Meanwhile, the same judge applied amnesty to former Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) officer Víctor Pinto Pérez for the qualified homicide of Tomás Fuentes, an event that occurred in September 1973 at the San Bernardo railway workshop.

In a three-page resolution, Elgarrista established that the punishable act had occurred, the body had been found, and the amnesty decree issued in 1978 by the military junta was applicable to this case. The information was provided at the Palace of Justice by Pinto Pérez's lawyer, Gustavo Collaos.

Source: El Mostrador, March 8, 2004

Retired General Hernán Ramírez Rurange testified this morning before investigating judge Sergio Muñoz, as part of the evidentiary stage of the investigation into the death of union leader Tucapel Jiménez, which occurred on February 25, 1982.

During the session, General Ramírez Rurange, who is accused of helping the confessed perpetrator of the crime, Carlos Herrera Jiménez, flee the country in September 1991, reiterated his "absolute innocence" and maintained that he never gave an order for Herrera Jiménez to leave Chile.

General Ramírez Rurange, who was director of the DINE in 1991, is accused of being an accessory in the case and appeared to testify as a witness for retired General Fernando Torres Silva, a former military prosecutor.

Ramírez Rurange further stated that he only learned that Carlos Herrera Jiménez had killed Tucapel Jiménez through the press last year. Retired General Hernán Ramírez Hald also appeared to testify today, though he did not intervene before Judge Muñoz because the defense for retired Brigadier Víctor Pinto Pérez had called him as a witness.

Crime recounted The case of the union leader's death took a new turn after retired Major Carlos Herrera Jiménez provided details of the homicide of Tucapel Jiménez during a public judicial hearing on April 12.

Although he stated that, out of honor, he would not name those who accompanied him at the crime scene, he had a slip of the tongue and said that one of the non-commissioned officers was Letelier, an identity corresponding to another individual prosecuted in the case.

The confessed perpetrator of the crime against the president of the Agrupación Nacional de Empleados Fiscales (ANEF) said he received the order to eliminate the unionist from his superiors in the Army Intelligence Corps, retired Brigadier Víctor Pinto Pérez and the former commander of the organization, retired Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Ferrer Lima.

He maintained that the head of the Army Intelligence Directorate in 1982, General Ramsés Álvarez Sgolia, was identified by Pinto Pérez as a person who was aware of the criminal plan when he communicated the order to eliminate the unionist.

According to Herrera's statement, he carried out the crime alongside two non-commissioned officers who were placed under his command. He added that after the homicide, recorded on February 25, 1982, Brigadier Pinto took him to General Álvarez's office, where the DINE director congratulated him on the mission.

Source: El Mercurio, April 19, 2002

First-instance ruling issued 20 years after the crime TUCAPEL CASE: Life imprisonment for Herrera; Corbalán acquitted

For his responsibility in the qualified homicide of Tucapel Jiménez, retired General Arturo Ramsés Alvarez Sgolia was sentenced to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as a perpetrator, without benefits.

Following an exhaustive investigation of just over three years, the first-instance ruling by extraordinary investigating judge Sergio Muñoz was released regarding the crime against Tucapel Jiménez on February 25, 1982.

The ruling, delayed during the morning due to computer problems, acquitted retired Major Alvaro Corbalán Castilla, retired Brigadier Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, civilian Julio Olivares Silva, and Carabineros Captain Miguel Hernández Oyarzo, who had been prosecuted as accomplices.

For his responsibility in the qualified homicide of Tucapel Jiménez, Muñoz sentenced retired General Arturo Ramsés Alvarez Sgolia to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as a perpetrator, without benefits.

Retired Major Carlos Herrera Jiménez was sentenced to life imprisonment without benefits as the perpetrator of qualified homicide against the former president of the ANEF and the carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca.

Meanwhile, retired Brigadier Víctor Pinto Pérez and retired Lieutenant Colonel Maximiliano Ferrer Lima were sentenced to 8 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, without benefits, as perpetrators of qualified homicide.

Miguel Letelier Verdugo and non-commissioned officer Manuel Contreras Donaire were sentenced to 6 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, without benefits, as perpetrators. Major Juan Carlos Arriagada Echeverría and Jorge León Alessandrini (civilian) were sentenced by Judge Sergio Muñoz to 3 years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as accomplices (remitted sentence).

Retired General Fernando Torres Silva (former Army auditor), retired General Hernán Ramírez Hald, and retired General Hernán Ramírez Rurange were sentenced to 800 days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree (remitted sentence) as accomplices.

As an accessory, retired Colonel Enrique Ibarra was sentenced to 541 days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree. Finally, the weapon used in the crime, a .22 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, serial number 22547, registered to the National Mobilization Directorate, was confiscated.

Judicial process In three years of investigation, Judge Sergio Muñoz shook the Army. In 1999, he prosecuted the former director of the CNI, the now-deceased Humberto Gordon, and in June of that year, he preempted Juan Guzmán by sending a request to Pinochet during his detention in London.

However, his most daring step was prosecuting Hernán Ramírez Hald, the first general on active duty to be charged in a human rights case. Ramírez Hald was indicted on November 22, but one day earlier, President Ricardo Lagos received him in his office for an hour to support the general's gesture of retiring from the Army and facing the process as a civilian.

