The Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, in a unanimous ruling, ratified this Tuesday the indictment against Colonel (Ret.) José Núñez Magallanes, in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime of torture recorded inside the Tejas Verdes regiment, in the Fifth Region.

In this way, the appellate court confirmed the ruling of the visiting judge Alejandro Solís, who in March of last year charged a series of former uniformed officers as perpetrators of unlawful coercion and the application of torture at said facility between 1973 and 1974.

Also indicted in the case are General Manuel Contreras, Colonels Claudio Kossiel Horning and Vittorio Orvieto, Lieutenant Colonels Raúl Quintana Salazar and Daniel Miranda, Major Mario Jara Seguel, Sergeant Major Patricio Carranca Saavedra, and detective Nelson Valdés Cornejo, all of whom are retired.

The Corporation for the Defense of the People's Rights (Codepu), a plaintiff in the case represented by lawyer Hiram Villagra, highlighted that the appellate court's ruling allows for progress in clarifying human rights violations. “The confirmation of the indictments against human rights violators constitutes an advance in the search for truth and the effective access of torture survivors to justice, in the conviction that this is the most effective mechanism for reparation and non-repetition,” the entity stated.

Source: El Mostrador.cl, August 26, 2006

Nine former military officers from Tejas Verdes regiment indicted

The Chilean justice system today indicted nine former military officers as perpetrators of aggravated kidnapping and torture against opponents of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

The resolution by Judge Alejandro Solís affects those who were in charge of the Tejas Verdes regiment at the time, among whom is the former head of the DINA, retired General Manuel Contreras. Also subjected to the process were Mario Jara, Nelson Valdés, Raúl Quintana, David Miranda, Patricio Carranca, Klaudio Kossiel, and Vittorio Orvietto, all retired officers.

The former military officers were indicted, among other reasons, for the disappearances of Communist militant Miguel Heredia and Félix Vargas, a member of the personal guard of former President Salvador Allende, the Group of Friends of the President (GAP).

Retired Colonel Jorge Núñez was also indicted for the crime of torture committed against opponent Anatolio Zárate, an employee of Pesquera Arauco. Zárate was detained on September 11, 1973, and subsequently transferred to Tejas Verdes, a place where he was subjected to torture that leaves him to this day with chronic post-traumatic stress and emotional and psychological trauma.

Source: La Nacion.cl, September 22, 2006

Who is the DINA agent sentenced to 20 years in Punta Peuco who sued a journalist for "slander" for publishing his crimes

On August 16 at 10:00 a.m., journalist Javier Ignacio Rebolledo Escobar must appear before the Eighth Guarantee Court of Santiago due to the lawsuit filed against him for alleged crimes of serious slander with publicity.

And the lawsuit—in an unprecedented move—has the support of a military officer who is sentenced to 20 years in prison and who is currently incarcerated in Punta Peuco since 2014. This follows the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Raúl Quintana Salazar, Carolina Paz Quintana, filing the action against him for considering that the book in which he appears, “Camaleón- Doble vida de un Agente Comunista” (Chameleon - Double Life of a Communist Agent), attacks the honor of the man who is currently serving a sentence in Punta Peuco for crimes against humanity.

But who is the military officer Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar? It is clear he is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the Army who was part of Pinochet's political police, the DINA, from its inception. Quintana is incarcerated in the Punta Peuco prison serving ten years and one day of imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of five forcibly disappeared persons.

To this, he adds a five-year sentence for the application of torture against detainees at the Tejas Verdes prisoner camp, the place where the DINA was created and where a group of torturers, including Quintana Salazar, experimented on them.

Likewise, he is sentenced in the final instance to five years in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of two Uruguayan citizens. And he is indicted in another case of crimes against humanity for illicit association, kidnapping, application of torture, and aggravated kidnapping.

The DINA was born in the Tejas Verdes regiment in San Antonio, where the then-Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda was the head of that unit and Raúl Quintana—the plaintiff against journalist Javier Rebolledo—was part of his select team of torturers.

