If Aylwin decreed that his term would be one of "justice to the extent possible," Lagos has definitively established "negotiated justice," of which the madness of Pinochet and the emaciated ruling on the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro are clear examples.

Fifteen days ago, the family members, union leaders, and plaintiff lawyers in the Tucapel Jiménez case were overflowing with optimism. They were certain that the sentences against those involved in this horrible crime would be exemplary, especially as the investigation moved toward the direct culpability of the Army as an institution.

However, on Monday the 5th, outside the 18th Criminal Court, their faces could not hide their surprise and disappointment: Judge Muñoz had let them down.

After nearly 18 years of useless work by Minister Sergio Valenzuela Patiño, Magistrate Sergio Muñoz had advanced rapidly in the investigation of the facts, re-indicted many of those whom Valenzuela had released, and aimed his arrows at the heart of the Army and its intelligence branch, the DINE.

First-instance convictions

Ramsés Arturo Alvarez Sgolia, Director of DINE, sentenced to ten years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree for his responsibility as the perpetrator of the homicide. He is imposed the accessory penalty of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and payment of court costs.

Carlos Alberto Fernando Herrera Jiménez, sentenced to a single penalty of life imprisonment for his responsibility as the perpetrator of the crimes of qualified homicide of Tucapel Jiménez and Juan Alegría Mundaca.

He is imposed the accessory penalty of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and payment of court costs.

Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez and Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, sentenced to eight years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide. They are imposed the accessory penalty of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and payment of court costs.

Manuel Segundo Contreras Donaire and Miguel Segundo Letelier Verdugo, sentenced to six years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as perpetrators of the crime of qualified homicide. They are imposed the accessory penalty of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence, and payment of court costs.

Juan Carlos Arriagada Echeverría and Jorge Luis León Alessandrini, sentenced to three years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as accomplices to the crime of qualified homicide. The sentenced individuals are imposed the accessory penalty of suspension from public office for the duration of the sentence and payment of court costs.

They are granted the alternative benefit of conditional remission of the sentence (signing in once a month).

Hernán Ramírez Hald, Hernán Ramírez Rurange, and Juan Fernando Alfredo Torres Silva, sentenced to eight hundred days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as accessories to the qualified homicide.

They are imposed the accessory penalty of suspension from public office for the duration of the sentence and payment of court costs. They are granted the alternative benefit of conditional remission of the sentence (signing in once a month).

Enrique Gabriel Ibarra Chamorro, sentenced to five hundred and forty-one days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as an accessory to the qualified homicide. The sentenced individual is imposed the accessory penalty of suspension from public office for the duration of the sentence and payment of court costs.

The defendant is granted the alternative benefit of conditional remission of the sentence (signing in once a month).

Acquittals

Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Chief of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, accused as an accomplice. Miguel Eugenio Hernández Oyarzo, Chief of the Political-Union Unit of the CNI, accused as an accomplice.

Julio Olivares Silva, junior clerk at ANEF and agent of the Political-Union Unit of the CNI, accused as an accomplice. Alvaro Corbalán Castilla, Chief of the CNI Operational Unit, accused as an accomplice. Sentenced to life imprisonment for the assassination of Juan Alegría Mundaca.

The reduction of sentences

Despite the large accumulation of evidence incriminating CNI and DINE agents and high-ranking Army officials, Magistrate Muñoz narrowed his focus to only a few of them, eliminating from the prosecution figures who also played a role in the crime (see box) and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the self-styled President of the Republic who would not let a leaf move without his consent.

Little by little, he set aside data confirming that the CNI, under Gordon's command, at least carried out surveillance, phone tapping, recording of meetings, and recruitment of agents around Tucapel Jiménez, such as the case of the ANEF junior clerk Julio Olivares Silva.

He also dismissed his own ruling of November 15, 2000, in which he had sentenced CNI members Alvaro Corbalán, Armando Cabrera Aguilar, and Carlos Herrera Jiménez to life imprisonment for the assassination of the carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca, and Osvaldo Pincetti to ten years in prison.

This crime was proven to have been committed with the sole intention of covering up the crime against the ANEF leader.

