Seven retired members of the Navy were convicted for the kidnapping of Haitian citizen Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, who remains forcibly disappeared to this day after being tortured for his political orientation during the dictatorship.

Six of the seven were sentenced to 15 years in prison. In addition, a multi-million peso compensation must be paid to the victim's family. The Valparaíso Court of Appeals sentenced seven retired Navy members to prison for their responsibility in the crime of kidnapping a Dominican citizen during the military dictatorship.

Regarding civil matters, the ruling upheld the lawsuit filed by the relatives and ordered the state to pay 150 million pesos in compensation for moral damages to the victim's father. Furthermore, 75 million pesos were awarded to a brother.

The sentences The court sentenced Ernesto Huber von Appen, Wilfredo Zepeda Iturriaga, Víctor Rey Ringele, Jaime Urdangarín Romero, Arístides León Calffas, and Germán Valdivia Keller to 15 years in prison.

All of them are retired members of the Navy, responsible for the crime of kidnapping the Dominican citizen Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo. Meanwhile, Jorge Ginouvés Contreras was sentenced to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release, as a co-author of the crime.

Kidnapping of a Dominican man during the military dictatorship

The events date back to September 1973 in the city of Villa Alemana. There, due to his political orientation, the then 25-year-old Dominican citizen was detained and held in different centers, where he was tortured.

Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown. This was detailed by the judge in charge of human rights violation cases, Max Cancino, who specified that it was Navy personnel who detained him and took him to a police station for interrogation. "Finally, he was removed from that place by Navy personnel to an unknown destination," he noted.

The judge also granted all of them absolute perpetual disqualification from public offices and positions, political rights, and professional titles for the duration of their sentences.

Lawsuit Criminal lawyer and academic at the University of Valparaíso, Felipe González, explained that in this case, in an unprecedented move, the State of the Dominican Republic sued Chile over the events.

However, the court ultimately dismissed it. In civil matters, the ruling upheld the lawsuit filed by the family of Juan Blanco. Thus, it ordered the state to pay 150 million pesos in compensation for moral damages to the victim's father. Additionally, 75 million pesos were awarded to a brother.

Source: biobiochile.cl, November 3, 2022

The First Chamber of the Court of Appeals, in a unanimous ruling, granted provisional release to four of the six individuals prosecuted for the disappearance of the former CCU comptroller in the Fifth Region, Jaime Aldoney Vargas.

Those benefiting from the judicial resolution are retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen; retired Navy Captains Sergio Mendoza and Patricio Villalobos; and retired Petty Officer Manuel Buch López.

Meanwhile, civilian Jaime Undargarín and retired Navy Captain Pedro Pablo Arancibia Soler remain in custody. Jaime Aldoney, a socialist militant and civil engineer, was detained on September 12, 1973, in Limache and transferred to the El Belloto naval air base by Navy personnel. There, he was subjected to torture and his trail was lost. La Nacion Thursday, May 5, 2011

Supreme Court convicts 6 Navy members in the Aldoney case

The Supreme Court issued a final sentence in the investigation into the aggravated kidnapping of Jaime Aldoney Vargas, a journalist and former councilman of Limache, who was executed starting September 12, 1973, from the El Belloto naval air base.

In a split decision, the ministers of the Second Chamber, Nibaldo Segura, Jaime Rodríguez, Rubén Ballesteros, Hugo Dolmestch, and Carlos Künsemüller, determined the sentences, upholding the investigation conducted by the Valparaíso Court of Appeals judge, Julio Miranda Lillo.

The conviction was issued with the dissenting votes of ministers Segura and Ballesteros, who were in favor of accepting the statute of limitations for the criminal action. The ruling acquitted two of the eight defendants in the case due to a lack of participation in the events: retired Rear Admiral Ernesto Huber Von Appen and retired officer Manuel Buch López.

Five of the other defendants were sentenced to 5 years in prison with the benefit of supervised release. They are Navy Captains Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Pedro Arancibia Solar, Jaime Urdangarín Romero, and Germán Valdivia Keller.