According to the site to preserve and learn about the criminals who participated in the dictatorship and who committed hundreds of serious crimes, Memoria Viva, Raúl Quintana participated in several crimes and acts of torture against men and women.

According to Memoria Viva, Quintana participated in the torture and murders carried out at the “Tejas Verdes” concentration camp. This repressive center was located in the Province of San Antonio and was part of the Army's repression infrastructure; it was one of the most paradigmatic torture centers, directly related to the formation and operations center of the DINA since 1973.

In this torture facility, agents from different intelligence services were also trained in methods of torture and repression. Among the “professors” was the former Mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé.

According to the Rettig Report, “Tejas Verdes” corresponded to: Camp No. 2 for Prisoners of the “Tejas Verdes” School of Military Engineers: Said detention facility, which reached more than 100 prisoners at certain times, functioned as such from September 11, 1973, with testimonies of its systematic use for such purposes until mid-1974.

Political prisoners who were held in Tejas Verdes point out that, immediately after the coup d'état, they were transferred to San Antonio and Melipilla and then to Tejas Verdes, where they were cruelly tortured and subsequently murdered in the same place or in other locations in the region.

Among the criminals of said torture camp were: General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, General (Ret.) Eugenio Armando Videla Valdebenito, Colonel (Ret.) of Health Vittorio Orvieto Teplinzki, Colonel (Ret.) Jorge Núñez Magallanes, Colonel (Ret.) Klaudio Erich Kossiel Horning, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Daniel Adolfo Miranda Monarde, Major (Ret.) Mario Alejandro Jara Seguel, Sergeant Major (Ret.) Patricio Laureano Carranca Saavedra, Prefect (Ret.) of Investigations Nelson Patricio Valdés Cornejo, and the civilian DINA agent Carlos Roberto Araya Silva. The latter has a life linked to Manuel Contreras after the coup d'état. Victims executed or disappeared by the criminals of Tejas Verdes:

Executed

Armando Jiménez Machuca Samuel Núñez González Guillermo Álvarez Cañas Héctor Rojo Alfaro Raúl Enrique Bacciarini Zorrilla Fidel Alfonso Bravo Álvarez Jorge Antonio Cornejo Carvajal Patricio del Carmen Rojas González

Disappeared

Rebeca Espinoza Sepúlveda José Pérez Hermosilla José Orellana Meza The case of Rebeca Espinoza and the announcer who reached high positions at TVN One of the cases in which the military officer Quintana was involved is that of Rebeca Espinoza.

She was 40 years old, had five children, had no known political affiliation, and was a secretary at the Institute of Agricultural Development (INDAP) when she was detained in the vicinity of the Plaza de la Constitución along with José Miguel Rivas Rachitoff and José Leonardo Pérez Hermosilla, socialist militants, who had an itinerary similar to Espinoza's and are currently also disappeared... or dead.

In the case of military doctor Vittorio Orvieto, after being indicted by Judge Solís, he returned from the United States in April 2005 to turn himself in. After examining them, Orvieto was the one who gave the green light for prisoners to continue being tortured.

On September 11, 1973, when he began to assemble the DINA a few days later, Manuel Contreras held the rank of Colonel and was the head of the state of siege zone of the province of San Antonio. Working closely with him was the announcer for a San Antonio radio station, Carlos Roberto Araya Silva, who became a DINA agent.

Later, Manuel Contreras was promoted to General and formally took charge of the DINA nationwide. He brought Roberto Araya Silva—as he was known—to Santiago, where he arrived as head of security at TVN and then rose in rank due to his friendship with "Mamo" Contreras.

Roberto Araya began reading news on screen in 1975, especially those arriving from abroad. Very soon he was appointed Director of Press, without having studied Journalism at any university. In 1975, he was part, along with journalists Julio López Blanco and Claudio Sánchez, of the so-called Rinconada de Maipú setup where five people, all relatives, were murdered.

For this, they were sanctioned by the College of Journalists and later sued for their complicity in the DINA operation.

