the intestine and hemoperitoneum.”

Around 3,200 Chileans died at the hands of repressors during the military regime (1973-1990), according to an official report.

This is one of the hundreds of cases recorded by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, a Chilean body created by President Patricio Aylwin Azócar, through Supreme Decree No. 355, of April 25, 1990, of the Ministry of the Interior, with the objective of contributing to the global clarification of the truth regarding the serious human rights violations committed between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1990, the period corresponding to the Military Dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, with the aim of collaborating in the reconciliation of all Chileans and without prejudice to the judicial proceedings that such events might give rise to. The commission was chaired by the jurist and politician Raúl Rettig, a former ambassador of President Salvador Allende in Brazil, which is why it is popularly known as the Rettig Commission and its result as the Rettig Report.

Source: kradiario.cl, August 12, 2020

Manuel Contreras, Pedro Espinoza, and Miguel Krassnoff are some of those identified as responsible for the human rights case.

Miguel Vásquez, visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, determined the responsibility of 79 former members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) in the aggravated kidnapping of seven people and the aggravated homicide of Víctor Díaz López, events that occurred between May 1976 and January 1977 and which make up the so-called Conferencia Case.

The eight crimes were perpetrated in operations carried out by the secret police of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship at the addresses Conferencia 1587, in the Santiago commune; Gaspar de Orense 993, in the Quinta Normal commune; Bello Horizonte 979, in the Las Condes commune; and the Simón Bolívar 8800 barracks, in the La Reina commune.

Those identified as responsible for the disappearance of Mario Zamorano Donoso, Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortés, Jaime Donato Avendaño, Elisa Escobar Zepeda, Lenin Díaz Silva, and Eliana Espinoza Fernández, and the death of Víctor Díaz López are:

Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Carlos López Tapia, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Jorge Madariaga Acevedo, Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez, José Fuentealba Saldías, Hugo Clavería Leiva, José Soto Torres, Raúl Soto Pérez, Juan Carlos Escobar Valenzuela, Jerónimo Neira Méndez, Héctor Briones Burgos, Pedro Mora Villanueva, Roberto Rodríguez Manquel, Leonidas Méndez Moreno, Jorge Andrade Gómez, Nelson Herrera Lagos, Juan Morales Salgado, Jorge Sagardía Monje, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Federico Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Bernardo Daza Navarro, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Guillermo Ferrán Martínez, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Jorge Díaz Radulovich, Orlando Altamirano Sanhueza, Eduardo Cabezas Mardones, Jorge Escobar Fuentes, René Riveros Valderrama, Jorge Pichunmán Curiqueo, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Celinda Aspe Rojas, Teresa Navarro Navarro, Berta Jiménez Escobar, Adriana Rivas González, Jorge Arriagada Mora, Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo, Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme, Guillermo Díaz Ramírez, Ana Vilches Muñoz, Italia Vacarella Gilio, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, Orlando Torrejón Gatica, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Manuel Obreque Henríquez, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, Eduardo Garea Guzmán, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Rufino Jaime Astorga, Luis Lagos Yáñez, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Sergio Castro Andrade, Manuel Montre Méndez, Pedro Gutiérrez Valdés, Claudio Orellana de la Pinta, Joyce Ahumada Despouy, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Miguel Meza Serrano, José Ojeda Obando, Carlos Bermúdez Méndez, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Eduardo Reyes Lagos, Marilin Silva Vergara, Hernán Sovino Maturana, José Friz Esparza, Carlos Miranda Mesa, Camilo Torres Negrier, Orlando Inostroza Lagos, Carlos López Inostroza, José Seco Alarcón, Lionel Medrano Rivas, Juan Suazo Saldaña.

The plaintiffs in the Conferencia case, the State Defense Council (CDE) and the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, were notified to either adhere to Vásquez's indictment or present another one in particular.

Once these are defined, the defense teams of the accused will be notified for the plenary stage prior to the first-instance sentence.

MINISTER CARROZA'S PROCESS

Meanwhile, the visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, indicted former lieutenant Kenny Aravena Sepúlveda for his responsibility in the homicides of Jorge Pacheco Durán, Denrio Álvarez Olivares, and Ernesto Mardones, which occurred on December 19, 1973.

