Minister Álvaro Mesa sentences 3 retired Carabineros for the aggravated kidnapping of José Domingo Llabulén Pilquinao in Lautaro.

The visiting judge sentenced retired Carabineros Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez, Marcial Edmundo Vera Ríos, and Domingo Antonio Campos Collao. The visiting judge for human rights violation cases of the Temuco Court of Appeals, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, sentenced retired Carabineros Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez, Marcial Edmundo Vera Ríos, and Domingo Antonio Campos Collao to 12 years in prison for their responsibility as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of José Domingo Llabulén Pilquinao, an illicit act committed on October 11, 1973, in the commune of Lautaro.

During the investigation, the extraordinary visiting judge was able to establish the following facts: A.- That starting on September 11, 1973, at the 1st Carabineros Precinct of Lautaro, the command in charge of the unit, including Major Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez and Captain Marcial Edmundo Vera Ríos, organized and coordinated a special group of Carabineros that included Juvenal Santiago Sanhueza Sanhueza (R.I.P.), Enrique Ferrier Valeze (R.I.P.), Mario Ponce Orellana (R.I.P.), and Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, among others, who, under the orders of Lieutenant José Orlando Huerta Ávila (R.I.P.), collaborated with army personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro. They conducted joint patrols in the rural area under the jurisdiction of the aforementioned police unit, while also identifying the names and addresses of individuals who were subsequently detained and taken to the precinct to be interrogated in different areas of that unit; or who were removed by this special group of Carabineros and military personnel to be taken to locations unknown to this day. B.- That on the afternoon of October 11, 1973, José Domingo Llabulén Pilquinao, 44 years old, a farmer and member of the Communist Party, was traveling on a rural bus from Lautaro to his home located in the indigenous community of Quiñaco – Manzanal, accompanied by two of his children. At a certain point on the road, the bus was intercepted by a patrol of Carabineros from the 1st Precinct of Lautaro, who were traveling in a private pickup truck, ordering the driver to stop. Immediately thereafter, they forced all passengers off the bus and subsequently took José Domingo Llabulén Pilquinao into custody, placing him in the pickup truck in which the patrol was traveling, apparently without a judicial warrant authorizing such an act. C.- Witnesses to the detention were the victim's two children who were accompanying him at that time, namely Juan Alfonso Llabulén Llaulén (now deceased) and José Domingo Llabulén Llaulén, who identified Sergeant Ferrier (R.I.P.), Mario Ponce Orellana (R.I.P.), and Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, all from Lautaro, as members of the group of captors. The patrol immediately headed to the Lautaro Precinct, followed by the Llabulén Llaulén brothers, who were able to see the moment their father was taken out of the vehicle and brought into the unit; this was the last time they had any news regarding their father's whereabouts. In the civil aspect, the ruling ordered the state to pay a total indemnity of $55,000,000 for moral damages to the victim's son.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, February 23, 2018

Minister Álvaro Mesa indicts retired Army officer and retired Carabinero for unlawful coercion and illegal detention of a CORFO employee

The extraordinary visiting judge for human rights violation cases for the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, indicted retired Army Colonel Jorge Nibaldo Del Río Del Río as the perpetrator of the crimes of unlawful coercion and illegal detention of Guido Erwis Venegas Avilés, as crimes against humanity.

These illicit acts were perpetrated in September 1973 in the commune of Lautaro. In the resolution (case file 45.373), the instructing judge also indicted retired Carabineros First Sergeant Domingo Antonio Campos Collao as an accomplice to the crime of unlawful coercion, as a crime against humanity, against the same victim.

During the investigation phase of the case, Judge Mesa Latorre managed to gather sufficient evidence to establish the following facts, which constitute crimes against humanity: “

A.-

That on September 11, 1973, the Armed Forces and Public Order and Security Forces assumed the Supreme command of the Nation, gathering the Constituent, Legislative, and Executive powers in the Government Junta, as established in Communiqué No. 5 of the same date, as well as in Decree Law No. 1, subsequently clarified and complemented by Decree Laws Nos. 128, 527, and 788.