On the other hand, avoiding the interpretations regarding crimes against humanity recently applied by the Supreme Court, he opted to apply mitigating measures to a large part of those convicted in the process and to dictate low sentences, based on the principle of "gradual prescription," justified by the inoperability of Valenzuela Patiño.

With that reasoning, the ruling points out that "the crime remained uninterrupted until the temporary dismissal dictated in the case files on April 26, 1986, became final. Then, the processing remained paralyzed for more than three years, a circumstance that determined that the prescription period for the criminal action continued to run, as if it had never been suspended, until the process was restored to summary proceedings on July 30, 1990.

Thus, between February 25, 1982, and July 30, 1990, eight years, five months, and five days elapsed, a factual antecedent that implies the passage of more than half the time established for the prescription of the criminal action to operate in this case and, therefore, leads to accepting the approach formulated by the defenses of the accused Arturo Ramses Alvarez, Víctor Pinto Pérez, Francisco Ferrer Lima, Manuel Contreras Donaire, Miguel Letelier, Hernán Ramírez Hald, Juan Carlos Arriagada, Jorge Luis León Alessandrini, Hernán Ramírez Rurange, Fernando Torres Silva, and Enrique Ibarra."

Muñoz also rewarded Herrera Jiménez, unifying the sentence with the life sentence for the homicide of Alegría Mundaca, which in practice means he will only have to serve 20 years of effective imprisonment, opening the possibility for him to request a presidential pardon.

He incorporates other benefits, citing the irreproachable prior conduct of some defendants such as Arriagada Echeverría, León Alessandrini, Ramírez Rurange, Ibarra Chamorro, Torres Silva, and Ramírez Hald, who were granted the remission of their custodial sentences, having to sign in only once a month.

Despite having no prior convictions, Torres Silva has been accused of the torture that affected numerous political prisoners, and Ramírez Hald is implicated in the disappearance of the young student from the Liceo Industrial de Maipú, José Flores.

In this way, the final sentences bear no relation to the horror of the crime nor to the aggravating factors of premeditation, treachery, cruelty, and assassination in an unpopulated area in which it was committed.

Nor to the fact that the perpetrators had the absolute protection of the State, that the negligence of a recognized Pinochet-supporting judge intentionally lengthened the process, and that the Army itself persistently denied its collaboration.

Those who escaped unscathed

It is strange in the resolution that many of those involved were not part of the conviction; beyond the inexplicable acquittal of Alvaro Corbalán, Miguel Hernández Oyarzo, Julio Olivares Silva, and Roberto Schmied Zanzi, there are other figures who had clear participation in the crime and were not even considered in the resolution.

This concerns, for example, the members of the National Secretariat of Guilds and the National Syndicalist Revolutionary Movement, led by Misael Galleguillos Vásquez, Valericio Orrego Salas, and Raúl Manolo Lillo Gutierrez, who spied on the actions of this "traitor to the fatherland," providing information to their superiors in the Directorate of Civil Organizations and the General Undersecretariat of Government, under the command of today's UDI Senator Jovino Novoa Vásquez.

It is not unknown that this department had reserved funds to finance affiliated paramilitary groups. Among the measures requested by the plaintiffs was to confront Novoa with Sergio Fernández and Enrique Montero Marx, who held the position of Minister of the Interior near the date of the assassination.

Galleguillos is linked to the planning of the crime, while Valericio Orrego contacted CNI agents for the surveillance of Tucapel Jiménez and the "Group of 10," and an Opala car used in the crime was allegedly his property. Lillo Gutiérrez also acted as a spy on opposition union groups.

Among the accomplices to the crime, as the investigation merited, also appeared the agents assigned to the espionage of union leaders: Nelson Hernández Franco, alias "Marcos de la Fuente"; Héctor Lira Aravena; Luis Pino Moreno; and José Ramírez Romero, alias "Carlos Santander." Patricio Pezoa Araya, an employee of a DC union leader, allegedly spied on the "Group of 10" and made contact with the three CNI agents who were following Tucapel Jiménez.

Army Captain Raúl Descalzi Sporke, who was always considered among the perpetrators, is also not on the final list.

