Address: Pasaje Cuncumén No. 891, Villa La Reina, Santiago Marital Status: Married, 8 children Occupation: Locksmith Political Affiliation: None Date of Detention: October 7, 1973, in Isla de Maipo Name: NELSON HERNANDEZ FLORES ID: 32,063 of Talagante Date of Birth: 06 03 41, 32 years old at the time of detention Address: Viña Naguayán, house 12, Isla de Maipo Marital Status: Married, 5 children Occupation: Agricultural laborer Political Affiliation: None; union leader Date of Detention: October 7, 1973 Name: OSCAR NIBALDO HERNANDEZ FLORES ID: 38,703 of Talagante Date of Birth: 17 05 43, 30 years old at the time of detention Address: Viña Naguayán, house No. 12, Isla de Maipo Marital Status: Single Occupation: Agricultural laborer Political Affiliation: None Date of Detention: October 7, 1973

Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, 39, married, 8 children, locksmith, residing in Santiago in Villa La Reina; Nelson Hernández Flores, 32, married, 5 children, agricultural laborer, union leader, residing at Viña Naguayán; and Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, 30, single, agricultural laborer—the three brothers, none of whom had political affiliations—were detained on October 7, 1973, at Viña Naguayán.

This was the place where Nelson and Oscar lived and where Carlos Hernández was visiting, having gone to pick up a child who was temporarily staying at their paternal grandmother's house.

The three brothers were apprehended without any warrant as part of an operation in which eleven peasants, almost all workers from the Fundo Naguayán, were arrested by a patrol of Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo station, under the command of Sergeant Pablo Ñancupil and including Carabineros Jacinto Torres, Manuel Muñoz, Héctor Vargas, and David Coliqueo.

The other eight detainees were: Sergio Maureira Lillo and his sons Sergio, Rodolfo, Segundo, and José; Enrique Astudillo Alvarez and his sons Ramón and Omar.

After raiding the home, the Carabineros took the three brothers out of the house and forced them into a pickup truck owned by the Fundo Naguayán, where some detainees were already being held. According to a witness—a brother-in-law of the Hernández Flores brothers—the men in the vehicle were tied up and lying face down, while the Carabineros stood on top of them, beating, insulting, and threatening them with death.

The detention occurred in the presence of their mother, their sister, Nelson's spouse, and his young children. It should be noted that the spouse of Carlos Hernández, who was suffering from cancer, passed away days later, on November 13, 1973.

Her eight children, the eldest 17 and the youngest 5 at the time, were momentarily left in the care of a neighbor, and later the six youngest were placed in different homes, while the older ones remained at home.

The relatives went to various places to inquire about their whereabouts. At the Isla de Maipo station, they were informed that they had been transferred to the National Stadium, but they could not be located there.

They also went to the Estadio Chile, the Public Jail, the Penitentiary, the Investigations headquarters, the Tejas Verdes Regiment, the Melipilla Jail, the Ministry of Defense, SENDET, the International Red Cross, and the Legal Medical Institute, without obtaining positive results.

It should be noted that on the same day in October, in the morning, four young men who were in the local Plaza were detained by Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo station. These young men were: Miguel Brant Bustamante, Iván Ordóñez Lama, José Herrera Villegas, and Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas.

The fifteen people detained that day remained at the station, where they were last seen alive by witnesses. On November 7, 1975, the Chilean delegate to the United Nations, Sergio Diez, stated in his presentation to the Third Committee of the General Assembly that "many of the alleged disappeared do not have a legal existence," while others "were located in the records of the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago." Of the fifteen detained in Isla de Maipo, eight appear on the lists: one of them, Sergio Maureira Muñoz, as having no legal existence, and the other seven as deceased: 1) Enrique Astudillo Alvarez, entry 3166, date of death: October 7, 1973, at 14:00 hours. 2) Nelson Hernández Flores, entry 3238, date of death: October 11, 1973, at 14:30 hours. 3) Oscar Humberto Hernández Flores, entry 3201, date of death: October 9, 1973, at 12:30 hours. 4) José Manuel Herrera Villegas, entry 3130, date of death: October 6, 1973, at 11:30 hours. 5) José Manuel Maureira Muñoz, entry 3263, date of death: October 11, 1973, at 20:30 hours. 6) Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz, entry 3332, date of death: October 15, 1973, at 13:00 hours. 7) Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, entry 3335, date of death: October 15, 1973, at 16:00 hours.

The origin of these lists and those responsible for their creation could never be established. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Legal Medical Institute did not take responsibility for them.

At the end of 1978, a Catholic priest received, under the seal of confession, information about a place where numerous human remains were located.