Among other measures, a State of Siege was ordered throughout the national territory, and a level-one state of alert was ordered for the Armed Forces and Order and Security forces.

B.-

That by September 11, 1973, as a result of the events occurring in the country, a special operational group called a “civil commission” was formed in all precincts, dedicated to intelligence work that consisted of investigating information regarding specific individuals who were considered in military communiqués, among others; that is, these were tasks that fell outside of standard police procedures [the foregoing is documented in case file 113.987 from the First Criminal Court of Temuco, file 14-2013 from the Illustrious Court of Appeals of Valdivia, file 45.359 from the Lautaro Civil Court, file 45.362 from the Lautaro Civil Court, file 45.368 from the Lautaro Civil Court], among others, all followed by this Tribunal and which are of public knowledge.

C.-

That in the case of the 1st Carabineros Precinct of Lautaro, it was under the charge of the Carabineros Commissioner, Major Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez (deceased), followed in command by Captain Marcial Edmundo Vera Ríos (deceased).

The special group was integrated and led by Lieutenant José Orlando Huerta Ávila (deceased), Enrique Ferrier Valeze (deceased), Mario Ponce Orellana (deceased), Egidio Manuel Sandoval Umaña (deceased), Juvenal Santiago Sanhueza Sanhueza (deceased), Santiago Millangir Hueche (deceased), and Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, among others.

This special group carried out patrols in rural and urban areas and simultaneously collaborated with personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro. This group was led by Captain Jorge Nibaldo Del Río Del Río, conducting joint patrols in the rural area under the jurisdiction of said police unit, proceeding to indicate the names and addresses of individuals who were subsequently detained and taken to the precinct to be interrogated in different areas, such as the Lautaro precinct itself and the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro.

D.-

That the facilities of the 1st Carabineros Precinct of Lautaro were used to hold those detained by this special group and those detained by personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro, who were subsequently transported by this special group to an unknown destination or removed by personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro, according to testimonies, among others, of Víctor Matus Vásquez (pp. 426-427, Vol.

II); José Domingo Segundo Llabulén Llabulén (p. 810, Vol. III); Francisca Llaulén Antilao (p. 811, Vol. III); Sergio Samuel Jara Sandoval (p. 814, Vol. III); Santiago Millangir Hueche (pp. 807-808, Vol.

III); Paicavi Lemolemo Painemal Morales (pp. 507-509, Vol. II); Hernán Patricio Mardones Díaz (pp. 495-497, Vol. II); Rafael García Ferlice (pp. 801-803, Vol. III); Mario Ponce Orellana (p. 804, Vol. III); Ida del Carmen Meliquén Quilodrán (p. 806, Vol.

III); and Carlos Antonio Navarro Schifferli (p. 807, Vol. III), a place where men and women were held indiscriminately. The superior command composed of Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez (deceased), Marcial Edmundo Vera (deceased), and José Orlando Huerta Ávila (deceased) had knowledge of all these records of detentions of people who were taken to the Lautaro precinct, as indicated.

E.-

That Guido Erwis Venegas Avilés, in 1973, was 26 years old and worked as an executive for the agricultural company Magrimsa, finding himself at that date on a service commission at CORFO in the city of Concepción, and was also the municipal secretary of the Socialist Party in the city of Lautaro. (As documented in, among other records, pp. 01, 14, 232, 312, 384, Vol. I).

F.-

That on September 13, 1973, Venegas Avilés was at the Calatayú Estate in the Quillem sector (Perquenco), together with Luis Candia Figueroa, a leader of the Socialist Party and student leader at the University of Temuco.

Both were in hiding, with intentions of fleeing to Argentina, as they had been sought by the authorities, at which moment two trucks and a jeep arrived with personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro, who detained them and placed them in one of the trucks, in which a teacher named Norton Maza Ferreira and a merchant named Rodolfo Mencke were also being held.

The detainees were threatened at all times by a military officer who struck them with his fists, breaking their noses.