Captain Guillermo Vidal Hurtado was sentenced to the same term as an accessory, while retired Captain Sergio Mendoza Rojas received a 4-year sentence, also with supervised release. In civil matters, it was determined that the convicted individuals Valdivia Keller, Arancibia Solar, Urdangarín Romero, and Mendoza Rojas must pay joint compensation of 30,000,000 pesos to Gabriel and Iván Aldoney Vargas, brothers of the victim.

Likewise, the lawsuit against the Chilean State was dismissed, accepting the plea of absolute incompetence of the court. In civil matters, the decision to accept the exception in favor of the Chilean State was adopted with the dissenting votes of ministers Dolmestch and Künsemüller. The Clinic November 28, 2012

CARIBBEAN COUNTRY JOINED HUMAN RIGHTS TRIAL

Five marines prosecuted for the homicide of a Dominican student during the dictatorship The Valparaíso Court of Appeals judge, Julio Miranda, prosecuted five Navy officials for the aggravated homicide of Dominican citizen Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, son of the politician and academic Ramón Blanco.

The magistrate's decision affects Navy Captain Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Chief Petty Officer Osvaldo Rey Vergara, First Sergeant Víctor Rey Ringele, First Corporal Manuel Busch López, and civilian employee Wilfredo Zepeda Iturriaga, all belonging to the naval intelligence unit known as "Ancla 2." All were charged as authors of the death that occurred in October 1973, following torture on the Navy ship, the Lebu.

The body of this Economics student from the University of Chile was found in the vicinity of Colliguay almost a year later by a local resident. According to the investigation carried out by the magistrate of the port city's appellate court, the naval personnel also took Blanco to a police station, where they subjected him to torture again.

In the Rettig Report, Blanco appears as a "disappeared person without conviction," which reveals that there was no apparent motive for the naval personnel to end his life. According to information gathered by this newspaper, the five former marines were placed in preventive detention after being notified by Judge Miranda.

The investigation carried out by this judge is also framed within the crimes and torture committed on the Esmeralda Training Ship, among which those committed against the English priest Miguel Woodward stand out, for which 14 Navy personnel were also charged in 2010.

Investigations into human rights violations committed by the Navy in the months following the 1973 military coup took longer to begin, unlike others against the DINA, the SIFA, and the CNI. As of the closing of this edition, Miranda had also reportedly notified two former detectives, but the information could not be officially confirmed by this newspaper. November 28, 2012

Prosecutions ordered in human rights cases against former Navy officials

The visiting judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda Lillo, prosecuted former officials of the Chilean Navy as authors of the crime of kidnapping with serious injury in two human rights cases he is currently processing.

In one of the cases, concerning Dominican Republic citizen Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, the magistrate prosecuted: Patricio Maximiliano Horacio Valentín Villalobos Lobos, Manuel Alejandro Buch López, Wilfredo Hernán Zepeda Iturriaga, Osvaldo Francisco Rey Vergara, and Víctor Orlando Rey Ringele.

