In an inflammatory letter, in which he describes the investigation by Judge Eliana Quezada as "dark," the retired admiral defends those under indictment. However, the statements made in the case by the very individuals being prosecuted contradict his claims.

Priest Miguel Woodward was taken hooded to the fourth floor of the Naval War Academy, on the Playa Ancha hill in Valparaíso, and seated tied to a chair. He was beaten for more than an hour by at least 10 officers from the Navy and Carabineros, among whom were Corvette Captain Juan Mackay Barriga, who later reached the rank of vice admiral, and Lieutenant 2nd Class Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, who later rose to the rank of captain.

However, for UDI senator Jorge Arancibia, all those prosecuted by Judge Eliana Quezada for the crime against Woodward are innocent. The parliamentarian, who fears that Joaquín Lavín will take his senatorial seat in the V Region and who is willing to do anything to hold onto that seat, has now lashed out at the visiting minister investigating the crime.

In a recent letter of his, widely disseminated on electronic portals nostalgic for creole fascism such as eldiezdeungranmes.blogspot.com—whose notable contributor is Bernardita Huerta, daughter of Pinochet's former foreign minister and admiral Ismael Huerta—Arancibia defended the "innocence" of those prosecuted and attacked Judge Quezada's investigation, labeling it an "absolute darkness."

The former head of the Navy maintains that he visited those arrested at the Marine Infantry barracks in Las Salinas, Viña del Mar, and verified that they have no guilt whatsoever. He believed everything they told him without verifying anything. And on that basis, he built his widely circulated defense and attack.

Arancibia claims that Mackay was only "an analyst" at the War Academy, and that Riesco "never participated in any operation on land." He adds that neither of the two interrogated detainees or witnessed these sessions.

He also maintains that the naval doctor Carlos Costa Canessa, also prosecuted, certified Woodward's death at the Naval Hospital "with the body present and not as the judge says, that he did it without seeing the corpse." And that Vice Admiral (Ret.) Guillermo Aldoney Hansen, Chief of the Navy General Staff in 1973, is also innocent, as he had nothing to do with detainees or with Woodward.

The confessions

But curiously, and to the misfortune of Lavín's rival, the very people he ardently defends in his letter contradict him. And when they do not, other officers or non-commissioned officers who testified in the Woodward case trial do so.

Riesco admits in the proceedings: "I was operational, I detained people on the street and even traveled to Santiago to detain ( ). I was in interrogations on the Esmeralda, at the War Academy, and at the Silva Palma barracks ( ). The interrogators used electricity ( ). My alias was Alfonso."

Naval doctor Costa stated judicially: "I never knew Father Woodward. Nor did I see his corpse when I certified the death, because I only certified the corpse of someone with cranial trauma, but that body in no case corresponded to the priest, as it was not identified."

And in one of the most direct statements about how Woodward was mistreated that exists to date in the file, Carabineros officer (Ret.) Nelson López Cofré, operational at the War Academy, states: "I found out that a priest named Woodward arrived detained at the academy.

I went to see the interrogation conducted by the Navy people. They had him seated, hooded, and tied to a chair on the fourth floor. Among those from the Navy were officers Juan Mackay Barriga, Sergio Bidart Jiménez, and Ricardo Riesco Cornejo.

I was there with Carabineros officers Ángel Lorca Fuenzalida, Luis Araya Maureira, and Enrique Corrales Díaz, also operational at the academy, and our non-commissioned officers Eduardo Vergara Bravo ['the Bat'] and Jorge Leiva Cordero ['the Onion']. Several of those named beat him. We were there for about an hour."

Aldoney and the Mackay family

Regarding Mackay Barriga, the individual known as "the Onion" declared: "The detentions were carried out by order of Corvette Captain Juan Mackay, who ordered the transfer of some detainees from the academy to the Esmeralda."

Valentín Riquelme Villalobos, a commando and non-commissioned officer of the Marine Infantry, now retired, and one of the interrogators and torturers at the academy, said judicially: "The interrogations were witnessed and supervised by Navy officers. Among them were Juan Mackay, Ricardo Riesco, and Lieutenant Rafael Mackay Backler, nephew of Captain Mackay."

Regarding Aldoney, Captain (Ret.), Franklin González Rodríguez, who was the head of naval intelligence (Ancla 2) in Valparaíso, and whom Aldoney himself ordered to work at the War Academy after the coup, declares: "We identified the subversives and informed Aldoney, who then ordered the operational groups to act."

Aldoney said in the proceedings that Woodward "seems to have had pneumonia," and he informed the Rettig Report: "The Woodward matter was an accident."

The name of Bidart is new in the investigation, and there is data that he directed the Marine Infantry platoon that detained the priest and took him to the Universidad Santa María, where he had allegedly been tortured first.