Considering the seriousness and gravity of the matter, a Commission was formed to verify the information before filing a formal judicial complaint.

This Commission was composed of Monsignor Enrique Alvear, Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago; Monsignor Cristián Precht, Vicar of Solidarity; Jaime Martínez, Director of the weekly "Qué Pasa"; Abraham Santibáñez, Sub-Director of "Hoy" magazine; and lawyers Alejandro González and Máximo Pacheco.

The Commission met on November 30, 1978, at the site of the discovery: an abandoned lime kiln located in the town of Lonquén, a small village 14 kilometers from the city of Talagante and near the town of Isla de Maipo. There, they were able to confirm the existence of two kilns, approximately nine meters high, in one of which a large number of human remains were found.

Once the information was verified, they filed the respective complaint the following day, December 1, with the President of the Supreme Court, Mr. Israel Bórquez, requesting that he report it to the Plenary of that Court.

This initiated the judicial investigation that determined that the remains found belonged to the fifteen locals from Isla de Maipo detained on October 7, 1973; they had been executed by Carabineros, who had also illegally buried them in the kilns.

The victims' families requested the return of the bodies to give them a proper burial. The Martial Court ordered the Military Prosecutor to hand over the remains to whoever could legally prove kinship.

The Prosecutor ordered "strict compliance with that order," but finally, on the very day the funerals were to take place, he ordered that, due to the impossibility of identifying the remains—except for those of Sergio Maureira Lillo—they should be buried in the town of Isla de Maipo.

On the same day this order was issued, the relatives had gathered at the Recoleta Franciscana Church to await the remains for a funeral mass, only to learn at that moment that the bodies had been buried by officials of the Legal Medical Service in the Municipal Cemetery of Isla de Maipo in a mass grave, with the exception of Sergio Maureira Lillo, who had been buried in an individual grave.

The Military Prosecutor also refused to authorize the registration of the deaths in the Civil Registry and Identification Service, a resolution that was confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Days later, a funeral ceremony for the eternal rest of these victims was held at the Santiago Cathedral, without the presence of the remains. Years later, the Lonquén Kilns, which by that date had become a place of pilgrimage, were dynamited.

Judicial and/or Administrative Proceedings

On March 29, 1974, the Committee for Cooperation for Peace in Chile filed a mass writ of amparo (habeas corpus), case file 289-74, before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of 131 people who were missing as of that date and whose information had been verified by that organization. Among these 131 people were the eleven peasants from Isla de Maipo, specifically the Hernández Flores brothers.

On November 29, the Court of Appeals dismissed the writ; this resolution was appealed and confirmed by the Supreme Court on January 31, 1975, which recommended the opening of a summary investigation and the appointment of a Visiting Judge (Ministro en Visita), a role assigned to Mr. Enrique Zurita Camps.

On February 24, 1975, the Investigating Judge appeared at the First Criminal Court of Santiago, initiating case file 106,657.

During the investigation, the relatives of the Hernández Flores brothers were summoned to testify by Judge Zurita, and the facts of the detentions were placed on record.

On September 25, 1975, without having delved into any of the cases of the forcibly disappeared, the summary was closed because "no further progress could be made in the investigation." On September 29 of the same year, the Judge issued a ruling, and in the case of the Isla de Maipo detainees, he declared himself incompetent, arguing that the proceedings carried out established that Carlos, Nelson, and Oscar Hernández Flores, Sergio Maureira Lillo and his four sons, and Enrique Astudillo Alvarez and his two sons had been detained on October 7, 1973, by Carabineros from Talagante and handed over the following day at the National Stadium to the charge of SENDET, an organization that did not report on the matter, neither confirming nor denying it.

The Judge's resolution states verbatim that "Consequently, the Carabineros of Talagante or SENDET must answer for the disappearance of the named persons, as this Court lacks jurisdiction in both cases." It adds the order to send the records to the Second Military Court of Santiago.

On July 1, 1976, the Military Court appointed the Third Military Prosecutor's Office to continue the investigation under case file 1382-76. On August 9, one month later, the summary was declared closed, and the following day a temporary dismissal was proposed, which was approved on September 14 by the Military Judge, who ordered the case to be archived.

In parallel, on June 17, 1974, the spouse of Sergio Maureira and mother of the Maureira Muñoz brothers, Purísima Elena Muñoz Contreras, filed a writ of amparo, case file 613-74, before the Santiago Court of Appeals. In the filing, she also mentions the detention and subsequent disappearance of six other peasants from the same area, among whom are the Hernández Flores brothers.