Source: Cambio21, July 24, 2018

Javier Rebolledo, author of “Camaleón”: “It is serious that a journalist can go to jail for doing their job”

The journalist and writer stated to The Clinic that "I wrote that I located Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar and that there was a narrative from an agent of the military intelligence service who pointed out that in a torture session at the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, where the DINA was being created, he had inserted a carrot of regular size into a female detainee who was being tortured there .

That, apparently, was what affected the honor of Raúl Quintana, which is why he sued me through his daughter, Carolina Quintana." A few days ago, the lawsuit for slander and defamation received by journalist and author of “Camaleón, la doble vida de un agente comunista”, Javier Rebolledo, caused total controversy.

Said judicial action came from none other than retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, who is in prison in Punta Peuco serving a 20-year sentence for crimes against humanity, such as torture of detainees in Tejas Verdes, homicide, torment, and aggravated kidnapping.

Although on May 8 the justice system declared the request inadmissible, Rebolledo stated that the plaintiff's lawyer, Juan Carlos Manns, “appealed the resolution to the Court of Appeals, and on June 13 the Third Chamber dismissed what was resolved by the lower court, stating briefly that ‘the facts that form the basis of the complaint may constitute a crime.’ From that moment on, I am charged and summoned with a warning of public force for August 16.” In this context, Javier Rebolledo delved into the role played by Quintana Salazar during the dictatorship and the serious precedent that this lawsuit means for the journalism profession. What is your book “Camaleón, doble vida de un agente comunista” about? The book tells the life of Mariano Jara, who was a famous businessman during the 70s and 80s in Chile. He was the partner of showgirls like Maggie Lay or Wendy, owner of more than 15 horses, vice president of the Association of Horse Owners, and owner of Nadir. A man who moved in the world of the right, knew the director of the CNI, Humberto Gordón, and several other guys, but at the same time was the weapons warehouseman for the Communist Party. He was a member of the PC's military apparatus and had a relevant participation in the installation of weapons in Carrizal Bajo. It is his story. Why did the lawsuit against you arise? One of the characters that Mariano used to create his camouflage and approach the Chilean right and hide this role of weapons warehouseman for the PC was to approach Raúl Quintana Salazar, an army officer who worked with the DINA and who was a relative by marriage of Mariano, that is, he was married to a direct niece of Jara. Mariano Jara told me this and I, at the same time, knew who Raúl Quintana was. He had been in charge of the Tejas Verdes prisoner camp, he was sentenced to 20 years in different human rights cases, let's say crimes, forced disappearance, torture. I wrote that I located Quintana Salazar and that there was a narrative from an agent of the military intelligence service who pointed out that in a torture session at the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, where the DINA was being created, he had inserted a carrot of regular size into a female detainee who was being tortured there . That, apparently, was what affected the honor of Raúl Quintana, which is why he sued me through his daughter, Carolina Quintana. What is the gravity of this decision by the justice system? From the point of view of the practice of journalism, it is serious, because there is a long-standing ethical discussion about why journalists should not be faced with jail time for the things they publish. Yes, probably civil lawsuits, but it is serious that a journalist, in this case me, who didn't even publish something that is a lie, has to face the possibility of going to jail for doing my job. It is a terrible precedent for everything that our profession can mean. How do you think the case will end? I don't want to make a prediction, I hope it ends well, but I thought the lawsuit was not going to prosper and I was wrong. So, since I don't want to be wrong, I don't know how it will end. I want it to end well, but I don't have the certainty of that.

• It should be noted that on August 16, at 10:00 a.m., the public hearing between Javier Rebolledo and the plaintiff will take place at the Pedro Montt justice building.

Source: theclinic.cl, July 25, 2018

Minister Marianela Cifuentes sentences retired military officers to 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping of an SML official

The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced three retired members of the Army and a doctor who provided services to the military branch for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Luis Alberto Sepúlveda Carvajal.

