Abraham López Pinto, married, agricultural worker, and Communist Party member, was detained on 16 September 1973 at his home in the town of Antuco by a patrol of Carabineros and military personnel, including Carabineros Sergeants Osses and Triviño, who belonged to the Antuco Station.

The agents raided the property without presenting any search or arrest warrant. Witnesses to the events were his spouse, María Valenzuela Vivanco, and their daughter, Elsa del Carmen, only 13 years old.

Ms. Corina Muñoz de Avila was threatened with a firearm by Sergeant Osses while she observed the events from her house located across from the victim's home. At that moment, the victim was being forced by the uniformed men into a yellow pickup truck in which they were traveling.

The following day, around 08:30, María Valenzuela went to the Antuco Station with breakfast for her husband; there, a Carabinero told her that he had already been fed but that she should bring him lunch later.

At noon, she was unable to deliver food as the uniformed men informed her that her husband had been transferred to the Los Angeles Regiment. On Tuesday the 18th, at that location, she was told that there were no political prisoners there.

The minor Elsa del Carmen Valenzuela, their daughter, had to drop out of the 4th grade at School No. 3 in Antuco due to the problems caused by the detention and forced disappearance of her father.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

María Valenzuela filed an Amparo appeal (writ of habeas corpus), case file 4187, on 30 June 1978 in the Second Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Concepción. In it, she stated that the yellow pickup truck was the property of the Municipality of Antuco and that the Carabineros who were the authors of her husband's detention had been transferred to the Los Angeles Police Station, and the military personnel belonged to the "Los Angeles" Regiment.

The Ministry of the Interior responded via a confidential telex that there were no records regarding the detention of the victim. Lieutenant Colonel of Carabineros Osvaldo D. Leyton Grob, then Prefect of Bío-Bío, responded in the same manner on 10 July 1978.

The Court's official letter also requested information from the Intendant of the VIII Region, Brigadier General Rigoberto Rubio Ramírez, and Lieutenant Colonel Nelson Robledo, Provincial Governor of Bío-Bío and Delegate of the State of Emergency Zone. Both authorities stated they had no records regarding Abraham López.

For these reasons, on 24 July 1978, the Court declared the amparo denied as the victim was not found to be in detention, and referred the records to the Criminal Court on duty in Los Angeles so that a summary proceeding could be initiated for the alleged disappearance of the victim.

On 31 July 1978, under case number 19.712, the Judge of the Second Criminal Court complied with the Court's order; however, just 4 months later, on 8 November, the summary proceeding was closed and the case was dismissed.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Walther Klug Rivera must serve a 10-year prison sentence for his responsibility as the author of kidnappings and qualified homicides between September and November 1973.

The minister visiting for human rights cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza González, issued an order for the entry—today, 2 August 2021—of retired Lieutenant Colonel Walther Klug Rivera into the corresponding prison as a convicted prisoner.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his responsibility as an accomplice in the so-called Endesa Episode, a case involving human rights violations.

The entry order was carried out after an Italian court granted the extradition request filed by the visiting minister Mario Carroza—then the instructor of the case—so that Klug Rivera could serve the sentence issued in October 2014.

That ruling convicted Klug Rivera for his responsibility in the qualified kidnappings and qualified homicides of victims Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino, Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga, all of whom were linked to the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants and were detained between September and November 1973 by members of the Chilean Army.

Source: adprensa.cl 02/08/2021

Date: 02-08-2021

FORMER COLONEL KLUG, CONVICTED OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, ARRIVES IN CHILE

Retired Army Colonel Walter Klug Rivera arrived in Chile this Monday night. As confirmed by Radio Bío Bío, he remains at the Military Police Regiment in Santiago.

This follows his expulsion from Argentina, where he was detained two weeks ago after fleeing Chile following notification of a sentence for human rights violations.

Recall that the sentence was 10 years in prison decreed by the Supreme Court, specifically for the homicide and kidnapping of 23 workers from the El Toro and Abanico plants of Endesa in 1973.

This was Klug's second escape from the country, as the first was in 2015.

According to a statement from the Judiciary, Klug Rivera entered the military unit for a 10-day quarantine, during which time the minister for the Endesa Case, Paola Plaza, will resolve the procedural situation of the former officer.

The Supreme Court issued a final sentence in the investigation into the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicide of 23 workers from the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants; seven of them were executed and the rest were forcibly disappeared.

These crimes were perpetrated between 11 September and 17 November 1973 and were investigated in the first instance by Minister Jorge Zepeda Arancibia.

