Date of Birth : 24-05-47, 27 years of age at the time of detention. Address : Población José María Caro, 24 Sur, Nº5982, Santiago. Marital Status : Single. Occupation : Metallurgical worker. Repressive Context : Union leader, militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Date of Detention : July 19, 1974.

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, a union leader and MIR militant, was detained by DINA agents on July 19, 1974, at 10:30 a.m. at the intersection of Avda. Matta and San Ignacio. He was taken to the clandestine DINA facility located at Londres 38, and subsequently moved to Cuatro Alamos, from where he was forcibly disappeared.

Testimonies from various individuals who were detained by the DINA confirm the victim's time in these centers of political imprisonment and torture. In a sworn statement signed by the victim's mother, Ms.

Javiera Córdova Jiménez, she refers to former detainee Mr. Mario Mallol, who indicated that he had seen her son at Cuatro Alamos—which was the incommunicado pavilion of Tres Alamos—between the months of August and September 1974.

The victim was taken from there to the FACh War Academy, where he was interrogated and severely tortured, and then returned to Cuatro Alamos. Another former detainee, Ms. Graciela Scarlet Mathieu Loguercio, states in a sworn declaration that she was detained by the DINA on July 15, 1974, and taken to Londres 38, where she remained for about 10 days.

There, she noticed the presence of other prisoners, including "el Tito de la Caro," named Pedro Poblete Córdova, who asked her that if she were released, she should locate his partner. "Tito" belonged to the MIR's Front of Settlers (Frente de Pobladores).

The witness adds regarding the victim: "on one occasion, he was subjected to an intense interrogation with torture, after which he was returned to the room like a bundle; they dropped him on my knees. He told me he was doing badly, very badly; he fell asleep and was moaning." DINA agents then took him away, and she was left with the feeling that Poblete Córdova had died.

Furthermore, in the report of alleged disappearance filed on his behalf, it is indicated that on August 28, and subsequently on two other occasions, individuals who refused to give their names arrived at his home and claimed to have seen the victim at Cuatro Alamos, from where he had allegedly been taken in the month of September 1974.

His name appeared on a list of 119 Chileans allegedly killed in Argentina during clashes between ultra-leftist groups or in combat with the Argentine Armed Forces. These lists were published by the magazines LEA in Argentina and O'DIA in Brazil, which published only one issue, had no responsible editor, and whose addresses listed as the printer's imprint turned out to be false.

The governments of Brazil and Argentina denied any knowledge of the reported events, to which the government of Chile responded that there was no certification of the deaths nor proof that these individuals had left the country. The link connecting these 119 people was that they had all been detained by Chilean security services and had been forcibly disappeared since that moment.

His family carried out countless efforts and procedures to find his whereabouts, but they yielded no results.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS

On October 4, 1974, Ms. Javiera Córdova Jiménez filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) before the Santiago Court of Appeals, case file 1186-74, in which she explained the circumstances of her son's arrest and the subsequent visit to her home by individuals who claimed to have seen him at Cuatro Alamos, from where he had allegedly been taken.

On October 22, the Ministry of the Interior reported that the person in question was not being held by order of any administrative authority and that the Ministry was unaware of his whereabouts. The response from General Sergio Arellano Stark, Commander-in-Chief of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area II.D.E., was of the same tenor, as was the report from the Combat Aviation Commander.

On November 8, 1974, based on the reports from these authorities, the Court rejected the writ of amparo. This resolution was confirmed by the Supreme Court upon rejecting the appeal filed by the plaintiff.

Despite the fact that at the time the amparo was ruled upon, the family still did not know the victim's whereabouts, the records were not sent to the competent Criminal Court to investigate his disappearance.

On December 4, 1974, his mother filed a complaint for alleged disappearance before the Third Criminal Court of San Miguel, case file 22.920. In the respective investigation order carried out by the Investigations police, the complainant was interviewed and ratified the terms of the complaint; inquiries made at the Public Jail and the Penitentiary yielded no results.