The illicit act was perpetrated starting September 26, 1973, at the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, located in the commune of San Antonio. In the ruling (case roll 28-2009 N), the visiting minister sentenced Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, a reserve second lieutenant at the time of the events, Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, a lieutenant, Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza, a first sergeant, and the then-Army doctor Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky to 10 years of effective imprisonment, in their capacity as perpetrators of the crime.

In the resolution, Minister Cifuentes Alarcón established the following facts: "1° That, on September 26, 1973, Luis Alberto Sepúlveda Carvajal, an official of the San Antonio Legal Medical Service, was detained, without legal basis, by officers of the Chilean Investigative Police, who transferred him to the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, being taken at night to the prisoner camp of said military unit, under the charge of Major David Adolfo Miranda Monardes, reserve second lieutenant Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, and first sergeant Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza, all of the Chilean Army, where he remained locked up until the 29th of the same month and year. 2° That on September 29, 1973, at 11:00 p.m., Luis Alberto Sepúlveda Carvajal was detained, without legal basis, at his home by military personnel, who took him back to the prisoner camp of the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, a place where he remained deprived of liberty until October 13 of the same year, the date on which he was transferred to the San Antonio Prison. 3° That, on repeated occasions, Sepúlveda Carvajal was transferred from the aforementioned prisoner camp and from the San Antonio Prison to the basement of the officers' club of the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, a place where he was interrogated and subjected to unlawful coercion, specifically the application of electricity and physical mistreatment, leaving as a consequence severe psychological damage secondary to the traumatic experience lived during his confinement. 4° That the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers at that time was under the command of Army Lieutenant Colonel Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, Major David Adolfo Miranda Monardes, Major Jorge Rosendo Núñez Magallanes, and Major Mario Alejandro Jara Seguel, all deceased. 5° That, on the other hand, the interrogations under unlawful coercion carried out in the basement of the officers' club of the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers were in charge of Major Jorge Núñez Magallanes, Major Mario Jara Seguel, Captain Klaudio Erich Kosiel Hornig, Lieutenant Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, second sergeant Ramón Acuña Acuña, doctor Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky, and Investigative Police inspector Nelson Valdés Cornejo.”

Source: pdju.cl, August 9, 2023

Minister Marianela Cifuentes issues indictment against members of the (Ret.) Army for kidnapping, aggravated homicide, application of torture, and illicit association

Minister Marianela Cifuentes issued an indictment against former agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and a doctor for their responsibilities in the crimes of kidnapping, aggravated homicide, application of torture, and illicit association.

These illicit acts were perpetrated between September 1973 and February 1974 at the Tejas Verdes prisoner camp, in the commune of San Antonio. The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, issued an indictment against former agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and a doctor who provided services to the military branch for their responsibilities in the crimes of kidnapping, aggravated homicide, application of torture, and illicit association.

These illicit acts were perpetrated between September 1973 and February 1974 at the Tejas Verdes prisoner camp, in the commune of San Antonio. In the resolution (case roll 28-2009), Minister Cifuentes indicted Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky, and Ramón Luis Carriel as co-perpetrators of the crimes of kidnapping, application of torture, and aggravated homicide of Oscar Armando Gómez Farías, Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada, Jorge Antonio Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa, Carlos Aurelio Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Alberto Galaz Vera, and Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander, and as perpetrators of the crime of illicit association. Meanwhile, she held Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky, and Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza responsible as co-perpetrators of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and application of torture against Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas, and as perpetrators of the crime of illicit association. In the case, Minister Cifuentes charged Bernardo Purto Yarcho, as a perpetrator, with the crimes of kidnapping and application of torture against Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara. The minister also issued an indictment against Carlos Óscar Gregorio Evaristo Mardones Díaz, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Richter Aliro Nuche Sepúlveda, and Emilio Robert de la Mahotiere González, as perpetrators of the crimes of illicit association and aggravated kidnapping of Ceferino Santis Quijada, Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas. The minister directed charges against Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez as a perpetrator of the crime of illicit association and as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of kidnapping, application of torture, and aggravated homicide of Oscar Armando Gómez Farías, Jorge Antonio Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa, Carlos Aurelio Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Alberto Galaz Vera, and as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and application of torture against Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada, and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas. Meanwhile, the minister held Valentín del Carmen Escobedo Azúa responsible as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of kidnapping, application of torture, and aggravated homicide of Oscar Armando Gómez Farías, Jorge Antonio Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, and Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander, and as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and application of torture against Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada, Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas, and Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois. In the resolution, the minister issued an indictment against Ramón Rodrigo de Jesús Capona Kurth, Manuel Jesús Zamorano Cortés, and Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño as perpetrators of the crime of illicit association and as co-perpetrators of the crimes of kidnapping, application of torture, and aggravated homicide of Oscar Armando Gómez Farías, Jorge Antonio Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa, Carlos Aurelio Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Alberto Galaz Vera, and Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander, and as perpetrators of the crimes against Ceferino del Carmen Santis Quijada, Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, and Gustavo Manuel Farías Vargas. Finally, Minister Cifuentes issued an indictment against Eugenio Armando Videla Valdebenito and Cristian Labbé Galilea as perpetrators of the crime of illicit association.