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Milton Juica, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and Andrea Muñoz—rejected the cassation appeals filed against the sentence of the Santiago Court of Appeals, which convicted:

• Patricio Martínez Moena, retired Army General, to a sentence of 20 years in prison, without benefits;
• Walter Klug Rivera, retired Colonel, to 10 years and 1 day in prison, without benefits; and
• Ismael Espinoza Silva (Officer) to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

These sentences must be served for their responsibility in the homicides of: Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino; as well as the qualified kidnappings of: Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

In the civil aspect, the Criminal Chamber ratified the sentence ordering the State to pay an indemnity of 50 million pesos to each of the nine relatives of the victims who were executed or forcibly disappeared in 1973 in the mountain sector of Los Ángeles, Bío Bío Region.

According to Minister Zepeda's investigation, the following sequence of events was determined:

"That, in the mountain sector, east of the city of Los Ángeles, are located the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants, belonging to the National Electricity Company, ENDESA; That the workers of said hydroelectric plants, as of 11 September 1973, mostly resided with their families in small rural towns in that area, forming the towns of 'Los Canelos', 'Rayenco', 'Polcura', 'Antuco', in addition to the work camps of the 'El Toro' and 'El Abanico' Hydroelectric Plants, and further east, behind the Laja lagoon, that of 'Cuatro Juntas', a sector that was called 'Mallines del Sol', belonging to the 'Alto Polcura' canyon, named after the 'Polcura' river that runs through the place, where the workers also spent periods performing their usual duties; That subsequent to the date indicated above, upon the violent change of government due to the coup d'état of 11 September 1973, the aforementioned workers, as well as the rest of the civilian population of said towns, supporters of the previous government that was deposed on that day, in application and knowledge of a policy of the new regime and in a flagrant attack on human dignity and the notion of humanity itself, were persecuted and detained by State agents, under the pretext that the victims intended to attack detention centers to free persons deprived of liberty by the military authority and/or to attack the hydroelectric plants where many of them worked, with their final destination being their confinement or deprivation of liberty in the Regiment located in the city of Los Ángeles or in places dependent on this unit, and ultimately killed and, in other cases, forcibly disappeared to this day."

The Supreme Court's sentence was adopted with the dissenting vote—in the criminal aspect—of Minister Lamberto Cisternas, who was in favor of accepting mitigating factors of responsibility in the case of the convicted Klug Rivera; and the dissenting opinion of Minister Muñoz, who was in favor of accepting the statute of limitations for the civil action in the case.

Source: Antimafia - 01 July 2021

Date: 01-07-2021

State ordered to pay compensation to relatives of Endesa worker executed in 1973

The Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the State of Chile to pay a total indemnity of $260,000,000 (two hundred and sixty million pesos) to the spouse and children of Víctor Jerez Meza, a worker at the El Abanico hydroelectric plant, owned by Endesa, who was executed on 22 September 1973.

Víctor Jerez Meza, married, 3 children, worker at the "El Abanico" plant of the National Electricity Company - Endesa -, president of the company's Union and Regional General Secretary of the Socialist Party, was detained on 22 September 1973 at the facilities of the "El Toro" plant union by Carabineros and Army personnel.

His whereabouts remained unknown until 1999, when his body was found buried as a John Doe (NN) in a mass grave at the Nacimiento cemetery.

El Ciudadano, 4 August 2018

The Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the State of Chile to pay a total indemnity of $260,000,000 (two hundred and sixty million pesos) to the spouse and children of Víctor Jerez Meza, a worker at the El Abanico hydroelectric plant, owned by Endesa, who was executed on 22 September 1973.

In a split decision, the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Marisol Rojas, María Luisa Riesco, and the acting lawyer Rodrigo Asenjo—confirmed in all its parts the challenged sentence, issued by the Seventh Civil Court of Santiago, which established the responsibility of the State for the actions of its agents in the commission of a crime against humanity, which is imprescriptible in both criminal and civil aspects.

"Now, regarding the exception of the statute of limitations for the indemnity action, and finding it essential to clarify whether or not it is appropriate to affirm a statute of imprescriptibility applicable not only in the sphere of criminal responsibility, but also in the civil sphere of indemnities in matters of crimes against humanity, or if, on the contrary, it is incumbent to restrict imprescriptibility only to criminal actions, and consequently apply the statute of limitations to civil actions as regulated by private law, it must be pointed out that, in this case, it is not an action of a merely patrimonial nature but a reparatory action in the sphere of human rights violations in crimes against humanity, which is governed by precepts of international law that establish imprescriptibility," the first-instance ruling maintains.

The resolution adds that "by a principle of legal coherence, imprescriptibility must govern both in the civil sphere and in the criminal sphere. The source of the State's obligation to provide reparation is founded not only on the Political Constitution of the Republic, but also on the general principles of humanitarian law and international treaties, which must prevail over civil codes."

"On the other hand, the application of the statute of limitations of private law in this case would violate fundamental values, from a legal and moral point of view, since the aforementioned institution constitutes a protection for the state entity and, for the same reason, its application in the field of public law would mean ignoring the State's duty to fulfill its own ends, leaving people in helplessness, which implies a denial of their fundamental rights to life and physical integrity, by the one who is constitutionally obligated to safeguard them," the ruling concludes.

