The presiding judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto, described the so-called "Operation Colombo" as a "crude and failed setup" after announcing the sentence convicting 75 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the kidnapping and forced disappearance of Jorge Grez Aburto, who was detained on May 23, 1974, at 28 years of age.

Jorge Grez was a member of the Socialist Party and one of the founders of the MIR. He studied Philosophy and Medicine at the University of Concepción, where he stood out as a student leader and for his organizational work in shantytown communities.

After the 1973 coup, "El Conejo"—as he was known among his comrades—decided to remain in Chile and join the tasks and actions of the resistance, while working as an artisan. He was eventually detained in downtown Santiago and transferred to torture centers such as Londres 38, the Estadio Chile, and Cuatro Álamos, places where he was kept deprived of liberty, at times in isolation, blindfolded, and subjected to torture until his disappearance.

For the crime of aggravated kidnapping, Judge Crisosto sentenced former agents Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, then an Army colonel and head of the DINA; César Manríquez Bravo; Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo; Marcelo Luis Moren Brito; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; and Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González to 13 years in prison, without parole, for their responsibility as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping.

Meanwhile, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann; Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García; Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires; Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez; Sergio Hernán Castillo González; Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos; José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías; Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes; José Enrique Fuentes Torres; José Mario Fritz Esparza; Julio José Hoyos Zegarra; Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante; Claudio Orlando Orellana de la Pinta; Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar; Gustavo Galvarino Carumán Soto; Hiro Álvarez Vega; José Alfonso Ojeda Obando; Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez; Olegario Enrique González Moreno; Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica; Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera; Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda; Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza; Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo; Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas; Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco; José Fernando Morales Bastías; Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear; Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos; Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza; Leonidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno; Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda; Rafael De Jesús Riveros Frost; Víctor Manuel Alvarez Droguett; and Víctor Manuel Molina Astete were sentenced to 10 years in prison, without parole, for their responsibility as perpetrators of aggravated kidnapping. In the case of Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda; José Jaime Mora Diocares; Alfonso Humberto Quiroz Quintana; Camilo Torres Negrier; Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez; Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández; Fernando Adrián Roa Montaña; Gerardo Meza Acuña; Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya; Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos; Jorge Laureano Sagardia Monje; José Dorohi Hormazábal Rodríguez; José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo; José Stalin Muñoz Leal; Juan Manuel Troncoso Soto; Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido; Luis René Torres Méndez; Manuel Antonio Montre Méndez; Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto; Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa; Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo; Nelson Eduardo Iturriaga Cortes; Orlando Enrique González Moreno; Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo; Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana; Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade; Gustavo Humberto Apablaza Meneses; Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas; Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios; Luis Fernando Espinace Contreras; Oscar Belarmino La Flor Flores; Rufino Espinoza Espinoza; and Sergio Iván Díaz Lara, they were sentenced to 4 years in prison, without parole, for their responsibility as accomplices to aggravated kidnapping. Operation Colombo Although Jorge Grez's name is not included in the lists published during Operation Colombo—a media and intelligence setup intended to cover up DINA crimes by claiming that leftist militants were eliminating each other amid internal power struggles—the judge linked the investigation into the disappearance of Jorge Grez Aburto to the dictatorship's media maneuver deployed in July 1975. Upon releasing the ruling, Judge Crisosto described Operation Colombo as a "very crude" and "very failed" DINA "setup." The sentence, spanning more than 400 pages and 310 considerations, is the first issued by Crisosto since he was appointed special judge for human rights violation cases in August 2013. Regarding civil reparations, Judge Crisosto ordered the payment of 70 million pesos in moral damages to Rebelión Grez Rodríguez, the victim's daughter.

Source: londres38.cl, May 9, 2014

Coordinator of Kast's presidential campaign in Angol appears in a police document as a former CNI agent

A list prepared by the PDI for a confidential police investigation contains the names of 2,020 former members of the CNI, the dictatorship's criminal organization that carried out assassinations, kidnappings, and torture.

Although this document was previously unknown, the names it contains had already been revealed by the Army in 2009, when they were handed over to Judge Sergio Muñoz. CIPER reviewed the backgrounds of the listed individuals in various databases.

Several show no information in those files, but one left a trace: two years ago, he signed a document as "second communal coordinator for Angol" for a group in charge of deploying José Antonio Kast's presidential campaign.

On December 3, 2021, Ricardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez requested authorization from the Malleco Delegation to hold a "caravan of private vehicles" through downtown Angol. It was an activity for the presidential campaign of José Antonio Kast, who was then competing in the runoff election, in which he would be defeated by President Gabriel Boric.

Sepúlveda's request was presented in a document bearing the Republican Party logo, while he signed it as "second communal coordinator for Angol" for Patriots for Kast. At the bottom of the document, its distribution was noted: copies were to be sent to the Republican Party Archive and the Republican Party District Archive, in addition to the one sent to the provincial delegate of Malleco.