According to the document, a military patrol removed the deceased from the Santiago Public Prison to transfer them to the Buin No. 1 regiment under the command of Aravena, and an hour later the officer left the bodies of the three detainees at the Legal Medical Service (SML).

Carroza also issued an indictment for the homicides of Luis Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán, which occurred in September 1973, holding Pedro Silva Jiménez, Jaime García Zamorano, Jorge Muñoz Pontony, and Pedro Rivera Piña responsible for the crimes.

"On September 27, 1973, a military patrol went to the Chilean Autos company and proceeded to detain two of its workers, union leaders, Luis Ricardo Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán; immediately afterward, they transferred them to the facilities of the Army War Academy (...) subsequently, without any justification, the senior officers Jorge Muñoz Pontony and Captain Benjamín Araya Pérez ordered Captain Jaime García Zamorano and the second soldiers Pedro Rivera Piña and Pedro Silva Jiménez to execute the detainees," the investigation indicates.

Source: 24horas.cl, October 22, 2013

Supreme Court sentences two Carabineros and four retired military officers for 1973 kidnappings and homicides

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentences that convicted two Carabineros and four retired members of the Army for the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated homicide, perpetrated in the communes of Ñuñoa and Santiago, respectively, in 1973.

In the first ruling, the Criminal Chamber of the highest court rejected the cassation appeal and confirmed the sentence that convicted retired Carabineros members Fernando Contreras Torres and Pedro Herrera Mossuto to 7-year prison sentences, as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Héctor Vásquez Sepúlveda, an illicit act perpetrated starting on October 18, 1973, in the La Faena neighborhood, then located in the Ñuñoa commune, and currently in Peñalolén.

During the investigation stage, Minister Mario Carroza managed to establish that on the occasion of a fight on a soccer field in La Faena, on October 7, 1973, the members of the Civil Commission of the 13th Police Station of that commune, which was in charge of the then-sub-lieutenant Pedro Herrera Mossuto, accompanied by subordinates Francisco Contreras Torres and Juan Manuel Veloso Ortiz, initiated, without a judicial order and on their own initiative, proceedings to find those involved in the dispute.

In that action, they detained several young people from the sector between October 15 and 18, 1973, then transferred them to the police unit, and two of them appeared executed and their bodies thrown into the San Carlos Canal; others, after their entry into the 13th Police Station, remained in the status of forcibly disappeared.

One of those young men is Héctor Vásquez Sepúlveda, to whose home in the La Faena neighborhood the Commission arrived dressed in civilian clothes on October 18, 1973, asking for the victim while he was bathing.

Once he agreed to come out, as he knew them from being teammates on his "Deportivo Cordillera" team, they talked, and the police officers decided to take him to the unit, without expressing any reason to his relatives, under the sole pretext that he had to make a statement.

Once the accused left the property with the detainee, they walked with him to one of the corners of the sector and stopped a public transport vehicle, which they boarded with the detainee and transferred him to the 13th Police Station.

However, the victim's mother and sister were coincidentally traveling on the same bus and asked the captors what they were going to do with him; they replied that they were only taking him to make a statement at the police station. The mother, with that answer, felt reassured and continued her trip to work.

That same day, upon returning home, the mother realized that her son had not returned and immediately began searching for him, but upon going to the 13th Police Station, police officers told her that he had not entered that unit and that they had not detained him either.

Finally, despite all her efforts, she never found him, and from that moment on, there was no further news of his whereabouts, nor does he have any record of leaving or entering the country, and even less is his death recorded in the civil registry.

In the civil aspect, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that ordered the state to pay fifty million pesos to the victim's relatives.

Union leaders

In the second ruling, the Criminal Chamber confirmed the sentence that convicted four retired Army members for the homicides of the union leaders of the Chilean Autos company, Luis Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán, illicit acts perpetrated on September 27, 1973, at the Army War Academy, located at the time in the Santiago commune.

The sentence confirmed the sentences that Jorge Muñoz Pontony (15 years and one day in prison), Jaime García Zamorano (7 years in prison), and Pedro Silva Jiménez and Pedro Rivera Piña (5 years and one day) must serve.

During the investigation stage, Minister Mario Carroza managed to establish that on September 27, 1973, around 5:00 PM, a military patrol went to the company "Chilean Autos S.A." and asked to speak with the person in charge, who was requested to provide two of its workers, both union leaders, Luis Herrera González and Mario Parra Guzmán.