In response to inquiries from the Court, the Acting Chief of the Isla de Maipo station, Luis Acevedo Vargas, sent two official letters. In the first, dated December 10, 1974, he indicates verbatim that "they were indeed detained in the month of October of last year by personnel of this Unit, and were sent with an unnumbered memo, dated the 8th of the same month, for the reasons indicated therein, to the National Stadium Prisoner Camp, where they were received in good order, as evidenced by the signature registered on the back of the copy of the memo, which appears to say Sergeant 2nd Class Gonzáles."

The aforementioned memo contains the personal data (name, age, marital status, education, occupation, ID number, and address), political affiliation, and the charges against each of the eleven detained peasants.

In the case of the Hernández Flores brothers, the memo states:

"Carlos Hernández Flores, 39 years old, married, basic education, no ID card, residing at Villa La Reina, 891 Cuncumén Street, Santiago; of communist affiliation and participant in a clandestine meeting.

Nelson Hernández Flores, 38 years old, married, agricultural laborer, basic education, no ID card, residing at La Ballica Street s/n, of communist-MIRista affiliation and of recognized participation in the seizure of agricultural land, in addition to being a union instigator.

He participated in a clandestine meeting; it has been established through information from truthful and suitable persons that, together with others, he was planning personal attacks on Carabineros officials of this station and prominent persons in the sector.

Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, 32 years old, single, laborer, illiterate, ID card No. 38,706 from the Talagante Office, residing at Viña Naguayán: the same charges as the previous one."

At the end of the text, it is requested that they be interrogated by specialized personnel at that facility, as it is presumed that the detainees are extremists who are meeting to reorganize, which has been verified by their own statements and by the initial inquiries carried out by the station's personnel.

This document is signed by Carabineros Lieutenant Lautaro Castro Mendoza, Chief of the station.

In the second official letter, sent two days after the previous one, the Carabineros reiterated the detention of the individuals on October 7, 1973, by personnel of the station, on the grounds that they had been caught in a clandestine meeting at the home of Sergio Maureira Lillo, and that they were subsequently sent to the National Stadium.

The Court repeatedly sent official requests to SENDET asking for information on this matter based on the information provided by the Carabineros, without receiving a response.

On March 10 of that year, the Court of Appeals dismissed the amparo and ordered the records to be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court.

On the other hand, on October 1, 1974, a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the eleven peasants from Isla de Maipo was filed, case file 22,826-1, before the Talagante Court of Letters.

The filing states that, when carrying out some of the detentions, the Carabineros caused bodily injury to the relatives of the arrested, that the police officers were in a manifest state of intoxication, and that they stole items from some of the raided homes.

There is no further information on the processing of this complaint. On December 1, 1978, the Vicariate of Solidarity—represented by the Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, Monsignor Enrique Alvear Urrutia, and the Episcopal Vicar, Monsignor Cristián Precht Bañados—filed a complaint before the Supreme Court regarding the discovery of human remains inside two old mineral processing kilns on the slopes of the Lonquén hills, in the Department of Talagante.

This information had been provided to a priest days earlier by a person under the seal of confession.

Prior to the presentation to the Supreme Court, the ecclesiastical authorities formed a Commission that went to the indicated place, verifying the truthfulness of the information.

In the filing, signed by Bishop Monsignor Enrique Alvear, Vicar Monsignor Cristián Precht, and lawyers Máximo Pacheco and Alejandro González, they requested that the Supreme Court "adopt measures to ensure a rapid and exhaustive investigation."

The Supreme Court sent the records to the Talagante Criminal Court to conduct the respective summary investigation, initiating case file 27,123-3. As a first step, the magistrate appeared on December 1 at the site, located about 3.5 km from the town of Lonquén, confirming the existence of a stone structure, approximately 9 meters high by 16 meters wide, in which there were two kilns, each with an entrance opening of 1 meter by 80 cm, and which had two pits at the top that showed a large accumulation of dirt and stones.

After inspecting one of the entrances and removing some debris, remains, pieces of cloth, and hair were extracted; observation inside revealed the presence of other human remains.

In successive excavations, human remains were extracted and also sent to the Legal Medical Institute for analysis. Some projectile casings were also found.

On December 6, the Plenary of the Supreme Court appointed the Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mr. Adolfo Bañados Cuadra, as Extraordinary Visiting Judge to continue the investigation into the discovery of the Lonquén remains.

Several peasants residing near the kilns were summoned to testify; they stated that a few days after September 11, 1973, Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo station informed them of an order prohibiting passage to the area where the kilns are located because it was an "extremist hideout"; other peasants said they had seen military vehicles and heard gunfire.