It also does not name the Carabineros sub-officer (ret.) Luis Pinto Moreno, initially indicted as an accomplice, and the Army captain (ret.) and member of the DINE, Arturo Silva Valdés, who had been prosecuted as an accessory for his participation in the escape of Herrera Jiménez to Argentina.

Last year, Judge Muñoz had considered Army sub-officer Humberto Calderón Luna, chief of personnel of the CNI in 1982, among the perpetrators; he does not appear among the convicted despite being the one who allegedly recruited Galvarino Ancavil to obtain the weapons used in the crime.

Ancavil Hernández, who was always linked to the process, is allegedly in France and never appeared before the judge. This should not have been an obstacle to convicting him in absentia for having provided the weapons—a .22 caliber Pasper and another .32 caliber—used in the assassination. Finally, Humberto Gordón Rubio, at the time Director of the CNI, was acquitted due to his death.

Pinochet's orders

Although for Magistrate Muñoz there was not enough evidence to include the dictator in the process, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte played a central role in the determination to eliminate Jiménez and in the subsequent cover-up maneuvers.

Alerted by Jovino Novoa and his union leaders from the National Secretariat of Guilds, Pinochet learned of the betrayal that the one-time ally Tucapel Jiménez was preparing. The same man who defended the military junta abroad after the first months of the coup d'état was, at the beginning of the 80s, part of the opposition group that was politically linked to the former Commander-in-Chief of the FACH, Gustavo Leigh Guzmán.

In the summer of 1982, Jiménez Alfaro made a broad call for worker unity against the regime, meeting with Manuel Bustos and other union leaders for that purpose. Meetings at Leigh's house became more frequent. The figure of the ANEF leader was becoming dangerous.

On February 21, 1982, at a ceremony for the delivery of property titles in Calbuco, Augusto Pinochet stated: "Logically, when there are these small, momentary negative actions, the usual ones appear. The usual negative ones appear, and to them, I send this message today: the government tolerates many things, but it will never tolerate going backward.

It will never tolerate that some entrenched individuals are acting in a negative way and trying to sow discord in the minds of the workers. Therefore, I dare to say to those who are currently carrying out actions contrary to the Government: be very careful, gentlemen, because you too can end up outside the country." He then added: "And those who have signed letters, telegrams, or cables to communist entities abroad are as communist as they are, because, gentlemen, tell me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are.

If they cling to a communist action, they are as communist as those who are acting." The expressions, widely reproduced by the media, signed Jiménez's death warrant. Only four days later, it would be carried out.

The cover-up

Carlos Herrera Jiménez has maintained repeatedly, since he acknowledged his participation in the events, that at the moment the planning for the physical elimination of Tucapel Jiménez was presented to him, it was indicated that Arturo Alvarez Sgolia, Director of Army Intelligence, was aware of it.

Alvarez, moreover, once the events were executed, held a meeting with those who took part in those actions or had knowledge of them, in which he prohibited them from referring to the subject in their conversations.

He states that Alvarez directly congratulated him for the action carried out, telling him to be calm, that nothing would happen to him, and that he had "done a great favor to the fatherland." Herrera acknowledges that the order was arranged by his direct boss, Francisco Ferrer Lima, which was reiterated to him by the superior, commander of the Army Intelligence Corps Víctor Pinto Pérez, telling him that it had been ordered by or was known to the Director of Army Intelligence, Arturo Alvarez Sgolia, and, furthermore, that it had been arranged or was known by the "Command," which he understood to refer to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, to which it was added that Tucapel Jiménez was a "traitor to the fatherland," that he was causing much damage to the country, and that his elimination was necessary.

Francisco Ferrer Lima, a participant in a meeting after the crime, declared that Alvarez requested all officials of the Army Intelligence Corps who took part in the events not to say anymore that such events had been ordered by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, that he assumed full responsibility.

Pinochet himself, in his book Camino recorrido, tried to leave the responsibility on Alvarez by saying that the death of Jiménez Alfaro "could have been arranged by a hothead without remedy." The Chief of the General Staff of the Army at the time, Enrique Morel Donoso, declared in the process that: "if the event is linked to the Army Intelligence Directorate, it would be the product of the personal initiative of its Director, Arturo Alvarez Sgolia, whom I consider a very intelligent person, but in some way lacking in judgment."

