Calama

On October 5, 1973, Ricardo Abraham PEREZ CARDENAS, 22 years old, a worker at the La Exótica mine and a Socialist militant, was killed by Carabineros at Cerro Moctezuma, near Calama. He had been detained by Carabineros at his home on October 2, following the prior detention of several of his family members, who were released upon Ricardo Pérez's capture.

He was taken to the Calama police station and subsequently to the police station in the Dupont sector.

On that same October 5, it was reported that "Ricardo Pérez was executed while being taken to the location known as Moctezuma to conduct a search for weapons and explosives, at the moment he attempted to revolt." The death certificate indicates the approximate time of death as 6:00 PM and lists the cause as multiple gunshot wounds.

Notwithstanding the aforementioned official version, the Commission reached the conviction that the death of the victim was the result of an extrajudicial execution, for which State agents were responsible, based on the following circumstances:

– It is highly implausible that an escape attempt would have occurred by someone who had been deprived of liberty for several days, who had been subjected to mistreatment and torture—as evidenced by his lifeless body—and who was presumably heavily guarded, given the nature of the materials they claimed to be searching for; – That in the event such an attempt had occurred, it was not necessary to shoot him to death, considering that he was unarmed and that his captors were a police group with sufficient capacity to prevent his escape.