The case file also contains the response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the "119" case, in which it is stated that there is no official record that the persons named in the lists published in "LEA" and "O'DIA" had died abroad.

After gathering these records, Judge Berta Rodríguez Monardes, on October 15, 1975, temporarily dismissed the case on the grounds that the perpetration of a criminal act had not been proven in the records. The case was archived without the dismissal resolution being reviewed by the Superior Court.

Along with the aforementioned judicial actions, his family carried out countless search efforts, visited detention centers, interviewed authorities, and turned to possible organizations that might provide information, without ever succeeding in learning the fate of Pedro Poblete Córdova.

On November 26, 1991, a criminal complaint was initiated for the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Pedro Poblete. This case was filed in the 3rd Criminal Court of the President Aguirre Cerda Court under file number 22920-4. As of December 1992, the case was in the summary stage with pending proceedings.

Source: Corporation report

Sergio Concha has departed in silence, as was his way of life. We remember him with his long-strided walk, his eternal brown leather briefcase hanging from his shoulder, his trousers that were always too short, above the ankle, his slight stutter, and his enormous humility and kindness.

While other human rights lawyers boasted of their battles in court, Sergio Concha, in silence, was able to tear down the pillars of amnesty in Chile with the famous case of the detention and disappearance of the MIR militant PEDRO ENRIQUE POBLETE CORDOVA, when he succeeded in 1998 in having the Supreme Court reopen the case, to which the Amnesty Law enacted in 1978 by the Pinochet dictatorship had been applied.

Sergio Concha opened the doors of justice so that, from then on, in many cases of human rights violations that occurred between 1973 and 1978, the perpetrators of disappearances and murders committed by the dictatorship could be punished—cases in which criminals continue to be punished, uninterruptedly, even today.

Sergio Concha Rodríguez was born in May 1931. He studied Law at the University of Chile and obtained his law degree at 24 years of age. He joined the Congregation of the Holy Cross, where he was ordained as a priest.

Later, he earned a doctorate in Theology in Italy, where he lived for five years. Upon returning to Chile, he worked as a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and as a parish priest in the Lo Barnechea commune.

In 1974, he began his work as a lawyer for the Committee for Peace, taking charge of drafting the first writs of amparo on behalf of those who were detained and the complaints for disappearances. Later, he continued his work in the pursuit of justice and the defense of human rights at the Vicariate of Solidarity, the Corporation for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of the People (CODEPU), and the Foundation for Social Assistance of the Christian Churches (FASIC).

When the momentous ruling of the "Poblete case" came to light, Sergio Concha was intensely sought after by the media for interviews. Everyone wanted to know who this lanky lawyer was who, overnight, had achieved much more than other lawyers who appeared every day in the newspapers and on television.

But he refused to give interviews. He never wanted to be in the spotlight, and when, years later, those who crossed paths with him reminded him of the important judicial ruling he had achieved, he would only smile.

Human rights organizations, friends and family of the victims of the dictatorship's repression, as well as all the Chilean men and women who fight for justice, democracy, and the unrestricted defense of the fundamental rights of human beings, owe a monument to Sergio Concha.

Source: pagina19.cl 20/5/2020 Date: 20-05-2020

Santiago Court sentences former DINA agents for the aggravated kidnapping of a metallurgical worker.

In a unanimous ruling, the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced nine agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, an illicit act perpetrated starting on July 19, 1974, within the framework of the so-called "Operation Colombo."

Thus, the Sixth Chamber of the appellate court sentenced the former agents for the kidnapping of the metallurgical worker, who was detained at the clandestine facility of Londres 38 and was part of the disinformation operation implemented abroad by the DINA.

In the resolution, the chamber sentenced agents César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Gerardo Urrich González, Manuel Carevic Cubillos, and Ciro Torré Sáez to 10 years in prison as authors of the aggravated kidnapping. Meanwhile, José Fuentes Torres and Nelson Paz Bustamante were sentenced to 4 years in prison as accomplices.