Upon arrival, they were detained by Army officials and transferred to the facilities of the War Academy, where they were interrogated. They were kept in the unit until dawn and subsequently, their execution and the abandonment of their bodies on public roads were decided.

Luis Herrera lost his life due to multiple thoracic-abdominal gunshot wounds and Mario Parra due to multiple gunshot wounds to the lower extremities and an abdominal and pelvic wound with multiple perforations of the intestine and hemoperitoneum.

By Daniel Labbé Yáñez

Source: elciudadano.cl, January 3, 2018

The three thousand years of prison for Punta Peuco criminals who accuse Piñera of treason. By Mario López M.

The promises the government made during the campaign to the relatives and inmates of the prison, which offered pardons and alternative sentence fulfillment, turned into a time bomb, which would have led to granting freedom to practically everyone convicted and prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Scandal after the President's statements: “It seems very wrong to me that a person who committed atrocious crimes against other human beings is receiving those types of pensions (…) We are making a very great effort to correct those types of situations that wound and attack the conscience of all men and women.”

The least they have demanded from the "military family" is that he fulfill the big offer: a sentence commutation law and the application of a new penal system. They also warn him not to "abuse the patience" they have had so far, since "trust and support are exhausted." They demand respect for their pensions, and the word "treason" is hovering.

There is something about Punta Peuco that has clearly complicated all democratic governments since the Pinochet dictatorship. Just as the issue of its closure brutally tarnished the end of the previous government, today, at the beginning of this new administration, it is present again, but for other reasons.

Unfulfilled campaign promises and threats to pensions (some for post-traumatic stress due to the repression work they did) have led the inmates, their families, and their lawyer to demand angrily that the not-so-secret agreement be fulfilled: votes for impunity.

The penal unit created in 1995 was born in a kind of transaction between the democratic authorities who were just assuming power and the Armed Forces still under the rule of Augusto Pinochet, who maintained the latent threat of re-intervention.

The top leaders who had implemented the repression and who at that time were beginning to face their misdeeds before courts that were forced to prosecute them due to American pressure for the crime of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier in the US would be taken there.

Elastic justice

Thus, slowly, not only the leaders were falling, but also agents of lower "rank," in charge of the dirty work: kidnapping, torturing, raping, mutilating, murdering, and forcibly disappearing people. The complaints led to the transfer of the highest-ranking ones to another luxury prison, the Cordillera Prison, where they were differentiated from those of lower ranks or civilians who acted materially in the crimes.

The courts, meanwhile, pressured again, this time by the arrest of the dictator in England, expanded the investigations to more crimes—torture, rape, and others—and to a greater number of those involved.

They also stopped implementing amnesties and statutes of limitations left and right. Even, in a move that unsettled everyone, a right-wing government closed the Cordillera Prison and grouped all the rapists in Punta Peuco.

The second Bachelet administration, given the high number of inmates in Punta Peuco and given that it was becoming insufficient to house more criminals and that it was "imprudent" to continue expanding it, especially when a promise from the President herself to close it weighed on her, opted to create a special module in Colina I destined for the new criminals who would enter convicted or prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Piñera does it again

In the lead-up to Piñera's first administration, he met with the relatives of those convicted and prosecuted for crimes against humanity and the so-called "military family," to whom he made promises that ranged from the judicial field of the cases they had against them to prison benefits for everyone.

He fulfilled none of that, and what's more, he closed the Cordillera Prison, which housed the most rancid of the repression.

The extreme right and those close to the criminals accused him of treason. In the recent presidential election, this segment raised its own candidate in the first round, José Antonio Kast, and denied Piñera their votes.

In the runoff, Kast served as a bridge—including meetings at Punta Peuco—so that the military family would renew its trust in the right-wing candidate and give him their votes. New meetings and new promises. Even after the government was assumed and until a few days ago.

However, the idyllic nature of this new romance between the current president and the hard right, added to the criminals and their relatives, was broken. First was the denial of requested pardons. Then came the delay—until today—to send the promised laws for the commutation of sentences and to apply the current criminal procedural system and not the old one to the cases that pursue them for crimes in their capacity as State agents.