Regarding the construction of the kilns themselves, a report from the Investigations Department of Infrastructure indicated that part of it was old, over 60 years old, while inside one of the kilns there was an iron platform on which a base or slab made of stone and brick joined with lime or plaster had been executed, and whose age was no more than 8 years.

The report concludes by stating that "apparently, this work was executed by throwing the mixture first from the upper opening of the kiln, and immediately the rest of the material, as there is no orderly placement of the elements, which suggests that it was executed by non-specialized personnel."

Regarding the ballistic analysis of three casings found, the Forensic Ballistics section of the Investigations Criminalistics Laboratory reported that the 7.62 NATO casings had been fired by a Swiss-made SIG 7.62 NATO caliber SG 510-4 automatic rifle; all were fired by the same weapon with the indicated characteristics.

When the Court appeared at the Isla de Maipo station, it was verified that the 1973 registry books had been sent to the Third Precinct of Talagante for incineration, and regarding the weaponry, the list includes three SIG SG.510-4 automatic rifles, cal. 7.62 mm.

At the Third Precinct of Talagante, information was obtained regarding the existing staff at the Isla de Maipo station and the Lonquén outpost, which amounted to 21 officials. The Lieutenant was Lautaro Castro Mendoza.

During the process, the list of 63 "allegedly disappeared persons who were located in the records of the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago" was reviewed, which had been presented along with another list of "alleged disappeared persons without legal existence" by the Chilean government to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1975.

The Court requested the autopsy protocols from the Legal Medical Institute that, according to the list, corresponded to Segundo, Rodolfo, and José Maureira Muñoz. In relation to this, Dr. Claudio Molina, Director of the Institute, declared that "the inaccuracy of the list of 'presumably disappeared persons' is evident, at least regarding protocol No. 3332, since the study of the body revealed that it was a woman." He added that he had seen this list in a 1975 publication and that, together with another doctor, he identified the signature as belonging to Dr.

Vargas (former Director of the Institute), "but I do not know on what basis this professional would have endorsed said role."

The Judge of the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago appeared at the Legal Medical Institute at the request of Judge Bañados, and it was verified that none of the people on the list appeared in the Institute's Index Book; the only thing that coincided between both lists was the data appearing in the column for the day of death with the date of entry in the Registry book.

By the date of this proceeding, Dr. Vargas had passed away. In the processing of case 240005-1 of the Maipo-Buin Court, which investigates the disappearances in Paine, it was established that the signature of Dr. Vargas was not the known one.

In this regard, the Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández Fernández, reported that there was no record that the list of persons corresponded to any official communication issued or sent by that Ministry.

Meanwhile, the Acting Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Army Colonel Roberto Soto Mackenney, reported that the aforementioned list appeared in Volume No. 2 of "The Current Situation of Human Rights in Chile," published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the month of October 1975.

The source of the data contained in said list corresponds to information provided by the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago in the year 1975.

Ultimately, it was not possible to establish responsibilities for the creation of the list.

In February 1979, as a result of finding indications that the remains found belonged to the detainees from Isla de Maipo, proceedings began for the recognition of the clothing found in the kilns, with the victims' relatives appearing, most of whom were able to recognize the clothing their relatives were wearing at the time of their detention.

Previously, the anthropometric data of these 15 victims had been delivered to the Court.

When the Carabineros who belonged to the Isla de Maipo station staff in September 1973 were summoned to testify, Carabineros Captain Lautaro Eugenio Castro Mendoza appeared and stated that he gave the order to detain "several subjects of the Maureira family" for being dangerous people linked to the interests of the previous government who were planning to attack the barracks; in addition, "other individuals from the sector with the surname Hernández and others I do not remember, until reaching eleven people" were detained.

He himself led the picket and defined the detentions by following a list attached to a map found in the house of one of the sons of the Maureira family. Once the arrests were finished, they were taken to the barracks where they were interrogated, confirming his suspicions "regarding their dangerousness." Castro adds that after the interrogation was finished, he himself ordered their transfer to the National Stadium, but before that, one of the detainees informed him in private that there were weapons hidden in an abandoned mine.

For this reason, they went to the abandoned mines in Lonquén in a municipal truck and a private pickup truck, with 8 to 10 Carabineros and the detainees; once they arrived at the sector, they were suddenly attacked with firearms from the hills, to which they also responded by firing, a situation that lasted ten to fifteen minutes.

Upon proceeding to look for the detainees, they verified that all of them were dead. All the Carabineros were unharmed.