According to the evidence gathered in the investigation of the case, the visiting judge Hernán Crisosto established the following sequence of facts:

"That on the morning of July 19, 1974, Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained at the intersection of Av. Matta and Nataniel, in the commune of Santiago, by state agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who forced him into the back of a gray Chevrolet C-10 pickup truck and transported him to the clandestine detention facility called ‘Yucatán’ or ‘Londres 38,’ located at that address in the city of Santiago, which was guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access.

That the victim, Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, during his stay at the Londres 38 barracks, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks, regarding his party activities and the names and addresses of his political group comrades in order to proceed with the detention of its members.

That the last time the victim, Poblete Córdova, was seen alive was on an undetermined day in the month of August or September 1974, and there is no evidence that he survived his captivity during the period in which the DINA operated.

That the name of Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the magazine ‘LEA’ in Argentina, dated July 15, 1975, which reported that Poblete Córdova had died in Argentina, along with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels that had arisen among those members; these publications had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl 10/2/2020 Date: 10-02-2020

Operation Colombo: Supreme Court sentences 31 DINA agents for the kidnapping of a union leader

The Supreme Court accepted the appeals in substance filed by the plaintiffs and, in a replacement sentence, sentenced 31 agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of the metallurgical union leader Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, who was detained on July 19, 1974, and taken to the clandestine detention center of Londres 38.

The name of Poblete Córdova appeared among 119 victims of the so-called "Operation Colombo."

In a unanimous ruling (case file 50.341-2020), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and minister María Teresa Letelier—sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 10 years in prison, in their capacity as authors of the crime.

Meanwhile, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Juan Duarte Gallegos, Víctor Molina Astete, Fernando Guerra Guajardo, Leónidas Méndez Moreno, Jorge Lepileo Barrios, Lautaro Díaz Espinoza, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Carlos Sáez Sanhueza, Juan Villanueva Alvear, Rafael Riveros Frost, Hernán Valenzuela Salas, Julio Hoyos Zegarra, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Manuel Rivas Díaz, José Ernesto Fuentes Torres, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, and Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto must serve 10 years in prison as co-authors.

The highest court established an error of law in the appealed sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which had acquitted 25 accused and considered that the participation of Paz Bustamante and Fuentes Torres in the events was in the capacity of accomplices.

"That under those circumstances, it is clear that the lower court judges, at the time of resolving the controversy submitted to their knowledge and acquitting the accused Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Juan Duarte Gallegos, Víctor Molina Astete, Fernando Guerra Guajardo, Leónidas Méndez Moreno, Jorge Lepileo Barrios, Lautaro Díaz Espinoza, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Carlos Sáez Sanhueza, Juan Villanueva Alvear, Rafael Riveros Frost, Hernán Valenzuela Salas, Julio Hoyos Zegarra, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, and Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto, incurred in the errors of law denounced by the private plaintiff, by estimating, in summary, as evidenced by the reasoning above, that the evidence for the prosecution is insufficient to establish their participation, arguing especially that acknowledging membership in the DINA, having performed duties at the ‘Londres 38’ facility as a guard of detainees, interrogator, carrying out detentions, or having been operational agents at a time contemporaneous with the events that motivated this process, is not sufficient to conclude that ‘these defendants had intervention in the detention, confinement, and forced disappearance of Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, since they were not linked to the ‘Halcón’ group, identified as the one that carried out the detention of the victim,’ reiterating that the elements of judgment were insufficient to prove that these ‘…intervened in the detention, confinement, and subsequent forced disappearance of Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova,’ artificially reducing the responsibility attributed to each of them to their status as DINA agents and to the fact that they were not part of the ‘Halcón’ group, through an incomplete reproduction of the grounds put forward by the court of first instance, despite the fact that from the tenor of the facts that were established and in accordance with a correct application of article 488 N°1 and N°2 first part, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it was evident that they, in their capacity as members of the DINA, at the time of the events, were serving in the barracks where the victim of the illicit act in question was deprived of liberty and that they voluntarily executed conduct that falls within the governing verbs of the criminal type of aggravated kidnapping," the ruling details.