The former officer remained detained at the Telecommunications Command until he was released on bail in mid-2000. It should be recalled that Judge Muñoz took over the investigation in April 1999, after 17 years of fruitless work by Judge Sergio Valenzuela Patiño, who was removed from the case by the Supreme Court.

Source: La Tercera, Monday, August 5

Human Rights: New indictments issued for Paine peasants

The investigating judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, María Estela Elgarrista, issued four indictments in cases of forcibly disappeared and political executions in Paine, some of whom were taken to Cerro Chena.

Andrés Magaña Bau and Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez were indicted as co-perpetrators of the kidnapping and homicide of peasants Juan Guillermo Cuadra Espinoza, 26, and Ignacio del Tránsito Santander Albornoz, 17.

Cuadra and Santander were apprehended on September 24, 1973, at the "El Escorial" estate in Paine. According to members of the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment at the time, both were executed by application of the "law of flight" on October 4, 1973.

Other indictments had already been issued in the Paine cases regarding 37 victims. The indictments issued yesterday by Judge Elgarrista expand upon the previous resolution. In addition to the aforementioned ruling, the judge issued three other indictments against then-Captain Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez, who at the time served as head of the intelligence department of the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment and head of the Cerro Chena facility.

Pinto was prosecuted as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and homicide of peasant Carlos Manuel Ortiz Ortiz, 18, who was taken to Cerro Chena on October 3, 1973. He was also indicted for the qualified homicide of conscript René Máximo Martínez Aliste, 20, murdered on December 8, 1973; and, as a perpetrator, for the homicide of conscript Manuel Rojas Fuentes, 20, killed on December 7 of the same year.

The plaintiff's lawyer in all these cases, Nelson Caucoto, valued the judge's resolution and noted that it is significant that they were issued during these days, as "these were cases in which it was never thought that justice could advance, which justifies the role of special judges in human rights matters."

Source: El Mostrador, September 12, 2003

The pain and hope of Paine

The town of Paine holds the sad record of having the highest number of political executions and forced disappearances in proportion to its inhabitants. After the military coup, bands of civilians, police, and military personnel operated there, leaving a trail of blood and pain, murdering peasants from "settlements" created by the Agrarian Reform.

In Paine, victims and perpetrators still live together under the mantle of impunity and oblivion. In 1979, the Military Justice system took charge of dismissing the cases opened for the events in Paine by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Law, approved by General Pinochet himself to cover up his crimes.

After 29 years, Judge María Estela Elgarrista is nearing the truth. The Agrarian Reform, initiated in the 1960s and intensified under the government of Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular, allowed many peasant families to benefit from the allocation of lands that, until then, belonged to a handful of large landowners.

Thus, the peasants gave life to the "settlements," but in Paine, as in the rest of the Chilean countryside, everything was reversed on September 11, 1973. Bands of far-right civilians, police, and military personnel exacted "revenge," murdering union leaders and "settled" peasants.

The crimes, impunity, and fear spread through the small towns of Paine, Hospital, Huelquén, Culitrín, Chada, Rangue, El Vínculo, Pintué, and Laguna de Aculeo. Many peasants and their families witnessed how local civilians guided the uniformed men through the "settlements," providing names and, more often than not, participating directly in the repression and crimes.

Two weeks ago, and after 29 years, the judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, María Estela Elgarrista, summoned family members and perpetrators to various confrontations. Holanda Vidal, wife of the forcibly disappeared Cristian Cartagena Pérez, states: "I was summoned for the purpose of the lawsuit regarding the kidnapping and murder of my husband, who disappeared on September 18, 1973.