Subsequently, he decided, after consulting with the personnel, to bury the bodies in the kilns to avoid reprisals against them and their families, and that is how "the bodies were thrown inside and immediately I ordered that dirt and debris be thrown over them."

When asked about the statements he gave in other proceedings, asserting that the detainees had been transferred to the National Stadium, he indicated that he had not told the truth out of fear, since "upon being arrested, all these subjects had a threatening attitude that seemed very serious to me in the sense..."

...that they could take revenge in any way upon our own persons and families." Regarding the memorandum, he declares that it was signed by him but he does not recognize the signature and handwritten script at the bottom.

He reiterates that there were eleven detainees and that he does not know the minors who supposedly also died that day. He was referring to Iván Ordóñez, Miguel Brandt, José Herrera, and Manuel Navarro.

All the Carabineros who participated in the events were armed with SIG rifles and NATO ammunition. Other Carabineros from the unit also appeared; several of them confirmed Captain Castro's version, adding that the detainees were tied with trintrollas (a type of cord), that they were lying on the bed of the truck, and that they used their hands and feet to throw stones and material from the hillsides into the ovens.

On March 15, 1979, the relatives of the forcibly disappeared from the Maureira, Astudillo, and Hernández families filed a criminal complaint for kidnapping against the Carabineros who participated in the arrest, for falsification of a public document against Lieutenant Castro, and for qualified homicide against those who might be found responsible.

The following day, Judge Bañados rejected the processing of the complaint on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to affirm that the people found in the ovens were indeed those individuals, and that, in the event that the Carabineros were responsible, that Court would lack the jurisdiction to substantiate the case.

On April 4, 1979, the Visiting Judge declared himself incompetent. In the resolution, the Judge points out the following conclusions: He establishes that the identity of the corpses found corresponds to the 15 people detained on October 7, 1973, in Isla de Maipo.

He presumes that "multiple crimes of homicide were committed, apparently in a single act." He considers it established that the information provided by the Carabineros that the victims were taken as detainees to the Estadio Nacional is false.

He likewise considers the official information that the corpses were admitted to the Legal Medical Institute during the years 1973 and 1974 to be false. He establishes as "intrinsically implausible" the version of Captain Lautaro Castro, who explains the death of the detainees as the result of an armed attack caused by unknown persons at night, because "it is inconceivable that the opposing projectiles would have struck, under the conditions already expressed, only the prisoners and not their captors; that from the shootout that occurred there, no trace remained, in any respect, and that, in all cases, the injuries were of such a nature that they caused the instantaneous death of the victims." It is noted that, "in none of the fifteen skeletal remains studied by the Legal Medical Institute were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of traces found that could be related to firearm projectiles striking a living organism, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes." He considers that the Carabineros acted in the line of duty and that "the Chief of the Tenencia had direct interference and responsibility in the events, without prejudice to that which may affect those who acted under his command." The records were sent to the Military Justice system on April 10, and in the Second Military Prosecutor's Office, case file Rol 200 79 was instructed under Prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Swett. From this stage of the process, it is worth highlighting the statement of a witness—a brother-in-law of the Hernández brothers—who was also arrested on October 7, 1973, along with them at their home; he maintains that he was with the eleven detainees during the journey to the Tenencia, and upon arriving at this facility, he only remained for about half an hour and was then taken to his home by a Carabinero. Former Carabinero official Pablo Ñancupil Raquileo, who was discharged in 1977 and served at the Isla de Maipo Tenencia between 1971 and 1975, also appeared. He points out that he was in charge of the detention of the Maureiras and the Astudillos, ordered personally by Lieutenant Castro; he does not remember having apprehended the Hernández brothers. He adds that in the respective searches of the homes, they did not find weapons or documents that would allow them to be classified as "dangerous." In relation to this, Lieutenant Castro had previously stated that he had been guided by a list and a map of the barracks found at the home of one of Sergio Maureira's sons to carry out the other arrests. Former Carabinero Ñancupil adds that about two days after the arrest, he saw, in a room of the police facility used as a storeroom, "more than 10 and fewer than 25 people," lying on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs, among whom he recognized those detained by him and also three of the young men apprehended in the plaza, whom he names by their surnames: Brant, Ordóñez, and Navarro. He further states that he did not participate in the transfer of the detainees from the Tenencia and has no knowledge of their fate, although he says that, following comments from people that the detainees had not appeared, he heard a Carabinero say: "How are they going to appear... if we killed them." On July 2, 1979, the Military Prosecutor issued an indictment against Lautaro Castro Mendoza, Juan J. Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto R. Torres Gonzáles, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta, as authors of the crime of unnecessary violence causing the death of all those detained on October 7, 1973. On August 16, a sentence was issued that dismissed the case totally and definitively in favor of the defendants, by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law; this resolution was appealed and confirmed by the Court Martial on October 22, 1979. On the other hand, the Military Prosecutor's Office did not return the remains of the Hernández Flores brothers, and for the second time, they were buried without the knowledge of their relatives. Despite the evidence in the case, the deaths of Carlos Segundo, Nelson, and Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores were not registered in the Civil Registry.