According to the background information in the case, "during the month of September 1973, Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, born on March 15, 1948, an economics student, was detained by a patrol of Navy personnel from the El Belloto Naval Air Base, led by 2nd Lieutenant Jorge Ginouves Contreras in the Barrio Norte sector of the Villa Alemana commune, near the train station, and was taken to the naval facility to be handed over to the personnel of the Intelligence Service of the Naval Aviation Command (COMAVNAV)." "The victim was initially held in a sector that had been set up for the detention of civilians inside the Base, where he was subjected to various interrogations at the Air Control Information Office (OICA) by personnel from the Intelligence Service of the Naval Aviation Command (COMANAV)." "After remaining detained at the El Belloto Naval Air Base, Juan Blanco Castillo was taken to the Quilpué Investigative Police Station to remain held in the dungeons of said facility, which are located in the basement, where he was subjected to interrogations and illegitimate coercion by his captors." "After some time, the victim was removed from the aforementioned facility with evident signs of physical and psychological mistreatment, heading to an unknown destination. After a period of 6 months, the Investigative Police of the Quilpué commune had to go to a sector called the 'M' curve in the town of Colliguay, where a male corpse was found. According to the characteristics of the clothing and the examination of the body, police personnel presumed it to be the Dominican Juan Blanco Castillo, whose autopsy was not located, and the remains were sent to a common grave in the Quilpué Cemetery, thus configuring the crime of kidnapping with serious injury to the person of Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, a figure provided for and sanctioned in Art. 141 of the Penal Code, in force at the time of the events." On the other hand, for the kidnapping of the Chilean citizen Ramón Donato Navia Martínez, Guillermo Retamales Ruz and Patricio Villalobos Lobos were charged. According to the case background, "it was established that on October 14, 1973, at approximately 9:30 PM, at the address located at 1557 Antonio Varas Street, Victoria Oriente neighborhood of the Quilpué commune, Ramón Donato Navia Martínez was detained by Navy personnel from the El Belloto Naval Air Base, who transported him in a red pickup truck to said facility, where he was held, specifically in a patio that had been set up for the detention of civilians required by the military authority, which was delimited and surrounded by mounds of sand." "Ramón Donato Navia Martínez was admitted to the detention facility just at a time when there were no detainees, because they were being held in the classrooms (CIAN), and he was interrogated in the 'well' (a place designated for detainees at the Naval Air Base) by an official who identified himself with the rank of Lieutenant, regarding the location of weapons he allegedly had in his possession and the names of all his companions and members of the political leadership he belonged to," the resolution adds. To conclude, it mentions: "regarding the causes of the death of the victim Ramón Donato Navia Martínez, it was established that on October 15, 1973, in the early hours of the morning, the sentry who was on guard at the Air Reports Office, upon hearing the screams coming from a detainee in the detention facility, immediately left his office carrying an M-1 rifle, noticing at that moment that a person was running from said facility toward the landing strip, ignoring the warnings to stop, before which the sentry used his weapon, firing only once at the victim."

EFE

November 29, 2012

RETIRED NAVY MEMBERS PROSECUTED FOR DEATH OF DOMINICAN MAN IN 1973

The victim, Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, 25, was the son of the Dominican politician and academic Ramón Blanco, and was detained and taken to the "El Belloto" naval air base in Quilpué, a town located about 130 kilometers northwest of Santiago, then taken to the ship Lebu where he was tortured and where he was allegedly killed.

Five retired members of the Navy were prosecuted as authors of the "crime of kidnapping with serious injury" of a young Dominican man, which occurred on October 14, 1973, one month after the coup d'état by the late General Augusto Pinochet, judicial sources confirmed to EFE today.

The victim, Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, 25, was the son of the Dominican politician and academic Ramón Blanco, and was detained and taken to the "El Belloto" naval air base in Quilpué, a town located about 130 kilometers northwest of Santiago.

Subsequently, he was taken to a police station and, finally, to the Chilean Navy ship "Lebu," where he was a victim of repeated torture. After some time, the victim was removed from the facility to an unknown destination.

Six months later, the police found his body in the vicinity of the town of Colliguay and his remains were buried in a common grave in the Quilpué cemetery. It was lawyer Nelson Morales Chávez who filed two lawsuits for these events in July before the Limache Local Court, one on behalf of the Blanco Castillo family and another on behalf of the Government of the Dominican Republic.

The prosecutions were issued on Tuesday by the Valparaíso Court of Appeals judge, Julio Miranda Lillo. Those involved are Navy Captain Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Chief Petty Officer Osvaldo Rey Vergara, 1st Sergeant Víctor Rey Ringele, 1st Corporal Manuel Busch López, and Wilfredo Zepeda Iturriaga, who worked as a civilian employee of the institution.

