The visiting judge for human rights violation cases at the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez Plaza, sentenced nine retired Army members for their responsibility in the crimes of homicide of the singer-songwriter Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez and the Director of Prisons at the time, Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal. These crimes were perpetrated in September 1973 in Santiago.

In the ruling (16.379-2005), the visiting judge sentenced Hugo Sánchez Marmonti, Raúl Jofré González, Edwin Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Bethke Wulf, Juan Jara Quintana, Hernán Chacón Soto, and Patricio Vásquez Donoso to 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the homicides, and to 3 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime of simple kidnapping of both victims.

Meanwhile, former officer Rolando Melo Silva must serve 5 years and one day in prison as an accessory to the homicides, and 61 days as an accessory to the kidnappings.

The First Statements

In their statements, all the conscripts who traveled from the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers (then directed by Colonel Manuel Contreras) to the War Arsenals in Santiago agree that the troops were under the command of Captain Germán Montero Valenzuela, totaling a contingent of approximately one hundred soldiers and about twenty officers.

On September 12, upon arriving at the Estadio Chile, the contingent was placed under the command of Commander Mario Manríquez. Among the officers who participated in this mission, the conscripts mention Lieutenants Nelson Haase and Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger, and a second lieutenant who would play a decisive role in the murder of Víctor Jara.

The first confession obtained by Judge Fuentes regarding the crime was that of former conscript José Alfonso Paredes Márquez (55 years old). The then 18-year-old arrived in Santiago during the early hours of September 11, 1973, from the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers, where he had been performing his military service since April of that year.

During the day when the lives of Chileans were split in two, his section was sent, under the command of Lieutenant Pedro Barrientos, to guard the Padre Hurtado road. Paredes claims to have been a sort of bodyguard for Lieutenant Barrientos.

At noon on September 12, the contingent moved, first to the War Arsenals and then to the Universidad Técnica (current USACH). There, after two in the afternoon, they proceeded to transfer the detainees to the Estadio Chile.

The aforementioned officer, along with Paredes, accompanied the caravan of public transport buses that moved the prisoners in a jeep. Once the mission was accomplished, they returned to the War Arsenals.

On September 16, around 6:00 PM, the military squadron arrived at the Estadio Chile, where they presented themselves to a higher-ranking officer whose identity is unknown, who ordered them to guard the facility's transmission booths.

And inside the Stadium, the other conscripts commented that the Director of Prisons, Littré Quiroga; the singer-songwriter Víctor Jara; and the Director of Investigations, Eduardo “Coco” Paredes, were detained there.

Still according to Paredes' confession, the next day he was sent to the basement sector. And he remained as a sentry at the door of one of the dressing rooms designated for the detainees. In that dressing room, there were 5 or 6 officers from other regiments, in combat gear, whose identities are unknown.

He saw them writing on papers the information provided by a detainee whom he observed sitting in front of a desk. In another corner of the dressing room, Paredes saw other prisoners facing the wall.

A few hours later, Lieutenant Barrientos and the second lieutenant who was in charge of the conscripts under the orders of Haase and Rodríguez arrived at the room. They brought a detainee. It was then that he says he was called, along with conscript Francisco Quiroz Quiroz (55 years old), and they were informed that the detainee was Víctor Jara.

The group began to insult him for being a communist. Paredes looked at him and recognized him. Víctor Jara remained there, in that dressing room, guarded by Quiroz.

Later, the main witness would recall, Lieutenant Barrientos sent him back to the basement, to the same dressing room. But this time Paredes found no one: neither interrogators nor detainees, and not Víctor Jara either.

Hours passed until Paredes saw the interrogating officers arrive again. The order was precise: bring the detainees listed on a document that one of the officers handed to a corporal. And again the same procedure: interrogation and notes on each of the files.

And night fell. Paredes was on sentry duty in the same basement dressing room when he observed the entry of about fifteen detainees. And among them, he recognized Víctor Jara and also Littré Quiroga. Both were thrown against the wall.

Behind the prisoners, Paredes saw Lieutenant Nelson Haase and the second lieutenant who was also in charge of the conscripts arrive. And he was a witness to the precise minute when the same second lieutenant began to play Russian roulette with his revolver pressed against the singer-songwriter's temple. From there came the first mortal shot that impacted his skull.

Víctor Jara's body fell to the floor on its side. Paredes observed how he convulsed. And he heard the second lieutenant order him and the other conscripts to unload bursts of rifle fire into the artist's body.

The order was carried out. Everything that happened was witnessed by Nelson Haase, who was sitting behind the interrogation desk. According to the autopsy protocol, the singer-songwriter's body had approximately 44 bullet impacts.

A few minutes later, the same second lieutenant who shot him in the head requested the removal of the body. Some nurses arrived with a stretcher, lifted him, put him inside a bag, and then loaded him into the back of a military vehicle parked in the facility's courtyard, on the north-east side.

It was not easy for José Alfonso Paredes Márquez to confess to the judge what he saw and participated in. At first, he was reluctant to acknowledge his real participation in the events. And finally, he broke down, began his account, and did not stop.

This construction worker who builds houses in the central coastal area revealed that he had kept the secret for almost 36 years, without even telling his wife. He also made a clarification to the judge: during the days following the coup, and as they worked almost 24 hours a day, the officers gave them stimulants to avoid sleep and hunger, which is why his account might not be exact regarding the dates.

What Paredes and other conscripts did remember was what happened after Víctor Jara's body disappeared from the dressing room. The other 14 detainees who came with the singer-songwriter and theater director were riddled with bullets fired by the conscripts and officers present.