Source: Corporation report

On October 7, 1973, at 9:45 PM, a group of eleven peasants from the town of Isla de Maipo was detained by Carabinero officials. The police did not carry arrest or search warrants for the homes of these individuals.

Numerous witnesses saw how they were beaten and loaded into a white pickup truck owned by the owner of the Fundo Naguayán—where the houses of the three families were located—and how they were tied up and laid face down on the floor of the vehicle.

They were agricultural workers: Enrique Astudillo Álvarez (51 years old), Omar Astudillo Rojas (20), Ramón Astudillo Rojas (27), Carlos Hernández Flores (39), Nelson Hernández Flores (32), Oscar Hernández Flores (30), Sergio Maureira Lillo (46), José Maureira Muñoz (26), Rodolfo Maureira Muñoz (22), Segundo Maureira Muñoz (24), and Sergio Maureira Muñoz (27).

The Carabinero officials stood on their backs. They were paraded through the streets of the town to intimidate the entire population. Finally, they were taken to the police station. The same fate befell four young men who had been detained that same day in the town plaza: Miguel Brant Bustamante (22 years old), Manuel Navarro Salinas (20), Iván Ordóñez Lama (17), and José Herrera Villegas (17).

The relatives were deceived by government authorities. They were informed that the detainees had been transferred to the Estadio Nacional in the capital. In 1974, the relatives filed a recurso de amparo (habeas corpus petition).

When the local authorities were questioned by the courts, they merely stated that "all had been transferred on October 8, 1973, to the Estadio Nacional." This was completely false. The SENDET (National Service for Detainees) contradictorily indicated that it "did not have, and had never had, information about them." Sergio Diez—now a senator for Renovación Nacional—and at that time a delegate of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to the OAS, lied in 1975 before the entire world, saying that: "these people had no legal existence," while other "Lonquén detainees had been admitted to the Legal Medical Institute in October 1973." On November 29, 1978, an informant provided the Catholic Church with the exact location where the ill-fated remains of the peasants and young men were: some lime kilns in the town of Lonquén, 14 kilometers from the town of Talagante. The Vicar of Solidarity, Cristián Precht, and the Bishop of Santiago, Enrique Alvear, decided to verify the information by going to the site along with journalists—Jaime Martínez (Qué Pasa) and Abraham Santibáñez (Revista Hoy)—and lawyers Máximo Pacheco (PDC) and Alejandro González. The press reported: "In an old stone construction, about twelve meters high, attached to the slope of a hill, inside which there are two silos of two and a half meters, were the corpses (...) In the other, covered with stones from above and with an exit in its lower part, also walled up, were human remains, a skull, torn clothes (...)". It was a precise and painful blow to the conscience of thousands of Chileans. A wound open to this day, unspeakable. An image of pain and human misery, of horror without limit and brutality that the history of humanity will remember forever. Nothing could Pinochet and his lackeys do to hide the horrendous crime. The bishop informed Israel Bórquez, president of the Supreme Court and collaborator of the regime, who sent the records to the Talagante Court. Judge Juana Godoy was appointed to initiate the investigation. In December 1978, the remains were sent to the Legal Medical Institute. The plenary of the Supreme Court appointed Judge Adolfo Bañados as Visiting Judge, who ordered autopsies and ballistic examinations and gathered the cases in which the disappearance of persons or alleged misfortune had been reported. He interrogated the relatives of the "disappeared" peasants. The police officers involved: Lautaro Castro Mendoza—chief of the Isla de Maipo Tenencia—and Carabineros Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta, gave the version before the courts that they had "taken the detainees, who were highly dangerous, to the Lonquén ovens in order to unearth the weaponry they had hidden, and that later—at the site—they had suffered an armed attack by unknown persons, with the peasants being killed by the gunfire. Fearing reprisals, they had decided to hide the bodies in the abandoned ovens." In April 1979, Judge Bañados had to declare himself incompetent due to the prevailing legislation that grants immunity to uniformed personnel and hands over criminal cases in which they are involved to the Military Justice system. However, before leaving the case, he established the responsibility of these police officers in the events. His resolution states: "The version (...) to try to explain the death of their prisoners, not only contradicts the merits of the case in multiple aspects and details, in particular, of course, regarding the number of victims, but it is intrinsically implausible (...) in none of the remains were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of traces found that could be related to firearm projectiles striking a living organism, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes." The case then passed into the hands of the "Second Military Court," which indicted the Carabinero officials as "authors of the crime of unnecessary violence causing death." After a short process, the case was definitively dismissed by means of the Amnesty Law issued by Pinochet, legislation to which the eight Carabineros had requested to be subject. Subsequently, the "Court Martial" confirmed that resolution. The murderer Lautaro Castro was promoted to the rank of Captain. One year after the bodies of the peasants and young men were found, the remains were handed over to their relatives. The bodies were transported by officials of the Legal Medical Institute to Isla de Maipo and buried immediately—except for Sergio Maureira Lillo—to avoid the presence of their relatives, depositing them in a common grave. The relatives, aggrieved once again by the military authorities, filed a complaint with the Court Martial—which was obliged to accept it—against military prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Sweet, for "lack and abuse committed by not complying with the order to hand over the corpses." He was given a written censure. In January 1980, the Supreme Court decided to set it aside, considering that the prosecutor "did not incur in any fault. It was the judges themselves who imposed it on him who indicated the procedure he used." A complaint was filed again with the justice system for the death of the Isla de Maipo peasants. This case was handled by Visiting Judge Héctor Solís, who could not continue his investigation. The minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, continued the investigation, finalizing it on September 12, 2016, when she issued a first-instance sentence. The minister convicted the 7 Carabineros who detained the fifteen peasants; the former Carabineros were convicted for the crime of qualified kidnapping: Lautaro Castro Mendoza, head of the patrol, to a sentence of 20 years in prison for his responsibility as an author. David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 900 days in prison. The case went to the second instance, the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which on May 16, 2017, confirmed the sentence. On June 16, 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted 6 former Carabineros, given that the head of the Carabineros, Lautaro Castro, passed away before the conviction. On February 18, 2010, the acting Visiting Judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Héctor Solís, announced the identification of 13 of the 15 bodies whose remains were found in 1978, finally allowing for the burial to take place, with the removal of the remains from the Legal Medical Service on March 26. On March 27, a public wake was held in the Civic Courtyard of the Isla de Maipo Municipality, and on Sunday the 28th, the solemn burial of the victims in the Isla de Maipo Parish Cemetery. The Lonquén Ovens were demolished to erase every trace and footprint of memory, to definitively impose oblivion. By Arnaldo Pérez Guerra