Our goal is for the guilty to be prosecuted: Carabineros from the Paine sub-precinct and civilians who acted together. I identified several of them: Sergeant Retamal, Corporal Ortiz, Albornoz, and Víctor Sagredo; and civilians: Darío González Carrasco, now a merchant, a member of Patria y Libertad, who admitted that he detained my husband at the Casa Escuela in Chada where we lived, taking him to the sub-precinct at six in the morning." The former Carabineros have denied their participation in the crimes during the confrontations, arguing that they "were on guard duty." "That caused me a shock with paralysis of my arms, a crisis of crying and anguish. It is terrible to relive everything that happened, to see them so close, their cynicism, their audacity to deny the truth. To see them so arrogant, without accepting that what they did was atrocious. These are the first confrontations after 29 years of complaints, searches, and knocking on doors. This step was possible due to all our effort and work as an Association. We have not compromised on the trial and punishment of the guilty, and that they pay for their crimes with prison." After the confrontations, indictments should follow. The judge has a long list of civilians, Carabineros, and military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment. "One of the murderers is Lieutenant Magaña Baum, and among the Carabineros, Sergeant Verdugo, a torturer who now presents himself as an old man who has done nothing," adds Holanda Vidal. "Everyone saw them" Juan Maureira is the son of René Maureira Gajardo, who was forcibly disappeared on October 16, 1973, along with 22 other peasants from the Campo Lindo, 24 de Abril, and Nuevo Sendero settlements. President of the AFDD of Paine, he recalls that military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School also participated in the repression and murders: "The judge is investigating nearly 40 complaints filed before Judge Guzmán. In Paine, there are more than 70 victims, of whom about 40 are still missing. These are the cases compiled in the Rettig Report, but others were never reported. We presume there are around 100 murdered in Paine, mostly peasants from settlements. The judge will eventually have to prosecute the implicated Carabineros, civilians, and military personnel. It is what we expect and what we have asked for, that true justice be done and that we can find our family members... We know that Lieutenant Magaña has information about what happened to my father and 22 other peasants, among other cases. He killed our family members... The Carabineros have denied their participation, but they are the same ones who still live in the town. How can they deny it if everyone saw them? The same occurs with the civilians who acted. Paine is a small town." According to the family members, the judge has acted with rigor, caution, and intelligence. They trust in the testimonies and statements she has managed to compile. For them, everything points to the prosecution of some of those implicated. "Many were even seen entering the houses. There is a countless amount of evidence collected since that time." So far, they are satisfied with the investigation and the proceedings carried out by the judge. For them, it is the first investigation after 29 years without achieving justice. Up to this minute, civilians and Carabineros have been summoned, and some confrontations have taken place: "Which gives us a bit of satisfaction because it had never been achieved before. For the moment there are no prosecuted individuals, but the judge continues working. And we have been able to verify that," says Juan Maureira. Meanwhile, the majority of the civilians and Carabineros who murdered the peasants of Paine continue living in the small rural town in complete impunity. "As far as we have been able to see, for the first time, an investigation is being conducted as it should be. The criminals will have to provide information on what happened. They are the same Carabineros, civilians, and military personnel who are mentioned in the majority of the cases," he concludes. Paine Murderers Carabineros Nelson Bravo Espinoza, Captain; Raúl Ortiz Maluenda, 2nd Sergeant; Carlos Aburto Jaramillo, 1st Corporal; José Retamal Burgos, 1st Corporal; Víctor Sagredo Aravena, 1st Corporal; Reyes, Sergeant; Luis Jara, Lieutenant of Pintué; and Carabineros Samuel Ahumada Cabello; Raúl Donoso Figueroa; Alamiro Garrido Ubal; Jorge González Quezada; Víctor Labarca Díaz; Eduardo Molina Armijo; José Piñaleo Pérez and Jorge Verdugo, among others. Civilians Hugo Aguilera, Fernando Aguilera, Francisco Luzoro, Jorge Sepúlveda, Tito Carrasco, Claudio Oregón, Darío González Carrasco, Luis Guerrero, Mario Tagle, Ricardo Tagle, Yule Tagle, Jorge Aguirre. Military - San Bernardo Infantry School Leonel Köening Alternatt, Director; Samuel Rojas Pérez, Lieutenant Colonel; Mario Morales Durán, Conscript; Andrés Magaña Baum, Lieutenant; Pedro Montalvo Calvo, Colonel; Iván de la Fuente Sáez, Major; Hernán Pizarro Collarte, Major; Ciro Ahumada Miranda, Major; Juan Carlos Nielsen Stambuck, Captain; Sergio Rodríguez Rautcher, Captain; Luis Cortés Villa, Captain; Víctor Pinto Pérez, Captain; Marcial Cobos Farías, Captain; Jorge Romero Campos, Captain; Luis Villarroel Contreras, Captain; Héctor Maturana Zúñiga, Captain; Luis Garfias Cabrera, Captain; Eduardo Silva Bravo, Captain; Sergio Valdivia M., Captain; and Julio Cerda Carrasco, Captain, among others.

Source: El Siglo, February 25, 2003

Those convicted in the Tucapel case sent to Punta Peuco

After the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld the convictions against those responsible for the death of the former president of the Agrupación Nacional de Empleados Fiscales (ANEF), Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro, which occurred on February 25, 1982, judicial sources informed La Nación that they will be transferred today to the Punta Peuco prison, the facility where they will serve their sentences.

With the change of prison, they will leave the Military Police Battalion (BPM) at the Peñalolén Telecommunications Regiment, where the Army built facilities for former uniformed personnel and active military personnel under prosecution to serve preventive detention until a sentence was issued against them.

Thus, those who will be held in Punta Peuco, a prison with joint custody by the Gendarmería and the Army, are the former director of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), retired General Arturo Alvarez Scoglia, retired Brigadiers Víctor Pinto Pérez and Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, as well as retired non-commissioned officers Manuel Contreras Donaire and Miguel Letelier Verdugo, all of whom were sentenced to eight years in prison.

The latter two as material perpetrators. Joining them is retired Major Carlos Herrera Jiménez, sentenced to a unified sentence of simple life imprisonment for the death of Jiménez and his participation in the murder of the carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca in July 1983.

The same sources indicated that the transfer of the former uniformed personnel was originally scheduled for the weekend; however, it had to be postponed due to a lack of space to receive the new inmates. Added to this was the approval of the security agencies in charge of the operation, who have the authority to stop the procedure until the last moment.