Among the victims, Littré Quiroga was murdered. Their bodies were also loaded into the same vehicle. Shortly after, and under the cover of night, they were all abandoned on the public road.

During the investigation stage, Judge Vázquez established the following facts:

a) That, on September 11, 1973, a coup d'état took place in the country and, the then Director General of the Prison Service, Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal, who was on medical leave at his home, upon learning that his name was included in a list of people called to appear before the Ministry of National Defense, through the first Military Proclamation issued by the new authorities, decided to go to his office at the General Directorate of Prisons located on Calle Rosas at the corner of Teatinos in downtown Santiago, where he made arrangements to appear before the authority that required him.

Then, in the night hours of that day, a Carabineros patrol belonging to the Third Precinct of Santiago, upon knowing that Littré Quiroga was at the General Directorate of Prisons and wanted to turn himself in, ordered him to leave his office and surrender, which he did, being taken as a detainee immediately to the Ministry of National Defense and taken to the Armored Regiment No. 2, a place where he was subjected to physical duress and, in the subsequent hours, transferred as a detainee to the then Estadio Chile - current Víctor Jara Stadium -, without any charges being filed against him.

b) That, that same day, September 11, 1973, as a result of the assumption of the de facto Military Government, the then Universidad Técnica del Estado was besieged by troops from the "Arica" Regiment of the Chilean Army, coming from the city of La Serena, in charge of the then Captain Marcelo Moren Brito, who, on September 12, 1973, in the morning hours, proceeded to fire projectiles of various natures against the central building of that university, and then occupied its premises and detained a large number of teachers, students, and administrative staff who had attended that educational establishment, who spent the night there because a curfew had been decreed, which prevented them from traveling on public roads and returning to their homes; people who were kept on the floor with their hands on their necks and then transferred in various buses to the then Estadio Chile, finding, among the apprehended teachers, the popular singer, professor, and researcher of said University, Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez, who, upon entering the Estadio Chile with the referred group of detainees, was immediately recognized by the military personnel located at the entrance to the facility, being verbally and physically assaulted from his arrival, to be temporarily located in the bleacher sector, together with the people detained at that university, without any charges being filed against him.

c) That, the referred detentions were decided by the administrative authorities without any judicial order of any nature and under no procedure and, the confinement in the Estadio Chile, which was a place used for sports and cultural events, was decided by the authorities and officers in charge of it, having no legal authority to do so, without having recorded the identity of the detainees, the date and circumstances of their detention, the reasons and charges imputed to them, the authority that ordered it, and where they came from.

d) That, inside the premises of the Estadio Chile, the prisoners of a certain public connotation were identified by the military personnel and separated from the rest, and, during the respective periods of their detention, both Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez and Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal were recognized by the military personnel installed inside the Estadio Chile, being, in the same way, separated from the bulk of the prisoners and assigned special custody, suffering throughout their captivity constant and violent episodes of physical and verbal aggression by the Army Officers present there, imputing, in the case of Littré Quiroga, the alleged fact of having been responsible for the imprisonment and mistreatment that Army General Roberto Viaux had suffered, which aggravated the punishment that was inflicted on him by those who passed by his side, even encouraging the conscripts themselves to take part in said punishment, and, in a very similar way, regarding Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez, the aggressions had as their main incentive his artistic, cultural, and political activity, closely linked to the recently overthrown Government, who was subjected to identical physical tortures, the most severe blows being those he received in the region of his face and his hands; both victims were subjected to kicks, punches, and blows with the butts of weapons.

e) That, between September 13 and 15, 1973, interrogations of detainees were carried out inside the Estadio Chile, without them obeying prior judicial and/or administrative procedures, some of which were carried out by personnel of the Second Military Prosecutor's Office of the time, directed on some occasions by its own Prosecutor, and, among others, Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez and Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal were interrogated, without any record of these actions remaining, nor of the alleged charges imputed or the formation of any process.

f) That, on September 15, 1973, the transfer of all detainees from the Estadio Chile to the Estadio Nacional was organized, with Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez, Littré Quiroga Carvajal, and President Allende's doctor, Danilo del Carmen Bartulín Fodich, being separated from a line of prisoners by the military personnel in charge of the facility, ordering them to be taken to the dressing room sector, located in the basement of the same, where there was also military personnel, moments in which Danilo Bartulín was called from the first floor by an Officer, to be put into a vehicle in which he was finally transferred to the Estadio Nacional along with other detainees, leaving Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez and Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal in the dressing rooms, in different places, then both were put to death, an event that occurred as a result of at least 44 and 23 bullet impacts, respectively, in all cases of 9.23-millimeter caliber, as specified in the corresponding autopsy reports and ballistic expert reports, which corresponds to the service weaponry that was used by the Army Officers who were in said facility.

g) That, immediately thereafter, the bodies of Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez and Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal were taken out of the Estadio Chile and thrown onto the public road, along with the corpses of other people of unknown identity - also killed as a result of ballistic projectiles -, found on September 16, 1973, by residents belonging to community and social organizations, in the vicinity of the Metropolitan Cemetery, in a vacant lot near the railway line, who cleaned their faces and were able to recognize them, who presented various hematomas and unequivocal signs of having received strong blows and the multiple bullet impacts detailed in the respective autopsy reports, being taken in the following hours to the then Legal Medical Institute, in reports previously made by Carabineros, a place where, as a result of the direct and fortuitous intervention of third parties, they could be identified, allowing their closest relatives to go to said office and obtain the delivery of their corpses, for their subsequent burial.

In the civil aspect, the State of Chile was ordered to pay a total compensation of $1,370,000,000 (one billion three hundred seventy million pesos) to the victims' relatives.

Source: cronicaroja.cl, July 27, 2018