The resolution adds: "That, in effect, the judges forget that the crime of kidnapping punishes anyone who, without legal right, confines or detains another, depriving them of their liberty, thus preventing them from exercising their right to move from one place to another freely.

The conduct of the criminal type consists of ‘confining’ and ‘detaining,’ in both cases against the will of the affected subject; in this sense: ‘The ‘detention’ consists of the apprehension of a person, forcing them to be in a place against their will, depriving them of their ambulatory liberty, the means employed for this being indifferent; and the ‘confinement’ refers to the action of keeping a person in a place where they cannot escape, even if this place has exits that the confined person does not know or whose use for them is dangerous or unfeasible.’ (Politoff, Matus, and Ramírez, Crimes against ambulatory liberty and individual security, p. 201)."

For the Supreme Court: "Consequently, one cannot pretend to reduce the typical action to only the act of detaining or causing to disappear, without disregarding the description of the criminal type contained in article 141 of the Penal Code.

It should be remembered that the second paragraph of the cited rule—in force at the time the execution of the crime began—provided that ‘The same penalty shall be incurred by anyone who provides a place for the execution of the crime.’ To hold otherwise would imply distorting the crime of kidnapping, reducing it only to the act of apprehension of the victim."

Likewise, the ruling states: "That on the other hand, as has already been outlined, in addition to said legal qualification, the judges estimated—as account is given in consideration 10°—that the facts were committed in a context of a systematic or generalized attack against the civilian population, which determined that the established illicit acts were, in addition, considered as crimes against humanity, for violating jus cogens norms of International Humanitarian Law, and for the same reason, subject to said international legal statute.

Regarding the characteristics of these crimes, the doctrine has pointed out that the active subject includes both state officials (regardless of their hierarchy or position) and members of an organization; they can be committed in time of war or peace; it is not necessary for there to be an express order from the political authority to perpetrate it.

The passive subject is the civilian population, against whom the attack is directed."

"That it is under this context," it continues, "that the first-instance ruling attributed participation to the accused Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Juan Duarte Gallegos, Víctor Molina Astete, Fernando Guerra Guajardo, Leónidas Méndez Moreno, Lautaro Díaz Espinoza, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Carlos Sáez Sanhueza, Juan Villanueva Alvear, Rafael Riveros Frost, Hernán Valenzuela Salas, Julio Hoyos Zegarra, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, as authors and/or co-authors, because they were personnel of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Carabineros of Chile, and officials of the Investigations Police of Chile, who were transferred from the different units or departments to which they were assigned and became part of the DINA, whether in the capacity of heads of the organization and/or heads of groups through which it functioned, operational agents, investigators, interrogators, or direct guards of the detainees, who were destined for the fulfillment of repressive functions against those persons who were contrary to the established regime, consisting of their search and detention, who were subsequently transferred against their will to the clandestine center known as ‘Londres 38,’ where they were kept confined, were interrogated under duress, and subjected to direct surveillance, which ensured their stay in these places."

"On the other hand, regarding the sentenced Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto and Jorge Lepileo Barrios, although the first-instance adjudicator attributed participation to them as accomplices, because he considered it proven that they performed operational duties and direct guard of the detainees at the clandestine facility ‘Londres 38’ at a time contemporaneous with the occurrence of the criminal act that affected Mr.

Poblete Córdova, the prior concert would not have been proven, an evidentiary requirement that does not correspond to the special form of participation through an organized apparatus of power and functional co-authorship of the act, but rather a tacit agreement and acceptance of the criminal plan, in the terms that will be analyzed in the following foundations, so their intervention should also have been qualified as co-authors," the ruling maintains.

"That, under the conditions described above, the subjects who were part of this organized apparatus of power are responsible for the unlawful actions that it developed, although some—according to their functional intervention in the realization of the act and in accordance with the normative hypotheses of authorship and participation provided for in the national legal system—will be authors, accomplices, or cover-ups," it clarifies.