The corollary was the statements of Piñera himself, who was scandalized by the pensions received by these criminals "who committed atrocious crimes."

From disillusionment to rage

On May 15, a meeting of "representatives of the Retired Military World" with the Undersecretary of Human Rights, Lorena Recabarren, to ask the government for political and legislative definitions and deadlines for the bills that were promised during his campaign, ended in nothing; they were snubbed.

The only thing the government had to appease the spirits was that the day before, the Comptroller had freed Piñera to do as he pleased regarding pardons for one year, starting precisely on the 15th. However, the next day, the Minister of Justice, Hernán Larraín, declared: "we are not in favor of pardoning human rights violators and serial killers." The conflict was imminent.

Warned that the government would unleash a new crisis with that sector, 48 hours after the bitter meeting, the Minister of the Interior, Andrés Chadwick, was ordered to go out and put out the fire. On Thursday the 17th, he appeared reiterating the government's commitment to carry out a bill that would allow sentences to be commuted for terminally ill prisoners.

In passing, he generated a new conflict, as he clarified that there was no commitment to grant pardons, since that is the sole responsibility of the President, and he said nothing about the long-awaited intra-prison benefits, also promised.

To make matters worse, on Wednesday, May 23, in a television interview, Piñera would add the drop that broke the patience of the inmates and their relatives. There he addressed a sensitive issue that had just been reopened: the millionaire pensions received by the criminals, also bloated by the figure of additional benefits for alleged disability, some "post-traumatic," a consequence of "having had" to murder, torture, forcibly disappear people, etc.

Piñera promised to study what to do with those scandalous pensions: "It seems very wrong to me that a person who committed atrocious crimes against other human beings is receiving those types of pensions from the State, but that is because the laws establish it that way.

But we are making a very great effort to 'correct' those types of situations that wound and attack the conscience of all men and women." The storm was unleashed.

"Treason"

A public statement by the Punta Peuco inmates channeled through their lawyer, Raúl Meza, gave an account of the disenchantment with Piñera. A phrase marked their mood: "Apparently his heart betrays him," they said, while warning him not to "abuse the patience" they had shown until now, since "trust and support are exhausted."

"Treason," "abuse," "exhausted patience," "lost trust," and "withdrawn support" marked the missive. "In the military world, words are not chosen at random," explained a high-ranking retired military officer to Cambio21.

Lawyer Raúl Meza and the Multigremial of retired Armed Forces signed the letter in which they tell Piñera that his words "produce deep distrust and disenchantment in those hundreds of thousands of compatriots who trusted in his person again to lead the destinies of this homeland.

Apparently, his heart and his feelings towards the military world betray him and reveal a political bias against those who at some point in history will be recognized for the sacrifice they made to defend their beloved homeland," they said.

In the note, they ask "how do we explain to those Chileans who are defenders of freedom and their homeland and deeply grateful for the government of the armed forces who voted for you in the majority, your thoughtless 'grievances' and 'insults' towards those who had to assume a historical mission, ordered by their superiors, to save their homeland from those who unsuccessfully tried to turn Chile into a country at the service of totalitarian ideologies that destroy man in his dignity and rights."

There was no official response from the government, although bridges were built to lower the decibels. Spokeswoman Cecilia Pérez said nothing about the harsh epithets contained in the letter.

The scandalous pensions

To a complaint by Cambio21 about "disability pensions" for Punta Peuco prisoners and a lawsuit filed by lawyer Roberto Ávila, who was the first to initiate legal action, Capredena would later be added, which filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate possible fraudulent obtaining of pension benefits.

Recently, the State Defense Council took action on the matter, filing a lawsuit against various figures linked to the dictatorship and the military world, including some Punta Peuco inmates.

Capredena pays month by month pensions to Punta Peuco inmates that in their upper bracket reach $3,254,853, as is the case of former military prosecutor Fernando Torres Silva. He is not the only one, as on average those convicted of crimes against humanity receive a whopping monthly $1,618,459.

One of the emblematic inmates for his cruelty, Miguel Krassnoff, a former Army brigadier and member of the Lautaro Brigade of the DINA, receives $2,489,658. And he is not one of the highest in income.