Source: pdju.cl, September 11, 2023

Supreme Court sentences 5 former DINA agents for aggravated kidnapping and unlawful coercion

The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court issued a final judgment in the process that investigated the aggravated kidnapping and unlawful coercion against Luz de las Nieves Ayress Moreno, detained on January 30, 1974, in the commune of San Joaquín.

The ministers Leopoldo Llanos, María Teresa Letelier, Jean Pierre Matus, María Cristina Gajardo, and substitute minister Juan Manuel Muñoz resolved to sentence César Manríquez, Ciro Torré, Klaudio Kosiel, Raúl Pablo Quintana, and Vittorio Orvieto to a penalty of 10 years and 1 day, as co-perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Luz de las Nieves.

Likewise, all the former agents were sentenced to a penalty of 5 years, as co-perpetrators of the crime of unlawful coercion perpetrated against the victim. The Court rejected the appeal for cassation on the merits filed by the defense of Vittorio Orvieto against the second-instance ruling pronounced by the San Miguel Court of Appeals.

Plaintiff lawyer Francisco Ugás Tapia, legal coordinator of the Caucoto Abogados firm, stated that "as representatives of Ms. Luz de las Nieves Ayress Moreno, we express our satisfaction with the final judgment issued by the Supreme Court, in the case instructed to investigate and punish the crimes perpetrated against her person, and to provide reparation for the damage caused to her by state agents." In the same way, Ugás said that "we positively value and highlight the work of the judiciary in this case, manifested in the great task of Minister Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, and of the Supreme Court." The lawyer explained that "all the crimes committed by the dictatorship were terrible, but in this case, I must allude to some particular aspects, which have to do with the brutal sexual attacks committed against the victim by those state agents, and which are accounted for in the facts that the justice system considered justified. Making such criminal acts visible in the rulings; qualifying them legally as appropriate, recognizing the disvalue of the criminal conduct committed; and, setting sanctions proportional to such crimes, given their gravity, are relevant issues that we must recognize, and that should be applied in the judgment of all cases of this nature, past and present, that demand their analysis and resolution using a gender perspective," he emphasized. "It is very valuable and necessary that our justice system perseveres in its recognition and application of said perspective, for the sake of strengthening a human rights culture in our country," concluded Ugás. "I am very happy" Luz de las Nieves Ayress, a surviving victim who currently lives in New York, USA, expressed being "very happy because the Supreme Court accepted the ruling in my favor, after more than 50 years that my family, my companions, and I have been fighting." Despite this, she expresses that "that does not pay for all the damage that torturers and military officers from Pinochet downwards and the civil-military dictatorship did. Our lives and everything we have gone through are priceless, and there are many left along the way who have not yet received justice." Ayress wants the focus in the future to be "on the concept of political sexual violence," since, as she comments, "we women have fought hard for it to be included within the Penal Code, it is very important." Finally, she points out that the "struggle to recover our memory and truth opens the path to justice and we leave a legacy to the new generations of this nefarious part of Chile's history so that they