Source: La Nación, March 23, 2004

Arguments over dismissal of former conscript case

The San Miguel Court of Appeals heard arguments this Tuesday regarding the definitive dismissal due to the application of the amnesty law, issued by Judge Estela Elgarrista in the case of Manuel Rojas Fuentes, who was executed in 1973 at the Infantry School in the Cerro Chena sector, in San Bernardo.

Late last year, the judge had prosecuted Víctor Pinto Pérez, then in charge of the Chena prisoner camp, as the perpetrator of qualified homicide. However, after that decision, she closed the summary and definitively dismissed the case, considering that the crime and its perpetrator had been established.

The arguments, both from the plaintiff's side represented by Nelson Caucoto and the defense of the former officer, led by lawyer Gustavo Collado, were made before judges Ismael Contreras, Claudio Pavéz, and María Luisa Letelier.

During the session, lawyer Caucoto explained that since it is a war crime committed in wartime, it is not subject to amnesty. Manuel Rojas Fuentes finished his military service in June 1973, but on September 11 of that year, he was called to rejoin the ranks of the San Bernardo Infantry School, where he was detained and transferred to Cerro Chena, where he was killed along with René Martínez, who was in the same situation.

Source: El Mostrador, June 1, 2004

Harsh Supreme Court ruling against amnesty

In one of the most direct and critical rulings against the methods of repression, and making international legislation that protects human rights prevail, even "above the Constitution," the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court accepted a cassation appeal by lawyer Nelson Caucoto and revoked the definitive dismissal due to amnesty with which a judge favored retired Army Brigadier Víctor Pinto Pérez in March 2004, who was prosecuted for the homicide of the reservist from the Infantry School, Manuel Rojas Fuentes.

This event is part of the Cerro Chena episode, south of Santiago, one of the stages of the Paine crimes committed by officers and non-commissioned officers of that school after the 1973 military coup. Pinto Pérez, former deputy director of the Army Intelligence Corps (DINE), is also sentenced to eight years in prison for the murder of union leader Tucapel Jiménez.

By a unanimous vote of its five members, the Criminal Chamber stated in its resolution that a "crime against humanity," whose "main characteristic is the cruel and bestial way" in which these crimes are committed, cannot be amnestied nor does it prescribe with the passage of time, because international treaties that protect human rights, which are above Chilean law, establish it as such.

Explaining why the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war prevail in the case of the reservist, the magistrates recalled that the military regime decreed the "state of internal war" on September 12, 1973.

Alluding to the argumentation of Judge María Estela Elgarrista, who dismissed the case against Pinto Pérez, the ministers stated that "It is not acceptable that the same people who took refuge in the advantages granted to them by the aforementioned declaration of a state of war (...) pretend to ignore its value to disregard the sanctions imposed by the Geneva treaties." Qualifying the conduct of the dictatorship regarding repression, the chamber held that "however serious certain actions may be and however guilty those responsible for certain illicit acts may be, it is not possible to admit that power can be exercised without any limit, or that the State can use any procedure to achieve its objectives, without subjection to law or morality." Referring to amnesty, the magistrates stated that this benefit is oriented toward the end of a country's internal conflict "to favor the defeated in the hands of those who control the power of the State, facilitating the reestablishment of social peace." On the contrary, they stated that "amnesty cannot be used in cases of war crimes executed by official or unofficial agents of the State, under the protection of the exercise of uncontrolled power." Finally, the chamber held that all international legislation regarding the fundamental rights of persons "enjoys constitutional primacy in Chile." Thus, Víctor Pinto is once again an active criminal subject in the process now being instructed by Judge Virginia Rivera, the same judge who is searching for the disappeared of Paine.

Source: La Nación, March 15, 2007

Retired brigadier sentenced to 10 years for murder of corporal in 1973

René Martínez, who was 23 years old, was a reserve corporal in the Army, an institution to which he was reinstated on September 22, 1973, eleven days after the coup d'état, and was assigned to the Infantry School based in San Bernardo.

The judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Héctor Solís, sentenced retired Army Brigadier Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez this Tuesday to 10 years and one day in prison for the crime of qualified homicide against reserve corporal René Martínez Aliste, which occurred in December 1973.

The resolution was adopted by the magistrate who is investigating the case called "San Bernardo V," regarding the murder of opponents in that town south of Santiago, which the magistrate is instructing by decision of the Supreme Court.

Martínez, who was 23 years old, was a reserve corporal in the Army, an institution to which he was reinstated on September 22, 1973, eleven days after the coup d'état, and was assigned to the Infantry School based in San Bernardo.

On December 3, 1973, his family tried to contact the young man, but they were informed that he was on a service commission. However, according to the Rettig Report, which documented human rights violations under the dictatorship, the young man was executed on December 8 of that year "by State agents."

Source: El Mostrador, April 1, 2008

Court unified sentences against retired Brigadier Pinto Pérez and reduced them by 20 years

15-Year Sentence for the "Terror of Paine" for 13 Crimes

Army Brigadier (Ret.) Víctor Pinto Pérez is a legend of the terror unleashed in the rural town of Paine, south of Santiago, following the military coup.

He was a miniature "Guatón Romo," although Romo was a civilian and Pinto held troop command with the rank of captain.

Those who survived the Cerro Chena concentration camp—which the San Bernardo Infantry School installed in those hills—and the hellish nights experienced in that same barracks, remember well this officer who came to command that clandestine detention center.

