The substitute judge with exclusive dedication to human rights cases, Christian Carvajal, prosecuted former Navy officer Jorge Aníbal Osses and retired FACH (Chilean Air Force) Colonel Roberto Serón Cárdenas for kidnappings committed by the Comando Conjunto during the military regime.

The magistrate prosecuted Osses as the mastermind behind the kidnappings of Communist Party militants Ricardo Weibel Navarrete and Luis Moraga Cruz, who were kidnapped by members of the Comando Conjunto in November and October 1975, respectively.

At the time the kidnappings occurred, Osses was serving as head of the Counterintelligence Department of the Naval Intelligence Service, acting as the head of the intelligence organization of the Comando Conjunto. Meanwhile, the proceedings against Serón Cárdenas are related to the kidnapping of Juan René Orellana Catalán, an event that took place in July 1976.

Source: El Mostrador, March 3, 2003

Comando Conjunto: Eight former officers prosecuted for kidnapping

The judge with exclusive dedication, Christián Carvajal, prosecuted eight former members of the Comando Conjunto, including General (ret.) Enrique Ruiz Bunger, former director of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (DIFA), and Alvaro Corbalán Castilla, former operations chief of the CNI.

The measure adopted by the head of the Third Criminal Court refers to the disappearance of student Ignacio González Espinoza (24 years old), a militant of the Communist Party, on December 4, 1975. Also prosecuted as perpetrators of aggravated kidnapping were Juan Saavedra Loyola, Sergio Díaz López, Daniel Guimpert (Navy), Manuel Muñoz Gamboa, and the former Navy officer and head of the Counterintelligence Department of the Naval Intelligence Service (SIN), Jorge Osses Novoa.

Otto Trujillo, the well-known "Colmillo Blanco" (White Fang), was charged as an accomplice. A few days ago, the magistrate—who inherited the cases from the current prosecutor Mario Carroza—prosecuted Alvaro Corbalán and former officer Sergio Díaz López for the aggravated kidnapping of Luis Moraga Cruz and Ricardo Weibel Navarrete, who disappeared on October 20 and November 7, 1975, respectively.

With the decision of the head of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, it is confirmed that Corbalán, prior to belonging to the National Information Center (CNI), was part of the DINE, an organization that, within the Comando Conjunto, detained and killed opponents of the military regime.

Corbalán is currently serving a life sentence for his participation in the murder of carpenter Juan Alegría Mondaca, a crime linked to the homicide of the former president of the National Association of Fiscal Employees (ANEF), Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro.

Currently, the retired major remains incarcerated at the Military Police Battalion Number 1 in Santiago, located on the premises of the Army Telecommunications Command in the commune of Peñalolén. Also for the disappearance of Weibel, Judge Carvajal has prosecuted former officers and former members of the Comando Conjunto Juan Francisco Saavedra, Enrique Ruiz Bunger, and Viviana Ugarte, known as “La Pochi,” wife of retired FACH General Patricio Campos.

Last week, the special judge also indicted former Navy officer Jorge Aníbal Osses and retired FACH Colonel Roberto Serón Cárdenas for the kidnapping of Weibel Navarrete and Luis Moraga Cruz.

Source: La Nacion, March 14, 2003

Supreme Court confirms convictions of 27 former Comando Conjunto agents for crimes against five Communist militants committed between 1975 and 1976

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals in cassation filed by the defense teams of the former agents of the so-called Comando Conjunto against the sentence that convicted 27 of them for their responsibility in the crimes of simple kidnapping and aggravated homicide of Ignacio Orlando González Espinoza and Juan René Orellana Catalán; and in the aggravated kidnappings of Ricardo Manuel Weibel Navarrete, Luis Desiderio Moraga Cruz, and Luis Emilio Gerardo Maturana González, all militants of the Communist Party.

The crimes were perpetrated between October 1975 and June 1976 in the city of Santiago. The so-called Comando Conjunto was a repressive apparatus created by the dictatorship under the tutelage of the Air Force (FACH) and with the participation of agents from the Army, the Navy, the Carabineros, and civilian collaborators, which operated mainly between 1975 and 1977.