On January 17, 1992, faced with some progress in the investigations into human rights violations, Pinochet Ugarte gave a command order to the Army Auditor General Fernando Torres Silva: he had to create the Department of Study and Planning.

The functions of this new body were aimed at refining the defense strategies of the uniformed personnel, which included the possibility of taking some out of the country, covered in language that defined: "analyzing the procedural situations that the institution could face, from political, communicational, and intelligence points of view." The unit was created between late 1992 and early 1993, assigning to it the CNI lawyers who had been assigned to the General Auditor's Office.

Under Torres Silva's command was Enrique Ibarra, in his capacity as Chief of Department IV of the Auditor's Office. Among the favors granted are the hiding of Osvaldo Romo Mena in Brazil, of Miguel Fanta Estay Reino in that country and Paraguay, and the departure of Herrera Jiménez to Argentina.

At the end of 1982, Carlos Herrera Jiménez allegedly met with Alvaro Corbalán to request his reincorporation into the CNI, telling him about the crime against Tucapel. After that, they spoke with Gordon, who took Herrera to La Moneda, where he interviewed Augusto Pinochet and, upon leaving, told him that the President sent him his recognition, that he congratulated him, and that he would keep him in mind in the future.

Uniformed pressures

Just as in the case of Pinochet's dismissal, before this ruling was known, the visits of government officials and uniformed personnel to the Courts were reactivated. Already in January of this year, the defense lawyers for the criminals requested that Muñoz declare himself incompetent to give way to Military Justice.

Jorge Balmaceda Morales, Juan Carlos Manns, and José Luis Sotomayor framed their request in the so-called "exceptions of prior and special pronouncement," which the Code of Criminal Procedure contemplates, and which refer to the declinatory of jurisdiction and the prescription of the criminal action due to the time elapsed since the crime occurred, which are in the stage of issuing charges, a phase prior to the first-instance convictions that would be dictated by the magistrate.

They also tried to have Muñoz declare the crime prescribed and stop the investigation so that the military courts could take charge of the case.

In the final stage of the investigation, the Army began to operate desperately; the liaison officers who supposedly cared about the well-being of the defendants were dedicated to carrying information to the DINE and Torres Silva to redesign the defense planning, and they threatened the detainees who were collaborating.

Ricardo Opazo Wildner, Herrera Jiménez's liaison, threatened him directly, pointing out that his attitude would have negative consequences for his personal safety and that of his family. The decision for Herrera Jiménez to leave Chile was taken by Torres Silva and Ibarra, who thus fulfilled Pinochet's mandate to help the defendants, included in his command order to create the Department of Study and Planning of the Army General Auditor's Office.

Although Juan Emilio Cheyre says he abides by the resolutions of the Justice system, his private visits to the Palace of Courts are known, as is his refusal to help in this case, in which the judge had to resort to other means to know the list of DINE members in 1982, and in the process for the executed and disappeared of Cerro Chena, where Judge Cecilia Flores has been systematically denied all collaboration.

In the case of Judge Mario Carroza, in charge among others of the process for the disappearance of Domingo Blanco Tarres, his requests have not been accepted or he has been sent irrelevant documents that delay the investigative stage. These are just some of the cases in which the words of the Commander-in-Chief are brutally contrasted with reality.

Fifteen days before the ruling was known, when the family members, union leaders, and plaintiff lawyers were still overflowing with optimism, a strange incident delayed the delivery of the sentences: the judge's computer had suffered a failure.

Everything indicates that, between that failure and Monday, August 5, something happened in the magistrate's computer that ended the optimism reigning in the circle close to Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro.

Source: rebelion.org, August 10, 2002

Case File 6671-2005: crime of torture committed against the person of Sergio Patricio Aguiló Melo

39) Report No. 1484, (726 to 732) insofar as it contains statements by: a) Ricardo Juan Opazo Wildner (729) who in January 1981, with the rank of Lieutenant, was assigned to the

CNI

, with the operational name of "René Alfaro" , to compile information from the different Ministries; he was also assigned, for a couple of months, starting in May 1981, to the " Agrupación Café ," in charge of investigating the Christian Left.

Source: Judiciary, June 4, 2012