The Court of Valparaíso denied bail to those prosecuted, considering them a danger to society, and the participation in the trial of the lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, Karina Fernández, and lawyer Juan Matus, influenced this.

Source: La Nación, May 11, 2008

The investigating judge, Alejandro Solís, who is substantiating the proceedings for the detention and disappearance of this young MIR militant in Valparaíso, issued the indictments of four former Navy members for the crime of qualified kidnapping.

Alberto's father passed away eight months ago, while his mother continues to live in Talcahuano and participates in the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared of Concepción.

He never stopped looking for his son, Alberto, but in the end, death overcame him. On May 7, 2010, the life of Juan Salazar, an active member of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared of Concepción, was extinguished.

Eight months later, the investigating judge Alejandro Solís, who is investigating the disappearance of his son, which occurred on November 22, 1974, in Valparaíso, submitted four retired members of the Navy to prosecution for the qualified kidnapping of Alberto Salazar Aguilera.

Juan Salazar did not live long enough to hear this news. But his wife, Julia Aguilera, who survives him, has continued the fight to know what happened to her son, who was detained when he was just 22 years old. He was a militant of the MIR and had studied social service at the Universidad de Chile, Temuco campus.

But José Alberto's detention took place in Valparaíso by agents of the Navy Intelligence Service. Following his second escape attempt, he was wounded by gunfire by his pursuers and was hospitalized in the Naval Hospital.

His father, Juan Salazar, even arrived there to ask about him, after being informed of Alberto's detention via a phone call to Talcahuano, where he resided. But he was denied a visit and never heard from him again.

All attempts to find out what had happened to his son bore no fruit, but that did not stop his parents, Juan and Julia, from continuing to search for him. Until his case reached the hands of investigating judge Alejandro Solís, who on January 31 submitted retired Navy members Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, Juan Reyes Basaur, Manuel Leiva Valdivieso, and Valentín Riquelme Villalobos to prosecution for the crime of qualified kidnapping.

Along with this, he granted them release on bail upon payment of $500,000 (five hundred thousand pesos), and for Leiva Valdivieso, given his advanced age, he granted the measure of house arrest. The Supreme Court has yet to rule.

In any case, this is an important step in terms of justice, although the truth about what happened to Alberto Salazar is still pending.

Source: La Tribuna del Biobío, February 1, 2011

Definitive: Judicial rulings determine a truth we did not want to know: savage torture took place on the training ship Esmeralda

The ruling by the visiting minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda, establishes a legal truth that was an open secret for years in Chile. Aboard the flagship of our Navy, people were tortured and raped mercilessly; they were also murdered.

The sentences were another slap in the face. Three years and one day for two non-commissioned officers. In total, they will only be imprisoned for 19 days.

The sentence was handed down in criminal case Roll No. 943-2007, which investigated the kidnapping of María Eliana Comené Hidalgo, Alberto Enrique Neumann, Claudina Rosa Moreno Cortes, María Elvira Huerta Sánchez, María Isabel Vásquez Pezoa, and Rosa Angélica Huerta Sánchez.

Non-commissioned officers Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto and Jaime Segundo Lazo Pérez were found responsible and sentenced to three years and one day in prison, to which they will never go, as their sentences were commuted.

That is what they received for kidnapping and then torturing 6 people aboard the training ship Esmeralda. Only two non-commissioned officers, with no one else found guilty, on a ship with hundreds of sailors, with officers in charge... only 2 guilty. Some others were exempted from responsibility due to having died or having been declared insane.

"Stay still, we have orders to shoot"

It is recorded on page 2,573 of the file "that on September 11, 1973, a group of people were gathered at Cerro La Cruz, summoned by a CUT leader named Manuel Solís. After a few hours, two Navy trucks arrived at the location, and the house was surrounded by personnel from that branch.

They made them lie on the ground with their hands on their heads and their legs spread, and began to insult and disparage them, kicking them and hitting them with the butts of the rifles they were carrying."

Then they loaded them onto a transport, lying face down, and took them to the Molo de Abrigo; in that sector, their captors, a group of sailors, simulated executions. Later, they were all taken aboard the "Training Ship Esmeralda." The welcome they were given consisted of insults and rifle-butt blows.

The torture began later. "A witness remembers: 'on September 13, I was violated by a group composed of eight sailors inside a bathroom, where, amidst beatings, I had to take off my underwear to see if I had anything hidden inside my body.'" It was not the only time nor the only person who suffered those cruelties.

Another witness, whose statement is recorded on page 2575, remembers having identified among the detainees Sergio Vuskovic, Mayor of Valparaíso at the time, Alberto Neumann, María Eliana Comené, the sisters María and Rosa Huerta, among others.