have the capacity to warn of the advances of denialism and distortions of our history." The facts According to the investigation led by the visiting minister Marianela Cifuentes, the following facts were established: "1° That, on January 30, 1974, Luz de las Nieves Ayress Moreno was detained, without legal basis, at her father Carlos Orlando Ayress Soto's factory in the commune of San Joaquín, by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), an organization directed by Army Colonel Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, currently deceased. 2° That, immediately after, Luz Ayress Moreno was transferred to "Londres 38", a clandestine detention center of the DINA, under the charge of Army Major Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito, currently deceased, who, at the same time, depended on the Commander of the National Intelligence Brigade, Army Lieutenant Colonel César Manríquez Bravo. 3° That, at "Londres 38", Luz Ayress Moreno was interrogated and subjected to unlawful coercion, that is, application of electricity, hanging, stripping, threats, and rape via vaginal and anal routes, by state agents, among them, Carabineros Lieutenant Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez. 4° That, in the course of February 1974, Luz Ayress Moreno was taken, along with other detainees, among them her father Carlos Orlando Ayress Soto and her brother Carlos Orlando Ayress Moreno, to the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, a DINA detention center located in the commune of San Antonio, where Klaudio Erich Kosiel Hornig, Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, and Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky performed duties, a place where she was kept locked up without legal basis and subjected to brutal physical and psychological mistreatment, specifically being inflicted with repeated beatings, deliberate bodily injuries, application of electricity, threats, mock executions, humiliations, and indignities, witnessing the torture applied to her father and brother, stripping, and sexual assaults (they forced her to perform and suffer sexual acts, among them, carnal access via vaginal, anal, and oral routes, sexual acts with an animal, introduction of rats via vaginal route, and objects via vaginal and anal routes), causing her pregnancy, which did not reach term due to a spontaneous abortion. 5° That, subsequently, she was transferred to the Santiago Women's Prison and, from there, to the clandestine detention center "Tres Álamos", a place where she was interviewed by delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross on November 20, 1974."

Source: resumen.cl, November 14, 2024

Supreme Court sentences retired military officers for application of unlawful coercion in Tejas Verdes

The Second Chamber rejected the appeals for cassation on the merits filed against the sentences that condemned Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza, Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, and Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky for their responsibility in three consummated crimes of unlawful coercion.

These illicit acts were committed between September 1973 and January 1974, in the facilities of the Army's Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, in the commune of San Antonio. The Supreme Court rejected the appeals for cassation on the merits filed against the sentences that condemned Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza, Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, and Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky for their responsibility in three consummated crimes of unlawful coercion.