Its raison d'être was to compete in repressive and criminal tasks with the absolute power held by the DINA under the tutelage of the Army and the direction of Pinochet and Contreras. In a unanimous ruling (case file 32.012-2022), the Second Chamber of the high court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, María Teresa Letelier, and Jean Pierre Matus—confirmed the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced former FACH officer Juan Francisco Saavedra Loyola and former Carabineros officer Manuel Agustín Muñoz Gamboa to 18 years in prison, plus 13 years and 3 years in prison, each. Former Navy officer Daniel Luis Enrique Guimpert Corvalán was sentenced to 18 years, plus 12 years and 3 years in prison. Former Army officers Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla and Sergio Antonio Díaz López, and former Navy officer Jorge Aníbal Osses Novoa, were each sentenced to 12 years in prison, plus 10 years and one day, and 400 days in prison. Agents Raúl Horacio González Fernández and Alejandro Julio Segundo Sáez Mardones were each given two sentences of 10 years and one day in prison, plus 400 days in prison. Agents Roberto Alfonso Flores Cisterna and Juan Carlos Hernán Rodrigo Villarreal were each sentenced to 10 years and one day, plus 5 years and one day, and 400 days in prison. Civilian collaborator Otto Silvio Trujillo Miranda was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison. Agent Lenin Figueroa Sánchez was given two sentences of 5 years and one day, plus 400 days in prison. Agents Sergio Daniel Valenzuela Morales and Juan Atilio Aravena Hurtuvia were sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison, plus 5 years and 400 days in prison. Civilian collaborators Andrés Pablo Potín Lailhacar, Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval, Emilio Mahias del Río, and agents Juan Luis Fernando López López, José Evaristo Rojas Alruiz, and Francisco Segundo Illanes Miranda were sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison, plus 400 days in prison. Ernesto Arturo Lobos Gálvez and Alejandro Jorge Forero Álvarez were sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison, plus 60 days in prison. Roberto Francisco Serón Cárdenas was sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison. Robinson Alfonso Suazo Jaque, Pedro Ernesto Caamaño Medina, Pedro Juan Zambrano Uribe, and José Hernando Alvarado Alvarado were each sentenced to 4 years plus 60 days in prison. The also-convicted Antonio Benedicto Quiros Reyes and Miguel Arturo Estay Reyno passed away during the course of the proceedings. In the judicial investigation and first-instance ruling, Minister Miguel Vásquez Plaza established that there existed a de facto group that operated clandestinely between 1975 and 1976, composed mainly of agents who belonged to the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, as well as the Carabineros of Chile, the Navy, and the Army, with the collaboration of civilians, whose main objective was the repression of the Communist Party Youth, for which they proceeded to detain several of them. This group, called the Comando Conjunto, used various facilities for detentions and torture: the Cerrillos Hangar; Nido 20, a secret detention and torture center located at Calle Santa Teresa No. 037, at the 20th stop of Gran Avenida; Nido 18, a secret center located at Calle Perú No. 9053, La Florida, Santiago, which was used exclusively for torture; La Prevención or Remo Cero, which were dungeons located inside the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in Colina, all during 1975; and La Firma, at the beginning of 1976, when the group moved its operations to the back of the building managed by the Carabineros of Chile, located on Calle Dieciocho, opposite No. 229, which belonged to the former newspaper Clarín, and was named La Firma. The operational conduct of the group consisted of detaining people under the modality of kidnapping, keeping them captive in secret centers, and subjecting them to physical and psychological interrogation and torture to obtain information and break their will, achieving the collaboration of some of them to the point that some were assimilated as operational agents of the group, which provided greater effectiveness in the chain detention of Communist militants, who were then forcibly disappeared; for some of them, parts of their remains were found over the years. On November 7, 1975, at approximately 10:00 PM, Ricardo Manuel Weibel Navarrete was detained at his home on Calle Río Maule in the commune of Recoleta by individuals wearing civilian clothes; he was kept deprived of liberty at the facility called La Prevención or Remo Cero, located inside the Anti-Aircraft Regiment in Colina, the last place he was seen alive. Subsequently, his skeletal remains were found on the grounds of Fuerte Arteaga, Peldehue. On October 20, 1975, in the early hours of the morning, Luis Desiderio Moraga Cruz was detained at his home on Pasaje Tokio in the Juanita Aguirre neighborhood, commune of Conchalí, Santiago, by individuals wearing civilian clothes; he was kept confined in the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in Colina, inside which was the facility called La Prevención or Remo Cero, this being the last place he was seen alive. On December 4, 1975, in the early hours of the morning, Ignacio Orlando González Espinoza was detained at his home on Calle Soberanía in the commune of Santiago by individuals wearing civilian clothes; he was kept deprived of liberty at the facility called La Prevención or Remo Cero, located inside the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment in Colina, the last place he was seen alive. Subsequently, he was executed on the grounds of Fuerte Arteaga, Peldehue, where his skeletal remains were found. On June 8, 1976, in the Estación Central sector, Luis Emilio Gerardo Maturana González met with Juan René Orellana Catalán, both militants of the Communist Youth in hiding due to the political persecution they were subjected to, for the purpose of delivering party money to Orellana Catalán for himself and for him to deliver to other party militants, as Maturana González was in charge of distributing it; at that moment, they were detained by operational agents of the aforementioned Comando Conjunto, keeping them confined in the facility called La Firma, from where their trail was lost. Subsequently, Orellana Catalán was executed at Cuesta Barriga, where his remains were found.

Source: resumen.cl, April 26, 2024