The father of the disappeared young man, Blanco Fernández, was a founder of the clandestine 14th of June movement against the dictator Rafael L. Trujillo (1930-61) and a member of the central committee of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).

Source: El Mostrador, August 25, 2003

Caribbean country joined human rights trial

Five marines prosecuted for the homicide of a Dominican student during the dictatorship The Valparaíso Court of Appeals judge, Julio Miranda, prosecuted five Navy officials for the aggravated homicide of Dominican citizen Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, son of the politician and academic Ramón Blanco.

The magistrate's decision affects Navy Captain Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Chief Petty Officer Osvaldo Rey Vergara, First Sergeant Víctor Rey Ringele, First Corporal Manuel Busch López, and civilian employee Wilfredo Zepeda Iturriaga, all belonging to the naval intelligence unit known as "Ancla 2." All were charged as authors of the death that occurred in October 1973, following torture on the Navy ship, the Lebu.

The body of this Economics student from the University of Chile was found in the vicinity of Colliguay almost a year later by a local resident. According to the investigation carried out by the magistrate of the port city's appellate court, the naval personnel also took Blanco to a police station, where they subjected him to torture again.

In the Rettig Report, Blanco appears as a "disappeared person without conviction," which reveals that there was no apparent motive for the naval personnel to end his life. According to information gathered by this newspaper, the five former marines were placed in preventive detention after being notified by Judge Miranda.

The investigation carried out by this judge is also framed within the crimes and torture committed on the Esmeralda Training Ship, among which those committed against the English priest Miguel Woodward stand out, for which 14 Navy personnel were also charged in 2010.

Investigations into human rights violations committed by the Navy in the months following the 1973 military coup took longer to begin, unlike others against the DINA, the SIFA, and the CNI. As of the closing of this edition, Miranda had also reportedly notified two former detectives, but the information could not be officially confirmed by this newspaper.

Source: The Clinic, November 28, 2012

Prosecutions ordered in human rights cases against former Navy officials

The visiting judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda Lillo, prosecuted former officials of the Chilean Navy as authors of the crime of kidnapping with serious injury in two human rights cases he is currently processing.

In one of the cases, concerning Dominican Republic citizen Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, the magistrate prosecuted: Patricio Maximiliano Horacio Valentín Villalobos Lobos, Manuel Alejandro Buch López, Wilfredo Hernán Zepeda Iturriaga, Osvaldo Francisco Rey Vergara, and Víctor Orlando Rey Ringele.