Source: prensaopal.cl, October 7, 2020

Date: 10-07-2020

Lonquén Case: State must pay 5.54 billion for the kidnapping of 15 people

They were also sentenced for qualified and simple kidnapping to 20-year terms for the Carabineros who participated in this crime. It was the remains of 15 men, found in Lonquén, in the rural community of Isla de Maipo, that gave way to the shocking case that, at the end of 1978, confirmed to a series of families that their loved ones, victims of the Dictatorship, were already dead.

On this day, the visiting minister, Marianela Cifuentes, issued a sentence in this case on Friday, September 9. The investigation established that on October 7, 1973, Miguel Ángel Arturo Brant Bustamante, José Manuel Herrera Villegas, Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, and Iván Gerardo Ordóñez Lama, who were in the plaza of Isla de Maipo, were detained by Carabinero officials and taken to the police station in that sector.

That same day, after 10:00 PM, other Carabineros arrived at the house of Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, at the Fundo Naguayán. They detained him "without legal right," according to the judge's investigation, and loaded him into a pickup truck.

The same officials detained Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, Nelson Hernández Flores, Óscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, and Ignacio del Carmen Vergara Guajardo at the same location. Later, the same officials arrived at the properties of Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz and Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, who were also taken to the Isla de Maipo Tenencia.

Subsequently, they detained Enrique Astudillo Álvarez, along with his sons Omar Astudillo Rojas and Ramón Astudillo Rojas. At the police unit, the 15 detainees were subjected to physical duress while they were locked up and interrogated.

All were tied by their hands and were taken out of the police unit in a truck and brought to Lonquén, where a picket of Carabineros, under the command of Lieutenant Lautaro Castro Mendoza, shot them, killing them all, and then threw their bodies inside the ovens.

Castro Mendoza was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his responsibility as an author of qualified kidnapping. Meanwhile, David Coliqueo, Justo Romo, Félix Sagredo, Jacinto Torres, and Juan José Villegas were sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Pablo Ñancupil was sentenced to 15 terms of 60 days in prison as an author of simple kidnapping.