Yesterday, the Fourth Chamber of the San Miguel Court of Appeals sealed the second procedural stage regarding Pinto, sentencing him to 15 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of thirteen repeated kidnappings and homicides of peasants and workers from that area.

However, although the Court maintained the criteria of the investigating judge Héctor Solís regarding not applying amnesty or statute of limitations benefits because they were crimes against humanity, it did reduce by 20 years the total of the three sentences the minister had issued against him for these same victims.

The Court ordered the consolidation of the three individual sentences from Minister Solís (which totaled 35 years in prison) because they involved events with the same origin and causality, and applied the legal criterion of sentence unification.

The ruling was issued by magistrates Claudio Pavez, María Soledad Espina, and Adriana Sottovia. Now, Pinto awaits the decision of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which, according to the reasoning it has been maintaining in its rulings for a couple of years, will likely reduce his sentence again.

And thus, he may end up effectively serving four or five years in prison and then be released, if another sentence is not added to his record in the meantime, as could occur.

Faced with a probable new sentence reduction, what will be difficult for the Criminal Chamber to argue this time—a common recourse on other occasions—is the "irreproachable conduct" of the sentenced individual, since, regardless of the fact that he never had such conduct with his prisoners, he already has more than one conviction issued against him, such as the three unified yesterday into one.

In the case of Brigadier (Ret.) Pinto and others like him who have also been sentenced or at least—for the moment—prosecuted for the crimes of Paine, the unresolved conflict between the plaintiffs, the accused, and the Army is that this institution and the majority of those involved in these crimes continue to deny that the San Bernardo Infantry School installed the prisoner camp known as Cuartel Dos in the hills of Chena.

However, another of the main actors in these events, the then-second lieutenant and current Colonel (Ret.) Andrés Magaña Bau, has already admitted several times in his judicial statements the existence of Cerro Chena as a clandestine detention center after the military coup.

Magaña was the one who commanded the mass killings of Cuesta Chada (15 peasants) and Quebrada Los Quillayes (22 peasants) in October 1973, in which, according to several military witnesses who were part of the command that eliminated the detainees, two other second lieutenants also took part, whom Minister Héctor Solís has yet to identify due to the closed refusal to collaborate by officers and non-commissioned officers who committed murders in Paine.

This small commune, with seventy victims, was, according to the proportion of inhabitants, the locality most affected by the repression in the country.

Source: La Nación, Thursday, October 9, 2008

Brigadier Sentenced to Only 5 Years for the Hill Massacre

The Supreme Court reduced the sentence against Army Brigadier (Ret.) Víctor Pinto Pérez, who had been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for 13 homicides committed at the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment (Cerro Chena). The highest court reduced the sentence to 5 years of suspended prison, meaning he will serve it in freedom.

The Supreme Court's ruling modified the resolution of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which had sentenced the retired brigadier to 10 years and one day in prison for the kidnappings and homicides of 11 workers from the San Bernardo Railway Workshops (Maestranza). The victims were executed by firing squad between September 27 and 28, 1973, under the "escape law."

The San Miguel Court had also sentenced Pinto to two other 5-year and one-day sentences each for the homicides of two reservists from the regiment, committed between December 4 and 8, 1973, in the same facility. However, the Supreme Court accepted the cassation appeals and reduced the sentence to a single 5-year term.

The victims from the workshops are Ramón Vivanco Díaz, Adiel Monsalves Martínez, Manuel González Vargas, José Morales Álvarez, Arturo Koyck Fredes, Joel Silva Oliva, Roberto Ávila Márquez, Alfredo Acevedo Pereira, Raúl Castro Caldera, Pedro Oyarzún Zamorano, and Hernán Chamorro Monardes. Meanwhile, the murdered reservists are Manuel Rojas Fuentes and René Martínez Aliste.

"THEY TRIED TO ESCAPE"

The 11 railway workers were detained on September 28, 1973, by military personnel in an operation carried out at the San Bernardo Railway Workshops. They were first taken to the Infantry Regiment and then to Cerro Chena, where they allegedly tried to escape, for which they were executed by firing squad, according to the version received by their families.

Meanwhile, reservists Rojas Fuentes and Martínez Aliste, no older than 23, were called to rejoin the regiment after the coup of September 11, 1973. The former was executed by firing squad on December 7, and the latter [on December 8].

At that time, Brigadier (Ret.) Víctor Pinto Pérez was the commander of the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment and the detention center set up on Cerro Chena.

Source: La Nación, Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Convicted in Tucapel Jiménez Case Released Due to Insanity; Another Died Without Paying the Bill

The human rights cause had two pieces of bad news last week. The Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals dismissed the case against General (Ret.) Ramsés Álvarez Sgolia for his responsibility as a perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of MIR militant Alonso Lazo Rojas, which occurred starting in November 1975.

This means he will not finish serving his sentence for the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez. Another of those convicted, Víctor Pinto Pérez, died without having paid the bill.

The court's decision considered the results issued by the Legal Medical Service. Psychiatric examinations indicate that the convicted man presents "moderate to severe cognitive impairment due to mixed dementia of vascular origin," making him incapable of rehabilitation and incapable of determining whether the conduct of his past was lawful or illicit.