According to the background information in the case, "during the month of September 1973, Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, born on March 15, 1948, an economics student, was detained by a patrol of Navy personnel from the El Belloto Naval Air Base, led by 2nd Lieutenant Jorge Ginouves Contreras in the Barrio Norte sector of the Villa Alemana commune, near the train station, and was taken to the naval facility to be handed over to the personnel of the Intelligence Service of the Naval Aviation Command (COMAVNAV)." "The victim was initially held in a sector that had been set up for the detention of civilians inside the Base, where he was subjected to various interrogations at the Air Control Information Office (OICA) by personnel from the Intelligence Service of the Naval Aviation Command (COMANAV)." "After remaining detained at the El Belloto Naval Air Base, Juan Blanco Castillo was taken to the Quilpué Investigative Police Station to remain held in the dungeons of said facility, which are located in the basement, where he was subjected to interrogations and illegitimate coercion by his captors." "After some time, the victim was removed from the aforementioned facility with evident signs of physical and psychological mistreatment, heading to an unknown destination. After a period of 6 months, the Investigative Police of the Quilpué commune had to go to a sector called the 'M' curve in the town of Colliguay, where a male corpse was found. According to the characteristics of the clothing and the examination of the body, police personnel presumed it to be the Dominican Juan Blanco Castillo, whose autopsy was not located, and the remains were sent to a common grave in the Quilpué Cemetery, thus configuring the crime of kidnapping with serious injury to the person of Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, a figure provided for and sanctioned in Art. 141 of the Penal Code, in force at the time of the events." On the other hand, for the kidnapping of the Chilean citizen Ramón Donato Navia Martínez, Guillermo Retamales Ruz and Patricio Villalobos Lobos were charged. According to the case background, "it was established that on October 14, 1973, at approximately 9:30 PM, at the address located at 1557 Antonio Varas Street, Victoria Oriente neighborhood of the Quilpué commune, Ramón Donato Navia Martínez was detained by Navy personnel from the El Belloto Naval Air Base, who transported him in a red pickup truck to said facility, where he was held, specifically in a patio that had been set up for the detention of civilians required by the military authority, which was delimited and surrounded by mounds of sand." "Ramón Donato Navia Martínez was admitted to the detention facility just at a time when there were no detainees, because they were being held in the classrooms (CIAN), and he was interrogated in the 'well' (a place designated for detainees at the Naval Air Base) by an official who identified himself with the rank of Lieutenant, regarding the location of weapons he allegedly had in his possession and the names of all his companions and members of the political leadership he belonged to," the resolution adds. To conclude, it mentions: "regarding the causes of the death of the victim Ramón Donato Navia Martínez, it was established that on October 15, 1973, in the early hours of the morning, the sentry who was on guard at the Air Reports Office, upon hearing the screams coming from a detainee in the detention facility, immediately left his office carrying an M-1 rifle, noticing at that moment that a person was running from said facility toward the landing strip, ignoring the warnings to stop, before which the sentry used his weapon, firing only once at the victim."

Source: myvalparaiso.cl, November 28, 2012

Juan Blanco Castillo, the Dominican student murdered in Valparaíso days after the Coup

Dictatorship. In 1972, Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo returned from the former Soviet Union to the Dominican Republic, after studying at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Upon his arrival at "Las Américas" airport in Santo Domingo, the young Juan Blanco was expelled from the country by Dominican authorities for coming from a communist country, as stated by his father Ramón Blanco, a Dominican politician and academic, who had been one of the founders of the "Clandestine 14th of June Movement" that fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961) and was later a member of the central committee of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). Juan Blanco thus began a journey through Latin America, arriving first in Venezuela, then in Uruguay, and finally landing in Chile at the beginning of 1973, where he began to militate in the MIR. On October 14, 1973, at 25 years of age, Juan was detained at his home and taken to the "El Belloto" naval air base in Quilpué. The detention and torture center was also called Acapulc, El Hoyo, or El Pozo. Subsequently, he was taken to a Quilpué investigative police station, where officials from the intelligence group interrogated and tortured him, using techniques such as applying burning newspaper to his abdomen. According to the judicial file, Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo was removed from the Quilpué Investigative Police Station by the aforementioned intelligence group, being transferred to the Quilpué Carabineros Sub-station, in serious condition as a result of the burns caused to his body. "Due to the complaint that the Chief of that Sub-station expressed to the command of the Naval Command regarding the state of health of Juan Blanco, he was removed from that place by officials of the intelligence group, to an unknown destination, and no news of his whereabouts has been had to date," the document stated. Witnesses claim he was transferred to the Chilean Navy ship "Lebu," although there is no certainty of this; what is known is that six months after his detention, the police found his body in the vicinity of the town of Colliguay and his remains were buried in a common grave in the Quilpué cemetery. His family and the Embassy of the Dominican Republic in Chile took legal action in his case, which ended in the prosecution and conviction by the Valparaíso Court of Appeals judge, Julio Miranda Lillo, in November 2022, of Navy Captain Patricio Villalobos Lobos, Chief Petty Officer Osvaldo Rey Vergara, First Sergeant Víctor Rey Ringele, First Corporal Manuel Busch López, and Wilfredo Zepeda Iturriaga, who worked as a civilian employee of the institution, to 15 years in prison. All of them were members of the Navy's intelligence services (Ancla 2).

Source: resumen.cl, August 19, 2023