Two of the last former agents of the Lautaro Brigade prosecuted in the Calle Conferencia case, who were granted provisional release by the Fifth Chamber of the Court of Appeals, are the individuals who appear in these most recent photographs.

Army Lieutenant (Ret.) and nurse Gladys Calderón Carreño, known as "The Cyanide Angel," and Carabineros Non-Commissioned Officer (Ret.) Jorge Pichunmán Curiqueo, named "The Blowtorch Executioner," were two of the cruelest agents who participated in the extermination of the communist leadership in hiding, at the barracks where this brigade operated on Avenida Simón Bolívar, in the commune of La Reina.

Gladys Calderón, who obtained provisional release (she remains under prosecution) on December 14 after remaining detained for almost a year at the Military Police Battalion in Peñalolén, was the one who injected cyanide into prisoners to cause or accelerate their death when they were left dying after torture.

She was also the one who injected the undercover PC leader in 1976, Víctor Díaz López. After they were dead, Pichunmán was in charge of burning the detainees' fingerprints, disfiguring their faces, and erasing scars so that they would remain unrecognizable.

He did this with Víctor Díaz and the other communists murdered at that location. The former Marine Corps agents Bernardo Daza Navarro and Sergio Escalona Acuña, who also stood out for acting with cruelty in the crimes committed at that barracks, also remain in preventive detention (and are also under prosecution).

Fernández Larios Both in the process for Calle Conferencia (a place in Santiago where the first clandestine communist leadership was kidnapped in 1976) and in the case for the crime of the former DINA chemist, Eugenio Berríos, judges Víctor Montiglio and Alejandro Madrid are investigating the participation of Major (Ret.) Armando Fernández Larios in the crimes committed by this organization.

Until now, Fernández was only located as part of the Caravan of Death platoon, where he acted with extreme violence. But at least former agents Luis Lagos Yáñez and Guillermo Ferrán Martínez declare in these cases that they were witnesses to his presence at the Simón Bolívar barracks, interrogating and torturing prisoners.

According to Ferrán, Fernández, who settled in the United States after fleeing there in 1987, acted on some occasions in these events alongside Gladys Calderón and the head of the Lautaro Brigade, Juan Morales Salgado.

From the United States, Fernández Larios has so far refused to respond to interrogations regarding crimes he committed in Chile, relying on the protection that the country granted him for his collaboration in the trial for the crime of Orlando Letelier in Washington.

Source: La Nación, January 14, 2008

Case File No. 2.182-98 "Conferencia C" or "Conferencia 1" Episode

179.- Accounts from Jorge Laureano Sagardía Monje ; from page 7585; police report on page 518 of the separate "Conferencia 1" file and, judicial statement on page 527, dated September 28, 2007, in which he maintains that he served at Simón Bolívar in 1976, under the command of Army Major Juan Morales Salgado, who reported directly to Manuel Contreras.

In the general staff of the Lautaro Brigade, his function was to summarize the information collected by operational agents related to left-wing militants. The detainees were executed in the same barracks by order from above, transmitted by Morales, Barriga, and Lawrence.

The bodies were put into sacks, tied to rails fastened with wire, and removed in the trunks of cars and pickup trucks. Through comments, he learned that they were taken to Peldehue, transported in helicopters, and thrown into the sea.

Of the dead, he remembers "Chino Díaz," because he knew they killed him, packed him up, and threw him inside a vehicle. He saw when they threw him into the trunk and, the next day, Jorge Pichunmán confided to him that he participated in his death under threat and that he suffocated him with plastic bags in the dungeon.

He believes other people were involved. 30.- Testimonies of Carlos Segundo Marcos Muñoz on pages 241 and 256 of the separate "Conferencia 1" file, in which he mentions the Carabinero Valdebenito as a member of the Lautaro Brigade; a purely operational brigade, which is why most of the agents carried out operations.

One day, in the morning hours, he learned from Díaz Radulovich that Chino Díaz was suffocated and injected to cause his death. He observed Pichunmán burn his fingerprints and face with a blowtorch , for the body to then be bagged and finally transported by Jorgelino Vergara to the trunk of Morales Salgado's Chevy Nova, an occasion at which Valdebenito was present.

Source: Judiciary, November 30, 2018

Santiago Court confirms ruling that sentenced 30 DINA agents for the qualified kidnapping of a pregnant young woman

The appellate court confirmed the sentence that convicted 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza.

A 29-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who was detained on December 15, 1976, in the current commune of Macul and taken to the clandestine detention barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, in the commune of La Reina, from where her trail was lost.

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that convicted 30 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza.

A 29-year-old woman, five months pregnant, who was detained on December 15, 1976, in the current commune of Macul and taken to the clandestine detention barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, in the commune of La Reina, from where her trail was lost.