The victim Víctor Jerez Meza (in the photo), married, 3 children, worker at the "El Abanico" plant of the National Electricity Company - Endesa -, president of the company's Union and Regional General Secretary of the Socialist Party, was detained on 22 September 1973 at the facilities of the "El Toro" plant union by Carabineros and Army personnel, and his whereabouts were unknown from that moment on.

The victim's spouse stated in a sworn declaration that the Carabineros Lieutenant Zacarías Hannover García Agüero, from the Abanico Station, participated in the detention, and that on that day, 22 September, she went to the "El Toro" plant to request information about her spouse, who had to be absent from the family home for security reasons after the coup d'état, as the house was raided repeatedly by the military.

"When I was coming down the street of the union, I saw the military throwing an individual into the van, and I asked some men who were there who they were putting into the military vehicle, and they answered that they were taking the president of the union into custody. From that day on, the raids on our home ceased," the woman's statement notes.

Víctor Jerez Meza's spouse went in search of him to the Antuco and Abanico stations, and also to the Los Angeles Regiment, all without positive results in finding his whereabouts.

For its part, the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation indicates that the victim was held along with other Endesa workers—Plutarco Coussy, Mario Olivares, and Wilfredo Muñoz—who to this day remain forcibly disappeared.

The information given by police authorities to the relatives was that they had been transferred to the Los Angeles Regiment. And as in other cases, the local press on 6 October reported that the victim was missing, after having been released on parole while proceedings were completed, adding that he had not appeared before a new summons and that he should "face the consequences."

The report of said Commission also adds that on 14 January 1977, four years after the detention, information appeared in the local press indicating that Víctor Jerez Meza, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Mario Olivares Pérez, and Wilfredo Quiroz Pereira had been executed by firing squad. No circumstances were explained, there is no death certificate, and no official explanation of the death exists.

Finally, in 1999, the remains of Jerez Meza were identified among the bodies exhumed—buried as John Does in a mass grave—at the Nacimiento cemetery, following a proceeding ordered by the then-special judge Juan Guzmán.

For the crime of Víctor Jerez, and of 22 other workers from the El Toro and El Abanico plants, the Supreme Court convicted in 2014 Patricio Martínez Moena, retired Army General, to a sentence of 20 years in prison, without benefits; Walter Klug Rivera, retired Colonel, to 10 years and 1 day in prison, without benefits; and the officer Ismael Espinoza Silva, to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

According to the highest court, they were the guilty parties in the homicides of Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino; as well as the qualified kidnappings of Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

Source: 05/08/2018

Date: 05-08-2018

Walther Klug, the criminal against humanity who fled to Argentina, admitted to Military Regiment

The Judiciary reported late at night the internment at the Santiago Military Police Regiment No. 1, in the commune of Peñalolén, of Walther Klug Rivera, a criminal against humanity of the Chilean Dictatorship who had fled the country attempting to evade the justice proceedings against him.

Former Colonel Klug Rivera is a well-known member of the repressive forces of the Dictatorship in southern Chile, and today is wanted in two cases for human rights violations: the kidnapping and death of 21 Endesa workers in the commune of Antuco, Bío Bío Province, and the qualified kidnapping of the president of the Student Federation of the University of Concepción, Los Ángeles campus, Luis Cornejo.

In the first case, Klug was sentenced by the Supreme Court to 10 years in prison, without benefits, for his responsibility in the homicides of: Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino; as well as the qualified kidnappings of: Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

In the second case, Klug is identified as the person responsible for the disappearance of the Topography student and president of the student center of the Los Ángeles campus of the University of Concepción, Luis Cornejo.

Klug had fled in 2015 to Germany, taking advantage of the leniency in the treatment of human rights violators in our country. Thus, he used his dual nationality and benefited from the European nation's difficulty in extraditing its citizens, even if they are criminals against humanity.

However, in 2019 he was detained during a trip he made to Italy, the country from which he was extradited to Chile.

See also: Extradition request approved for criminal against humanity Walter Klug

However, despite the gravity of the crimes committed—he is convicted by the Supreme Court—the criminal against humanity was not imprisoned and fled again, this time to Argentina, from where he was expelled to our country.

Klug did not comply with the precautionary measures ordered by Minister Carlos Aldana—who did not order his detention despite the existence of these records—for the other case for which he is being prosecuted: the qualified kidnapping of Luis Cornejo.

The visiting Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza, indicated that Walther Klug Rivera will serve a 10-day quarantine period at the Santiago Military Police Regiment No. 1, after which his procedural situation will be reviewed.

Source: Resumen.cl, 29 Jun 2021