These illicit acts were committed between September 1973 and January 1974, in the facilities of the Army's Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers, in the commune of San Antonio. In divided rulings (case rolls 51.761-2024, 5.963-2025, and 15.255-2025), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of Minister Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Ministers María Cristina Gajardo, Eliana Quezada, acting lawyer Leonor Etcheberry, and acting lawyer Carlos Urquieta—confirmed the sentences that condemned Quintana Salazar, Carriel Espinoza, Soto Jerez, and Orvieto Tiplitzky to penalties of 5 years and 4 years of intensive supervised release, in their capacity as perpetrators of the unlawful coercion applied to Mario López Cisternas and Gustavo del Carmen Flores Quinteros; and 4 years of effective imprisonment, for the repeated unlawful coercion of Hernán Becerra Madrid. In the case of Carriel Soto, the Criminal Chamber granted the fulfillment of the sentences under the regime of total house arrest with telematic control (electronic ankle monitor), due to his advanced age and precarious health. In the civil aspect, the Criminal Chamber maintained the sentence that condemned the treasury to the payment of an indemnity of $50,000,000 for moral damages to the recurring victim, Flores Quinteros. “That, in order to dismiss the appeals under analysis, it should be noted that, strictly speaking, the first and seventh grounds of article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are argued in one and the same chapter and jointly. As can be seen, the infringement of No. 1 of the aforementioned rule necessarily assumes that the facts were correctly established and that they constitute a crime, to also support the ground provided for in 546 No. 7, that is, having violated the laws regulating evidence, disregarding the facts established by the judge, who—on the contrary—accepts them when arguing the first motive for invalidation,” the rulings state. The resolutions add that: “In this regard, it should be noted that the legal condition of this type of appeal does not allow them to be formalized in incompatible grounds, since, based on them, the court of cassation would find itself in the impossibility of issuing a pronouncement without this entailing accepting or rejecting contradictory antecedents at the same time, nor could it accept one ground in preference to the other, since to do so, it would have to disregard the form in which the appellant himself deduced it in his respective brief, which violates the doctrine sustained in the provisions that regulate the appeal for cassation.” “For these reasons, the appeals filed by the defenses of the accused will not prosper,” they highlight. Likewise, the rulings record: “That, for its part, the defense of Soto Jerez appeals for cassation on the merits, invoking only the seventh ground of article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, denouncing as violated articles 456 bis, 459, and 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, challenging the criminal participation that was considered established. It indicates that the sentence considered it proven that its represented party was part of the group of interrogators, basing this solely on a merit notation in his service record, dismissing the exculpatory antecedents that prove that the sentenced person did not participate in the events, altering the rules that regulate evidence, carrying out a true collective objective imputation. For all these reasons, it requests that the appeal be accepted, invalidating the appealed sentence, and issuing in the same act and without a new hearing, but separately, a replacement sentence by which its represented party is acquitted.” For the Criminal Chamber: “(…) to dismiss the appeal under study, it is enough to point out that, when requesting the acquittal of the convicted person, the formalization brief of the appeal suffers from fundamental defects that impose its rejection. Indeed, as has been stated, only the ground of numeral seventh of article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is invoked, which refers to nothing more than the infringement of the laws regulating evidence, which by itself is not enough to resolve, in the replacement sentence that would proceed to be issued, in case the appeal is accepted, the acquittal of the convicted person, it being necessary for this to link said ground with another of those established in the indicated precept, since the mere mutation of the facts does not allow this court of cassation to make use of its invalidating powers by determining, ex officio, which of those other grounds—taxatively indicated in the procedural statute of the branch—that denote an erroneous application of the law corresponds to make concurrent, which is sufficient to dismiss the appeals.” “With all that, it should be noted that the appellant questions the assessment executed by the judges, pointing out that it violates the laws regulating evidence and would not allow reaching the condemnatory conclusion arrived at. However, beyond this affirmation, it does not denounce as violated any norm related to the assessment of evidence; what is more, the writer only asserts the existence of an infringement, constructing the claim on affirmations as general as those observed in the ruling and which, in reality, seek for this Court to carry out an exercise forbidden in this venue, which is a new assessment of the evidentiary means which, moreover, were duly appraised by the instance judges,” the rulings conclude. The decision that granted the fulfillment of the sentences to Carriel Espinoza under the modality of house arrest was agreed upon with the dissenting votes of the member lawyers. In the first-instance sentences, the minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, established that the victims, after being detained, were referred to the Army's School of Military Engineers, located in the Tejas Verdes sector, commune of San Antonio. Once in said military unit, they were subjected to interrogations under torture in the basement of the officers' club. At the time of the events, September 1973 and February 1974, the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers was under the command of Army Lieutenant Colonel Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, seconded by Majors David Adolfo Miranda Monardes, Jorge Rosendo Núñez Magallanes, and Mario Alejandro Jara Seguel (all deceased). Meanwhile, in charge of the interrogations were Majors Jorge Núñez Magallanes and Mario Jara Seguel, supported by Captain Klaudio Erich Kosiel Hornig, Lieutenant Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, second sergeant Ramón Acuña Acuña, and doctor Vittorio Orvieto Tiplitzky, among others.

Source: pdju.cl, November 19, 2025