In the ruling (case file 3.023-2019), the Sixth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of judges María Rosa Kittsteiner, María Paula Merino, and Paula Rodríguez—ratified the sentence that sentenced Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Juan Morales Salgado, and Ricardo Lawrence Mires to 10 years in prison as authors of the crime.

Meanwhile, as co-authors, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Teresa Navarro Navarro, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, and Jorge Arriagada Mora must serve 7 years in prison.

In the case of José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Segundo Pichunmán Curiqueo, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Bertha Yolanda del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, and Joyce Ana Ahumada Despouy, they must serve 4-year sentences as accomplices.

The appellate court adopted the evidence that allowed visiting judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza to establish the responsibility and participation of the then-state agents convicted in the kidnapping and disappearance of the medical technologist. "That, in this course of action, the reasoning in the reviewed sentence is shared, for the purpose of establishing the participation of the convicted persons, insofar as the evidentiary background outlined in the appealed sentence, in the fourteenth grounds against Espinoza Bravo, seventeenth against Morales Salgado, twentieth against Lawrence Mires, twenty-ninth against Calderón Carreño, thirty-second against Piña Garrido, forty-first against Valdebenito Araya, forty-fourth against Escalona Acuña, forty-seventh against Manríquez Manterola, sixty-fifth against Saavedra Vásquez, sixty-eighth against Magna Astudillo, seventy-first against Oyarce Riquelme, seventy-fourth against Acevedo, seventy-seventh against Pacheco Fernández, eightieth against Troncoso Vivallos, eighty-sixth against Navarro Navarro, ninety-fifth against Sarmiento Sotelo, one hundred and seventh against Guerrero Aguilera, and one hundred and twenty-second against Arriagada Mora, constitute a set of judicial presumptions which, given their multiplicity, gravity, precision, and consistency, and for meeting the legal requirements provided for in Article 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, allow for the accreditation of the participation attributed to them as co-authors, in the terms provided for in Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, in accordance with the reasoning in the fifteenth, eighteenth, twenty-first, thirtieth, thirty-third, forty-second, forty-fifth, forty-eighth, sixty-sixth, sixty-ninth against Magna Astudillo, seventy-second, seventy-fifth, seventy-seventh, eighty-first, eighty-seventh, ninety-fifth, one hundred and seventh, and one hundred and twenty-third grounds respectively, and which is complemented by the reasoning in the one hundred and seventy-third, one hundred and seventy-eighth, one hundred and eighty-second, one hundred and eighty-sixth, one hundred and eighty-ninth, one hundred and ninety-fifth, one hundred and ninety-seventh, two hundred and third, two hundred and sixth, and two hundred and tenth grounds," it is detailed. The resolution adds: "At this point, it should be specified that the participation as co-author attributed to Juan Morales Salgado fits fully into the provisions of Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, since he acted under the direct orders of Manuel Contreras and was in charge of the Simón Bolívar barracks at the time of the events, being responsible in that capacity for coordinating the operational work of the brigades that acted under his command, especially in relation to the dismantling of the Communist Party, assigning personnel under his command for this purpose, directing investigation efforts and receiving the corresponding reports, ordering the entry and detention of prisoners at the unit, as well as the interrogations and torture to which they were subjected and, where applicable, their death and disappearance, establishing that he was present during the interrogation and torture of the victim of these records, which determines that he intervened in an immediate and direct manner in the events, so his conduct implies a functional contribution to the global result, maintaining, together with the other perpetrators, the co-dominion of the act." "For its part, the attribution of responsibility as a co-author, in the terms provided for in Article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, imputed to the defendant María Angélica Guerrero Soto, is established by virtue of her confession in accordance with the provisions of Article 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is corroborated by the merit of the background information indicated in the fifty-seventh ground of the appealed sentence, to which is added the reasoning in the one hundred and ninety-third ground," the ruling adds. "That, in the same sense," it continues, "it adheres to what is indicated in the sentence under study, insofar as the indications indicated in the thirty-fifth ground against Ojeda Obando, fiftieth against Meza Serrano, fifty-third against Lagos Yáñez, fifty-ninth against Díaz Radulovich, sixty-second against Pichunmán Curiqueo, eighty-third against Castro Andrade, ninety-eighth against Miranda Mesa, one hundred and first against Álvarez Droguett, one hundred and fourth against Altamirano Sanhueza, one hundred and thirteenth against Díaz Ramírez, one hundred and twenty-fifth against Jiménez Escobar, one hundred and thirty-fourth against López Inostroza, and one hundred and forty-third against Ahumada Despouy, gather the necessary force to configure judicial presumptions, which, given their multiplicity, gravity, precision, and consistency, allow for the accreditation of the participation attributed to them as accomplices, in accordance with the provisions of Article 16 of the Penal Code, according to the reasoning in the thirty-sixth, fifty-first, fifty-fourth, sixtieth, sixty-third, eighty-fourth, ninety-ninth, one hundred and second, one hundred and fifth, one hundred and fourteenth, one hundred and twenty-sixth, one hundred and thirty-fifth, and one hundred and forty-fourth grounds, respectively, to which the reasoning in the one hundred and seventy-first, one hundred and seventy-ninth, one hundred and eighty-seventh, one hundred and ninety-eighth, two hundredth, two hundred and fourth, and