"In effect," it continues, "in the commission of crimes of international law, such as the one that affected the victims of the present case, since they were victims of forced disappearances, as crimes against humanity, ‘(...) several persons participate jointly (‘jointly with another’), each one will be criminally responsible.’ (Werle, Gerhard, Treatise on International Criminal Law. 2nd edition, Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia, 2011, p. 291)."

"In the same sense, ‘The key point of the joint criminal enterprise is the agreement. The common agreement (common plan, design or purpose), necessary for the reciprocal imputation of the different contributions, must be directed to the commission of one or several crimes of international law.

The common agreement can also consist of a large-scale criminal enterprise, such as, for example, a system of persecution and cruelty applied at a national level. The agreement does not necessarily have to be prior to the criminal commission, but can arise spontaneously.

Its existence can be derived from the cooperation of several persons in the implementation of the criminal enterprise.’ (Werle, Gerhard, Op. Cit., p. 294)," it cites.

"On the matter, Roxin points out that ‘the peculiarity of co-authorship is that each individual dominates the global event in cooperation with the others (...) the complete domain (of the act) resides in the hands of several, so that they can only act jointly, thus each of them having in their hands the destiny of the global act.’ (ROXIN, Claus, Authorship and Domain of the act in Criminal Law, 7th edition, Marcial Pons Librero Editor, Madrid, 2000, p. 307-308).

For his part, Professor Cury has stated that ‘for co-authorship to exist, it is essential that the different participants provide a contribution to the realization of the act that makes the joint plan ‘function,’ which is functional to the realization of the act, in such a way that if one of them withdraws it, the project fails; but, at the same time, the activity of each one is, in turn, dependent on the others performing theirs, because by itself it is incapable of leading to consummation.’ ‘It is not necessary for the co-author to intervene directly in the typical act, [...] it is enough that their contribution be decisive for the consummation...’ (Enrique Cury, Criminal Law, General Part, Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2011, pp. 611-613)," it reproduces.

"The foregoing has also been maintained by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in the case The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. ICC-01/04-01/06-3121-Red. Appeal Judgment. (December 1, 2014), in which the Appeals Chamber considers that, ‘in circumstances in which a plurality of persons was involved in the commission of crimes provided for in the Statute, the question of whether an accused ‘committed’ a crime—and, therefore, not only contributed to the crime committed by another person—cannot be answered solely by reference to how close the accused was to the actual crime and whether he or she directly carried out the incriminated conduct. Rather, what is required is a normative evaluation of the role of the accused person in the specific circumstances of the case,’ adding also ‘that the most appropriate tool to carry out such an assessment is an evaluation of whether the accused had control over the crime, by virtue of their essential contribution to it and the resulting power to frustrate its commission, even if that essential contribution was not made at the time of the execution of the crime (...),’" the ruling transcribes.

"Therefore, the co-authors intervene by executing a functional contribution to the joint or collective realization of the plan as a whole, so the principle of reciprocal imputation will be applicable to them, according to which, everything that each of the co-authors does within the framework of the agreement of wills is imputable to the others," the ruling concludes.

Londres 38 In the first-instance sentence, the visiting judge Hernán Crisosto established the following facts:

"That on the morning of July 19, 1974, Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained at the intersection of Av. Matta and Nataniel, in the commune of Santiago, by state agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who forced him into the back of a gray Chevrolet C-10 pickup truck and transported him to the clandestine detention facility called ‘Yucatán’ or ‘Londres 38,’ located at that address in the city of Santiago, which was guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access.

That the victim, Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova, during his stay at the Londres 38 barracks, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks, regarding his party activities and the names and addresses of his political group comrades in order to proceed with the detention of its members.

That the last time the victim, Poblete Córdova, was seen alive was on an undetermined day in the month of August or September 1974, and there is no evidence that he survived his captivity during the period in which the DINA operated.

That the name of Pedro Enrique Poblete Córdova appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the magazine ‘LEA’ in Argentina, dated July 15, 1975, which reported that Poblete Córdova had died in Argentina, along with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels that had arisen among those members; these publications had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

Source: pjud.cl 8/9/2023