Álvarez Sgolia served an 8-year prison sentence as one of the intellectual authors of the assassination of the union leader and former president of the ANEF, Tucapel Jiménez, which occurred on February 25, 1982.

Based on this new ruling that "exempts from criminal responsibility those who, due to a cause independent of their will, are totally deprived of reason," the newly declared "insane" individual will not have to return to prison.

Officer who ordered the assassination of Tucapel Jiménez dies

Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez was held in Punta Peuco serving a sentence for his participation in the crime against union leader Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro, which occurred on February 25, 1982. He was also convicted for having participated in the deaths of more than 13 people, including reservists René Martínez Aliste and Manuel Rojas Fuentes.

He was also convicted for having participated in the executions of peasants in the city of Paine, 40 of whom remain forcibly disappeared to this day. The victims of the San Ramón Workshop in 1973, for whom he was charged with responsibility, are Vivanco Díaz, Adiel Monsalves Martínez, Manuel González Vargas, José Morales Álvarez, Arturo Koyck Fredes, Joel Silva Oliva, Roberto Ávila Márquez, Alfredo Acevedo Pereira, Raúl Castro Caldera, Pedro Oyarzún Zamorano, and Hernán Chamorro Monardes.

As will be recalled, the death of the union leader was carried out by retired Major Carlos Herrera Jiménez. The confessed author of the crime against the president of the National Association of Fiscal Employees (ANEF) stated in court that he received the order to eliminate the unionist from his superiors in the Army Intelligence Corps, Brigadier (Ret.) Víctor Pinto Pérez, and the former commander of the agency, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Francisco Ferrer Lima.

He maintained that the person who was the top chief of the Army Intelligence Directorate in 1982, General Ramsés Álvarez Sgolia, was pointed out by Pinto Pérez as a person who was aware of the criminal plan when he communicated the order to eliminate the unionist. The deceased Víctor Pérez was the one who directly instructed the order to eliminate Tucapel Jiménez, according to the sentence.

According to what Herrera declared, he carried out the crime together with two non-commissioned officers who were placed under his command. He added that after the homicide, recorded on February 25, 1982, the late Brigadier Pinto took him to General Álvarez's office, where the DINE director congratulated him for the mission.

Víctor Pinto Pérez was sentenced to 8 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, without benefits, as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of the union leader. Today, on page C 6 of El Mercurio, his death is reported.

Benefit of supervised release

The Supreme Court exempted Víctor Pinto Pérez from prison time, who was convicted as the perpetrator of the disappearance and homicide of thirteen victims of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), and forced him to serve five years on supervised release.

The convicted man served prison time for the 8-year sentence for the crime against unionist Tucapel Jiménez. He was also prosecuted in other human rights violation cases.

Víctor Pinto Pérez, a retired Army brigadier, was convicted as the perpetrator of various crimes that occurred at the San Bernardo Infantry School, southwest of Santiago. According to official reports on the military government, the victims, aged between 17 and 48, were militants of the Communist Party and worked at the San Bernardo Railway Workshops, where they were detained under the accusation, never supported, that they wanted to blow up a gas pipeline.

For their part, both Manuel Tomás Rojas and René Máximo Martínez were 20 years old and were reservists of the San Bernardo Infantry School. The latter disappeared when he went to ask at a military barracks about the whereabouts of his father, Juan Domingo Martínez, who had been a socialist leader and was also executed.

Source: reddigital.cl, October 22, 2015

San Miguel Court Confirms Sentence of Former Army Officer for the Crime of Three Rural Teachers from Linderos in October 1973

The San Miguel Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that convicted a former Army officer for his responsibility in the consummated crimes of simple kidnapping and aggravated homicide of teachers Hugolino Humberto Arias Navarrete, Víctor Omar Gálvez Norambuena, and Nelson Joaquín Medina Letelier, perpetrated in October 1973 in the commune of San Bernardo.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 440-2023), the Second Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers María Carolina Catepillán Lobos, Liliana Mera Muñoz, and minister Patricio Martínez Benavides—ratified the sentence issued by the minister for extraordinary visits, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, which sentenced former Army Brigadier Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos to 15 years and one day of effective prison as the perpetrator of the crimes of aggravated homicide of the victims, and to 3 years and one day of effective prison as the perpetrator of the crime of kidnapping the teachers.

Meanwhile, the criminal former officer Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena, who in the first instance was also sentenced to the same prison terms as Romero Campos, was dismissed due to having fallen into dementia or mental alienation before the court issued its ruling.

In the judicial investigation by Minister Cifuentes, it was established that, following the restrictions imposed by the coup d'état, and in compliance with an order issued by the military who had seized power, on Monday, October 1, 1973, teachers Hugolino Humberto Arias Navarrete, 35 years old, Víctor Omar Gálvez Norambuena, 21 years old, and Nelson Joaquín Medina Letelier, 23 years old, left their respective homes for the rural technical school where they worked, located in the town of Linderos, Buin commune, in order to resume classes that had been suspended since September 11, 1973.