two hundred and eighth grounds of the ruling are added." For the appellate court, in this case: "(...) as noted, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that all the defendants were part of an organized structure under subordination and dependency, in which those who exercised management duties and operational personnel coexisted, dedicated both to investigation and to the detention, custody, interrogation, torture, and, where applicable, death and disappearance of the detainees, in which one observes, on the one hand, the division of roles typical of co-authorship, since all of them made a functional contribution to the execution of the crime, each of them having co-dominion of the act and, on the other, a facilitation of the means with which the crime is committed, thus cooperating in the act of another, by prior or simultaneous acts, which is what characterizes complicity." "In this understanding, contrary to what the defenses point out in court in support of their appeals, it is convenient to specify that the convicted persons are not punished merely for belonging to the institution, but for the conduct displayed by each one in relation to the events that concern the victim of these records, Ms. Reinalda Pereira Plaza, which also leads to ruling out the intervention of those accused with respect to whom, despite having been established that they were part of the same institution and performed duties at the property located at Simón Bolívar No. 8800 in La Reina, their punishable participation in any of the forms provided for by law has not been proven." It concludes. Detention and disappearance In the appealed ruling, visiting judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza established the following facts: " a) That the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) , on an unspecified date, but during the first half of 1976, occupied and enabled a property at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, commune of La Reina, consisting of a country house, which was conditioned for its purpose of confinement. It had a single access gate, a guard booth to its right where door duty was performed, a house at the back, a five-a-side soccer field, parking lots, and on the left side of the property a kind of gym where there was a mess hall, kitchen, and some changing rooms and bathrooms, which were conditioned to be used as dungeons, a property in which the Lautaro Brigade operated under the command of Major Juan Morales Salgado and which was used as a secret and clandestine place of confinement; people were brought to said premises as detainees, to be interrogated under the use of various physical coercion techniques, especially regarding those who had or had had political militancy adhering to the Communist Party. b) That likewise, in the second half of 1976, the DINA groups under the command of officers Germán Barriga and Ricardo Lawrence moved to said premises, together with their operational agents, who were fundamentally concerned with investigating, locating, raiding, pursuing, repressing, and dismantling the members of the Communist Party, especially its leadership, for which provisional facilities were enabled for their installation; consisting of offices, a gym, and changing rooms that were confinement dungeons, where interrogations and torture were carried out, using coercion with various methods. c) That Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza , pregnant with her first child, 5 months into her pregnancy, a medical technologist and communist militant, who worked sheltering people and as a liaison between Eliana Ahumada and Fernando Navarro, although also related to the communist militant Fernando Ortiz, was detained at 29 years of age, at approximately 8:30 PM, while waiting for public transport, by security agents on December 15, 1976, at the corner of Exequiel Fernández and Rodrigo de Araya, in the commune of Ñuñoa, currently the commune of Macul. The agents who detained her were traveling in two Peugeot brand cars; one of them with license plate HLN-55, from which a subject got out who grabbed her violently; upon her screaming for help, a second subject got out with whom she was forcibly subdued and taken inside the vehicle. The detention was materialized in the presence of witnesses who were in the various surrounding commercial establishments, who report that once the victim was subdued and the detention materialized, the car headed along Rodrigo de Araya in a northerly direction. d) That Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza was taken to the secret detention barracks of Simón Bolívar , where she was seen together with other prisoners who, in turn, had been detained by the same brigades under the same operational policy between December 13 and 15, 1976; that is, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, Fernando Navarro Allendes, Lincoyán Yalu Berríos Cataldo, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, and Horacio Cepeda Marincovich. In this place, Reinalda was severely beaten, tortured, illegitimately coerced, and then made to disappear, without any news of her whereabouts to date. e) That the Chilean government of the time, given the search efforts carried out by her relatives, reported that the affected person had registered an exit 'on foot' through the Chile-Argentina border crossing Los Libertadores, on December 21, 1976, an official version that was judicially established as false, as stated in the process reviewed, case file 2-77, in which it was verified that the route sheet that recorded said circumstances had been falsified. f) That the victim of these records was detained on public roads just like thirteen other people in similar circumstances ; eleven belonging to the Communist Party and two to the MIR and, where the information provided by the Military Government was similar and erroneous, demonstrating a large-scale operation that obeyed a policy of investigation, persecution, and dismantling of the Communist Party and not an isolated event. g) That all the people mentioned above, including the victim, were detained to be interrogated and tortured by reason of their political militancy and, in order to obtain information about their party activities and the identification of other members of the Communist Party in hiding; coercion that did not cease until the required information was obtained or until the victims became unconscious ."

Source: pjud.cl, March 4, 2022