The State Defense Council, joining Roberto Ávila's lawsuit and Capredena's complaint, points to four prisoners and relates to the fact that in addition to their pensions based on their ranks at the time of retirement, they receive millionaire sums for "second-class uselessness," without any of them presenting any physical disability.

None of them suffered an accident in the line of duty or suffered occupational diseases or have any disabling disease of a permanent nature. They continue to work or are fit to do so. These are Enrique Neira ($2,605,979), Patricio Ferrer ($2,161,406), Jaime Torres ($1,647,687), and Rubén Fiedler ($1,340,000).

Raúl Meza's arguments

"The signals from Sebastián Piñera's government are very worrying and discouraging in relation to the commitments made during his presidential campaign in favor of that military family that once again fell into the trap of believing that their vote would be duly rewarded," starts by telling Cambio21 Raúl Meza, the lawyer for the majority of Punta Peuco inmates.

"During these almost three months of government, hearings have been requested with the Ministers of the Interior, Andrés Chadwick, and Justice, Hernán Larraín, to talk about the progress of the bills announced in favor of elderly prisoners and those suffering from chronic and terminal illnesses.

However, to date, there has still been no response, and we have been informed that the Government already has a legislative agenda in which it is not contemplated, for now, to send a humanitarian bill," laments the defender.

"To the above is added the refusal of the Undersecretary of Human Rights, Lorena Recabarren, to receive this lawyer who represents the Punta Peuco inmates in a hearing, without any reason having been indicated to justify such a refusal.

Added to the above is the lack of consideration and respect she had in the hearing she granted to the Multigremial of retired Armed Forces, Carabineros, and Investigations, as she excused her presence at the very moment of the meeting, delegating her representation to her chief of staff.

In this hearing, no commitment was made in favor of the Punta Peuco inmates, nor was there any information about bills that would favor them," the professional denounces.

Meza complains that "with the arrival of the new director of the Gendarmerie, Claudia Bendeck, who has also not granted a hearing to representatives of the retired military world, some measures against the inmates of Colina 1 and Punta Peuco have been restricted.

The inmates of Colina 1 had their patio exit hours restricted until 5:00 PM, having to enter their cells at that time, and they have been denied the right to conjugal visits. For those in Punta Peuco, the hours for telephone calls were restricted until 5:00 PM, and the number of raids on their cells has been intensified."

"Apparently, the better times that President Sebastián Piñera promised the military family during his campaign are conceived only for those who are enjoying the privileges of power, and the rest of the right will have to observe how the government they helped elect raises the flags of the left so that they are allowed to govern and, in the process, will sacrifice that faithful electorate that once again returned to believe in his word, his loyalty, and his leadership," concludes Raúl Meza to Cambio21.

List of inmates at CCP Punta Peuco

[List omitted for brevity, preserving the context of the archive]

Source: cambio21.cl, June 4, 2018

Retired Army Colonel Jorge Muñoz Pontony, 83, seeks to be "exiled" to undergo euthanasia.

Court of Appeals orders "preserving the life" of Punta Peuco prisoner By Rodrigo León

The Court of Appeals ordered "preserving the life" of a Punta Peuco prisoner who requested to be "exiled" from Chile to be able to undergo euthanasia.

In a split decision, the Fifth Chamber of the appeals court accepted the appeal presented by the Gendarmerie against retired Army Colonel Jorge Muñoz Pontony, 83, who is serving a 15-year sentence for a double homicide that occurred on September 27, 1973.

As published by El Mercurio, the document states that the institution can "adopt the necessary measures demanded by the preservation of the life, integrity, and health of the inmate."

Furthermore, they reminded him of "the duty of protection—as an organ of the State—which holds a type of 'privileged' responsibility in relation to the life and health of people deprived of liberty, since they, unlike other people, are under a restriction of their expression of autonomy."

"In our constitutional regulations and relevant legislation, the right to life and physical and psychic integrity of every person is recognized, which finds its due correlation in the punitive sanction our legislator establishes regarding any act that allows for collaboration in generating the death of another, as occurs with the crime of cooperation in suicide contained in article 393 of the Penal Code," added the Court of Appeals in the ruling against the Punta Peuco prisoner.

Previously, Muñoz, who went on a hunger strike on several occasions, was diagnosed with cardiogenic syncope and first-degree AV block.

Source: eldinamo.cl, February 28, 2021