However, the three teachers were detained by officials from the Buin Carabineros Station, who transferred them to the aforementioned police unit, directed at the time by Major Héctor Ubilla Castillo (currently deceased), and then handed them over to a military patrol from the San Bernardo Infantry School, led by Captain Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez, also deceased.

Subsequently, the detained teachers were taken to the prisoner camp of the San Bernardo Infantry School, located on Cerro Chena, a military facility under the command of officers Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos (who rose to the rank of Army Brigadier), Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena (now "insane," who reached the rank of lieutenant colonel), and Osvaldo Andrés Magaña Bau (former colonel, now deceased), among others, all from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School.

On October 2, 1973, teachers Hugolino Humberto Arias Navarrete, Víctor Omar Gálvez Norambuena, and Nelson Joaquín Medina Letelier were executed inside the San Bernardo Infantry School, outside of all legality, by means of multiple firearm shots.

Regarding the sentence against the criminal Jorge Romero Campos, the resolution of the San Miguel Court states:

"That regarding the participation of the accused in the crimes of aggravated homicide for which he was convicted, the truth is that it is an established fact in the case... that the victims, Hugolino Humberto Arias Navarrete, Víctor Omar Gálvez Norambuena, and Nelson Joaquín Medina Letelier were detained on October 1, 1973, and subsequently taken from the Buin Carabineros Station to the San Bernardo Infantry School, where they were executed the following day," the ruling maintains.

"The homicides for which Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos was convicted are framed within a generalized and systematic attack against a specific group of the civilian population, composed, in this case, of people whom State agents, the capacity held by the accused, categorized as 'extremists'."

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, October 28, 2023

Supreme Court Convicts Military Officer and Detective (Ret.) for Aggravated Kidnapping and Abduction of a Minor

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court confirmed the first-instance sentence that convicted the then-Army lieutenant Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena to 6 and 4 years of effective prison, as the perpetrator of aggravated kidnapping and abduction, respectively.

The Supreme Court convicted a retired Army officer and a retired Investigative Police officer for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Luis Heriberto Contreras Escamilla and the abduction of his son, Luis Heriberto Contreras Peñaloza, 16 years old at the time of the events.

These crimes were committed in November 1973 in the communes of San Miguel and San Bernardo, respectively.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 5.540-2022), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Jorge Dahm, Diego Simpértigue, and lawyers (i) Leonor Etcheberry and Carolina Coppo—confirmed the first-instance sentence that convicted the then-Army lieutenant Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena to 6 and 4 years of effective prison, as the perpetrator of aggravated kidnapping and abduction, respectively.

Likewise, the sentence issued by the special minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, was confirmed, which sentenced the former Investigative Police officer Roberto Arcángel Rozas Aguilera to 3 years and one day and 541 days in prison, with the benefit of supervised release for a term of 5 years, as a co-perpetrator of the crimes.

In the ruling, the Supreme Court established an error of law in the challenged sentence, issued by the San Miguel Court of Appeals, in acquitting the accused Rozas Aguilera and in the participation attributed to Faúndez Norambuena in the events.

"That under these circumstances, it is clear that the second-instance judiciary, when resolving the controversy submitted to its knowledge and acquitting the accused Roberto Arcángel Rozas Aguilera, has incurred in the infractions of the rules governing evidence denounced by the plaintiff, by estimating, in summary, as evidenced by the reasoning transcribed above, that the prosecution's evidence was insufficient to consider his participation in the events as significantly configured, through an incomplete reproduction of the evidence analyzed and weighed by the first-instance court," the ruling maintains.

The resolution adds that: "Thus, the sentence does not explain, despite the fact that criminal responsibility is personal and not collective, how and why this accused lacks the participation attributed to him in the crimes subject to the case, nor does it express the considerations taken into account to omit the analysis of those evidentiary antecedents on which the first-instance judge based his conviction determination, which—as noted—the appealed judges considered useful and credible to prove the illicit facts, deciding his acquittal, thus incurring in the denounced vice."

"On the contrary, 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 proven that Rozas Aguilera, in his capacity as an Investigative Police officer assigned to work at that military facility, carried out interrogations of detainees at the clandestine detention center of Cerro Chena, a fact from which it follows that Rozas Aguilera voluntarily took part in the execution of the criminal acts, in determining terms and with functional control of the act, thereby allowing the captivity of the victims to be prolonged, for which he has corresponded to participation as a co-perpetrator, in the terms provided for in article 15 N°1 of the Penal Code, by having taken part in the execution of the acts, through his functional contribution to it," the ruling states.

"That, consequently, and regarding the acquittal of the accused Roberto Arcángel Rozas Aguilera, the challenged sentence incurs in the infractions denounced in the cassation appeal under examination—based on the cause provided for in article 546 N° 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure—since from the merit of what was narrated by the accused himself and the other elements of evidence in the case, mentioned in foundation 24° ut supra, not valued by the second-instance judiciary, it has been possible to determine that by having been assigned as an Investigative Police officer to interrogate detainees at the clandestine facility located inside the San Bernardo Infantry School, situated on Cerro Chena, he materially executed the illicit acts, in compliance with the directives given by the command superiority, for which Rozas Aguilera had co-control of the act, contributing functionally to the execution of the same in its entirety, collaborating in that way and in a determining manner to maintain the deprivation of liberty of the victims Luis Heriberto Contreras Escamilla and Luis Heriberto Contreras Espinoza," it highlights.