G.-

That upon being detained, Guido Venegas and Luis Candia were taken to the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro, where Venegas Avilés was brought into a room and interrogated by approximately three to four people, remaining blindfolded and kept in that facility until midnight, to then be taken to the First Carabineros Precinct of Lautaro, where he saw Carabineros Domingo Campos Collao, Sergeant Santiago Millanguir Hueche, and Víctor Matus Vásquez (as documented in, among other records, pp. 14, 15, Vol.

I), being able to recognize the first of these because he was a cousin of his ex-spouse. He arrived at said police unit at approximately one or two in the morning, where Venegas Avilés was struck with a baton on the head and all over his body.

At the same time, one side of his head was shaved, and he was left in a cell with other detainees, where he told the other detainees what had happened, among whom was the priest Wilfredo Alarcón, who recounts in his book Biografía sobre Juan Ansina that “…They were the ones who impressed me most that day, you saw them arrive that night, around two or three in the morning, Guido Venegas, soaking wet, dripping water, drenched… his face looked like a bag of bruised meat, his eyes had sunk, his nose broken, his lips impossible, his head broken, according to him his ribs broken so he couldn't move, he didn't have a good part… and then Candia, I don't know if they hit him less or if he was more resistant, but he seemed less damaged… although his nose was also broken and the blows on his face were noticeable” (as documented in, among other records, pp. 01, 14, 32, 43, 59, 84, 85, 87, Vol. I; p. 543, Vol. II). That although the aforementioned uniformed officers, including Domingo Campos Collao, were part of the group of people (Carabineros) present in said precinct while Venegas Avilés was being beaten and tortured by a Carabinero (Badge 79, unidentified), they did not take any action to prevent the execution of the illicit act, nor did they report or inform the Carabineros superior command or any other authority of the event. Likewise, there is no record that an investigation was carried out for those illicit acts or that they were reported to the courts of justice at the time of the events, nor is there any record of an administrative investigation having been initiated as a consequence of the commission of this illicit act.

H.-

That the day after what is related in the previous paragraph, Guido Venegas was taken to the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro and led to a room while blindfolded; they beat him with feet and fists, placed a sack of wet sand on his body, and tortured him, placing a plastic bag over his head, suffocating him until he almost lost consciousness, and interrogated him while showing him threatening photographs of his wife and infant daughter.

This session was directed by Captain Jorge Nibaldo Del Río Del Río, a person whom Venegas Avilés was able to recognize, as he states on p. 15: “…I recognized him by his voice since it had been he who had interrogated me the first time I was taken to the aforementioned regiment…”, while he received blows with an iron bar to his lips, which caused several of his teeth to be knocked out.

These facts coincide with the statement of Lidia del Carmen Torres Abarzúa, widow of the retired Army non-commissioned officer Nelson Medina Caro, who details on p. 167 that “… three more people, Guido Venegas, Luis De la Maza, and Luis Candia, were detained and tortured by Jorge del Rio and Rafael García, after having been surprised hiding in a well located in the field…” adding that her husband had received orders from Jorge Del Río to execute the aforementioned individuals, which he did not fulfill, only to then be returned to the Carabineros Precinct of Lautaro, where he remained until the first days of October 1973. (As documented in, among other records, pp. 01, 09, 10, 14, 15, 16, 134, 150, 167, 175, Vol. I; pp. 674, 675, Vol. II).

I.-

That while detained in the Lautaro precinct, during the first days of October 1973, Guido Venegas Avilés was taken to the Temuco jail, being released at the end of October of that year without a prior trial. (As documented in, among other records, pp. 01, 366 bis, 368, Vol.

I). Subsequently, he continued to be sought by Carabineros, a situation that ended in January 1975, that is, after a process before the military prosecutor's office, being temporarily dismissed by Military Prosecutor Alfonso Podlech Michaud, subsequently obtaining his freedom.” Regarding the accused Jorge Nibaldo del Río Río, house arrest was ordered due to his age, for which the 34th Criminal Court of Santiago was notified to enforce the decreed precautionary measure.

Meanwhile, regarding the accused Domingo Campos Collao, no precautionary measure was decreed, as he is currently serving a sentence at the Punta Peuco Prison for other cases involving human rights violations.

Source: pjud.cl, April 24, 2023