Meanwhile, the state was ordered to pay 5.54 billion pesos to the victims' relatives.

Source: eldinamo.cl 9/12/2016

Date: 09-12-2016

SML identifies forcibly disappeared person from the Lonquén Ovens case

The Legal Medical Service identified Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, a victim associated with the Lonquén Ovens case, where 15 people were detained and disappeared by the Pinochet dictatorship. The information was made known this Tuesday to his relatives by the investigating judge of the case, Adriana Sottovia, and the national director of the Legal Medical Service, Patricio Bustos, at the facilities of the San Miguel Court of Appeals.

With this new result, the number of people identified by the forensic agency related to the Lonquén case now totals 14, with one victim still missing, for whom the SML continues to work for their possible identification together with the GMI laboratory in Austria.

Hernández Flores was detained along with his two brothers on October 7, 1973, in Isla de Maipo. He was an agricultural worker and was 30 years old at the time of his detention. Previously, the SML had identified Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores and Nelson Hernández Flores through DNA testing performed at the University of North Texas laboratory.

Source: biobio.cl 7/31/2012

Date: 07-31-2012

Lonquén Case: Conviction of former Carabineros for the kidnapping of 15 people confirmed

The San Miguel Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that convicted 7 former officials of the Carabineros de Chile for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping and simple kidnapping committed against 15 people from the town of Isla de Maipo, events that occurred in October 1973 and whose remains were found in 1978 in some ovens in the town of Lonquén.

In the resolution, the Second Chamber of the appellate court confirmed the sentence of Judge Marianela Cifuentes, which convicted Marcelo (Lautaro) Iván Castro Mendoza as an author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of 15 people to a sentence of 20 years in prison for his responsibility as an author of qualified kidnapping.

Meanwhile, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro must serve a sentence of 15 years in prison as authors of qualified kidnapping.

Likewise, Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 11 terms of 60 days in prison as an author of simple kidnapping. On October 7, 1973, under circumstances where the young men Miguel Ángel Arturo Brant Bustamante, José Manuel Herrera Villegas, Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, and Iván Gerardo Ordóñez Lama were in the plaza of Isla de Maipo, they were detained without legal right by Carabinero officials and, subsequently, taken to the Isla de Maipo Tenencia.

That same day, after 10:00 PM, Carabinero officials from the Isla de Maipo Tenencia arrived at the house of Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, inside the Fundo Naguayán, detained him without legal right, and loaded him into a pickup truck.

Moments later, the same Carabinero officials from the Isla de Maipo Tenencia went to the property at Calle La Ballica No. 12, also inside the Fundo Naguayán, where they detained, without legal right, Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, Nelson Hernández Flores, Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, and Ignacio del Carmen Vergara Guajardo, whom they loaded into the aforementioned truck.

Then, the police officials went to the properties of the brothers Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz and Sergio Miguel Maureira Muñoz and detained them, without legal right, in the presence of their respective spouses Elicea del Carmen Navarrete Sepúlveda and Hilda María Sepúlveda Garrido, transporting them in the aforementioned vehicle to the Isla de Maipo Tenencia.

Half an hour later, the same police officials returned to the Maureira family home at the Fundo Naguayán and detained, without legal right, José Manuel Maureira Muñoz and Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, whom they transported to the Isla de Maipo Tenencia.

Judge Cifuentes' investigation established that: That same night, Carabinero officials from the Isla de Maipo Tenencia detained without legal right Enrique Astudillo Álvarez and his sons Omar Astudillo Rojas and Ramón Astudillo Rojas, at their home, inside the Fundo Naguayán.

Once at the police unit, the detainees were kept locked up, interrogated, and subjected to physical duress. In the early morning hours, Enrique René Astudillo Álvarez, Omar Enrique Astudillo Rojas, Ramón Osvaldo Astudillo Rojas, Miguel Ángel Arturo Brant Bustamante, Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, Nelson Hernández Flores, Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, José Manuel Herrera Villegas, Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, José Manuel Maureira Muñoz, Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz, Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, Sergio Miguel Maureira Muñoz, Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, and Iván Gerardo Ordóñez Lama were tied by their hands, taken out of the police unit in a truck, and brought to the town of Lonquén, a few meters from some lime kilns, where a picket of Carabinero officials from the Isla de Maipo Tenencia, under the command of Lieutenant Lautaro Castro Mendoza, shot them, causing their deaths, and then threw their bodies inside the ovens in order to hide them. In the civil aspect, the sentence that ordered the State to pay compensation for moral damages to the victims' relatives was confirmed, according to the distribution of amounts specified in the ruling.

Source: elciudadano.com 2017