Likewise, the ruling records that: "(...) regarding the participation of the accused Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena, the challenged sentence incurs in an error of law with influence on the dispositive part of the ruling, since from the established facts, mentioned in foundation 18° and 26° of the first-instance sentence, it has been possible to determine that by having served as an Army lieutenant, in charge of the Cerro Chena prisoner camp, interrogating detainees and exercising direct command over the soldiers who were in charge of the feeding and custody of the detainees, he had co-control of the act, contributing functionally to the execution of the act in its entirety, forming part of the repressive group that devised and decided the deprivation of liberty of the victim, collaborating in that way and in a determining manner to maintain their confinement."

For the Criminal Chamber: "It is not, therefore, a matter of an intervention typical of mediate authorship of the crime of aggravated homicide perpetrated against the victim Luis Contreras Escamilla, but rather the performance of executive acts, contributing functionally to the joint or collective realization of the plan as a whole, accepted expressly or tacitly, with knowledge and will to participate in them, which under the principle of reciprocal imputation, are constitutive of co-authorship, in the terms provided for in article 15 N°3 of the Penal Code."

"That departing from the reflections noted above, the second-instance judiciary qualifies the participation of Faúndez Norambuena as mediate authorship, while framing his criminal participation in article 15 N°3 of the Penal Code, noting a first error of law, but which has no influence on the dispositive part of the ruling, since both forms of intervention in the criminal acts are sanctioned in the same way."

"However—it delves—a second error of law is incurred that directly affects the dispositive part of that determination, since departing from the facts that were established by the first-instance judiciary, contained in foundation 18° and 26°, as noted, and which the second-instance sentence declares to reproduce; it establishes that 'Faúndez Norambuena acted as head of the executing agents in the materialization of the investigated facts, taking advantage of his competence or ascendancy over the rest of the personnel so that crimes were committed,' a conclusion devoid of the elements of conviction on which it is based, taking for granted that the soldiers of the San Bernardo Infantry School who detained Luis Contreras Escamilla and kept him deprived of liberty in the detention center located on Cerro Chena, were those who executed him by means of multiple firearm shots and that in such criminal events, Faúndez Norambuena took advantage of his competence or ascendancy over them to commit the crime, facts that have not been considered proven by the judges of the merits, after the evaluation of the prosecution's evidence."

"The sentence does not explain, then, how and why this accused took advantage of the command he held to perpetrate the illicit act of aggravated homicide, nor does it express the considerations taken into account to conclude that the soldiers under his command were those who finally finished off the victim, omitting the analysis of those evidentiary antecedents in support of his conviction determination, thus incurring in infraction of articles 15 N° 3 and 391 N°1 of the Penal Code, by omitting the requirements of reasoning of the sentences, provided for in article 500 N° 4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which led to imposing on this defendant a penalty greater than that which was appropriate, by convicting him as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated homicide, for which reason, in accordance with what is provided for in article 785 of the Code of Civil Procedure, this Court will act ex officio to correct the incorrect application of the law, quashing ex officio the challenged sentence in this area, as will be provided in the operative part," it concludes.

In the ratified first-instance sentence, the special minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, considered the following facts established:

"1° That on November 10, 1973, at night, soldiers of the San Bernardo Infantry School detained, without right, Luis Heriberto Contreras Escamilla, a militant of the Socialist Party, at his home, located at Pasaje Porto Alegre N° 5.742, Brasilia neighborhood, in the commune of San Miguel. 2° That, immediately thereafter, the aforementioned military patrol detained, without right, Luis Heriberto Contreras Peñaloza, 16 years old, a member of the Revolutionary Student Front of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, son of Contreras Escamilla, in a property in the Carbomet neighborhood of the commune of San Bernardo. 3° That, subsequently, both detainees were transferred to the prisoner camp of the San Bernardo Infantry School, located on Cerro Chena, a place where they were kept locked up, without right, and were subjected to interrogations and physical and psychological mistreatment. 4° That, at that time, the Cerro Chena prisoner camp was in charge of Captain Víctor Raúl Pinto Pérez—currently deceased—and Lieutenant Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena, both of the Chilean Army. 5° That, likewise, in the temporal context indicated above, they performed functions in the aforementioned prisoner camp, as interrogators, Army Second Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Alonso Magaña Bau, Carabineros Lieutenant Sergio Heriberto Ávila Quiroga, and Investigative Police officers Óscar Hernán Vergara Cruces—currently deceased—and Roberto Arcángel Rozas Aguilera. 6° That on November 15, 1973, inside the aforementioned prisoner camp, Luis Contreras Escamilla was executed, outside the legal framework, by means of multiple firearm shots."

In the civil aspect, the sentence that ordered the treasury to pay a total compensation of $420,000,000 for moral damages to the plaintiffs was maintained. The amount is broken down into $140,000,000 to the spouse and mother of the victims; $100,000,000 to the daughter and sister, and $180,000,000 to the son and surviving victim.

Source: pjud.cl, February 28, 2024