The same person, but with his full name—Abel Ricardo Antonio Sepúlveda Gutiérrez—appears on a list of 2,020 former CNI agents prepared by the PDI for a confidential police investigation. Sepúlveda Gutiérrez's name appears in row 2,003 of the list, under the category of "civilian employees." CIPER had access to that document and reviewed the backgrounds of those listed in various public databases.

Thus, it was established that the former civilian agent of the CNI—the dictatorship's organization that carried out assassinations, kidnappings, and torture—was one of the coordinators of the Patriots for Kast group, tasked with deploying the Republican leader's presidential campaign in Angol at the end of 2021.

Furthermore, Sepúlveda Gutiérrez appears in the incorporation deed of the Pedro Diet Lobos Society, which was a commercial front used to cover up illicit activities of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the dictatorship's repressive organization that preceded the CNI and was led by Manuel Contreras.

CIPER verified the authenticity of the list of former CNI agents using the same formula used for the report published on September 8 regarding members of the DINA and CNI who continued to rise through the ranks of the Armed Forces and police after the return to democracy: by consulting internal records prepared for previous investigations and cross-referencing that data with public information databases.

In the case of civilian agents who did not pursue a subsequent military or police career, it was checked whether at least the medical personnel who collaborated with these repressive organizations, and whose names are already known, appeared on the list prepared by the PDI.

Through Judicial Branch records, it was verified whether the list contained names of individuals prosecuted for human rights violations. At least three of them have already been convicted: Jorge Luis Venegas Silva, Raúl Bernardo Toro Montes, and Alfonso Humberto Quiroz Quintana.

In cases where no information was found in public records, the Official Gazette and electoral records were used to confirm that the identities are real. The list specifies that 638 former agents belonged to the Army, 124 to the Carabineros, 29 to the Navy, 33 to the Air Force, and 40 to the Investigative Police.

Another 1,156 were civilians who joined different operational brigades and administrative functions to collaborate with the repression. After this verification process, CIPER concluded that the list matches the one the Army handed over to Judge Sergio Muñoz in 2009.

On that occasion, the identities of the former CNI agents were delivered confidentially during the investigation into the assassination of labor leader Tucapel Jiménez. The police document now known was incorporated into the "Dictatorship Papers" archive, an online repository with more than four thousand official, judicial, police, and personal and family archive documents, which CIPER and the Center for Investigative and Journalistic Projects (CIP) of the Diego Portales University make available to all citizens (access the "Dictatorship Papers" document search engine here).

CAMPAIGN COORDINATOR

"(Ricardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez) accompanied me to all the activities. Where I could not be, because I am a businessman and do not live off politics, he replaced me in handing out flyers and information, and meetings with people." The speaker is Enrique Mahuzier, who confirmed to CIPER that in 2021 he was the first coordinator of the Republican Party's Angol Commune and one of the founders of the group in the La Araucanía Region.

But, he noted, he stopped being a member more than a year ago. In 2021, groups called Patriots for Kast were formed in several regions, cells composed of Republican Party members and like-minded independents.

The work of those groups consisted of deploying José Antonio Kast's presidential campaign. Enrique Mahuzier reported that, indeed, the Patriots for Kast group in the city of Angol was in charge of deploying the Republican candidate's campaign in the 2021 elections.

And he confirmed that in that campaign, the group's second coordinator was Sepúlveda Gutiérrez. One of the latter's tasks was to request, in December 2021, authorization to hold a vehicle caravan in favor of the candidate.

The activity had permission and took place on the 16th. Although he signed the request only as Ricardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez, two people from Angol familiar with the Republican campaigns told CIPER that the then-coordinator is indeed named Abel Ricardo, but that he does not use his first name.

CIPER verified, through the Civil Registry and the Electoral Service (Servel), that the tax ID (RUT) of Abel Ricardo Antonio Sepúlveda Gutiérrez recorded in the document prepared by the PDI corresponds to that of the person of the same name who has registered a property in Angol as his address.

The same RUT appears in the deed where he appears as one of the founders of the Pedro Diet Lobos Society, one of the commercial fronts used by the dictatorship's repressive services to carry out illicit activities.

In this deed, he is identified as an Army officer. Societies like this financed international terrorist actions in the context of Operation Condor, in which the dictatorships of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia coordinated to eliminate opponents.

CIPER attempted to contact Sepúlveda Gutiérrez at a telephone number, but received no response. The inquiries were then sent to the press teams of the Republican Party and José Antonio Kast last Monday the 11th.

In those instances, it was indicated that they were gathering information, but they later stopped answering CIPER's calls. The former campaign coordinator and former Republican member, Enrique Mahuzier, told CIPER: "I have never heard that he was a member of the CNI.

I do know that he is a retired Army officer, but I have no idea what activities and functions he performed." Regarding whether Sepúlveda Gutiérrez was a member of the Republican Party in 2021, Mahuzier chooses not to answer: "Those are personal matters." In any case, he clarifies that in 2022 Sepúlveda Gutiérrez was not a coordinator for the Angol "Rechazo" Command.

In that campaign, he said, he would have only collaborated by handing out flyers and attending events.

Source: ciperchile.cl, December 14, 2023