She remembers that every day Navy personnel interrogated her, during which they assaulted her with punches and kicks, in addition to the mistreatment; throughout their stay on the "Ship Esmeralda," they were made to listen to the beatings that others were subjected to, "they mistreated us for fun," she points out.

The violence included the application of electricity, blows with any blunt object the torturers had available, fists and feet, and, of course, collective rapes of the women. The illegally detained were transferred from the Esmeralda to the ship Lebu and from there to the Maipo, all anchored in Valparaíso. Some were also occasionally transferred to land to a Carabineros unit.

The Cochayuyo Plan

Precisely one member of the Carabineros declared in the proceedings: "k) Statement of Ricardo Alejandro Riesco Cornejo, on page 326, ratified on page 536 and page 1,181, in which he points out that on September 12 or 13, 1973, he was ordered to report to the 'Training Ship Esmeralda,' a place where he was notified that he had to proceed to guard all the people arriving at the Ship and all the people who were already imprisoned."

He continues by pointing out: "the detainees were interrogated inside the Training Ship, specifically in the midshipmen's chamber or dining room, by a group of external people; they arrived at the ship dressed in civilian clothes and were in charge of Frigate Captain Jaime Román (deceased). As far as he knows, the interrogating personnel belonged to the Carabineros de Chile, ignoring their names."

He adds that on one occasion he witnessed an interrogation where the application of electric current was used so that the detainee would confess faster.

According to the torturers themselves, those participating in the interrogations included, among others: Sergeants Alejo Esparza, Jaime Lazo, Bertalino Castillo, nicknamed "El Choro," Francisco Prado Espejo, Valentín Riquelme, nicknamed "Gerónimo," Francisco Lagos, and Héctor Santibáñez and Juan de Dios Reyes Bazeur.

The plan intended to capture opponents of the regime in the V Region was called "Cochayuyo."

In the Lebu the women, Maipo to Pisagua, and the Esmeralda the torture center.

According to the statement of Rafael Guillermo Mac-Kay Backler, on pages 373, 1,061 and judicial 1,284, ratified on page 1,287, "upon arriving in Valparaíso on September 11, 1973, from Talcahuano, he learned of the military pronouncement.

The Commander of the Esmeralda, Captain Jorge Sabugo, informed the midshipmen that people would arrive at the Molo de Abrigo as detainees, and they had to proceed to guide them from the moment they got off the trucks until the Ship Lebu or Maipo."

"A large number of people began to arrive, including men, women, and some foreigners, a situation that occurred day and night," Mac-Kay states.

Other guards of the Esmeralda declared that "the prisoners were held 24 hours a day in the midshipmen's between-deck, where there were approximately five rows of double bunks; he remembers that on occasions they were taken out of the place through a restricted access, to which he did not have access; some detainees arrived complaining of pain, to which he provided dipyrone." They add that, "the detainees inside the Training Ship were male, but he remembers that there was a foreign woman who was there for a short time; the women were held inside the Ship Lebu."

Between one thousand and 1,500 detainees on the Maipo alone

It is estimated by a jailer that inside the Maipo there were between one thousand and 1,500 detainees after the coup. The judicial statement of Augusto Pedreros Silva, on page 565, is clear: "starting on September 11, 1973, I was assigned the task of sea guard, which I performed at the entrance door of the ACANAV building, in order to control the entry of personnel." He remembers that "the entry of civilian detainees was through the Silva Palma Barracks and from there they were taken by the Marines to the third floor, a place set up for interrogation at the ACANAV."

And he continues: "The detainees were lined up one after another, with one arm resting on the person in front of them; they were hooded. He adds that one of the interrogators during the first period was Officer Jaime Román Figueroa, who had been a professor at the Academy.

Subsequently, a group of Marines, whose chief was a non-commissioned officer named Leiva, began to perform that function. He points out that the interrogations were accompanied by torture, as the screams of the detainees could be heard, which consisted, among other things, of applying current; he affirms this because he had seen, on occasions, Investigations officials carrying magnets in their hands.

Finally, he points out that there was Carabineros personnel in the facility, remembering, in particular, a Lieutenant nicknamed 'The Dove,' who would correspond to Lieutenant Patricia Orellana Alvarado, whom he saw passing to the interrogation rooms."

Electric plates on the detainees

A witness pointed out on page 2,588: "They took me with a kind of hard cloth bag on my head, then, in an office where there were three officers, they took off the bag and handcuffs, one named Cristian Gantes and Jaime Román Figueroa; there I was interrogated."

"I don't remember if the next day or hours after that event, they covered my head again with a bag and took me to an upper floor, arriving at a kind of dungeon; there they tied me by my back to a wooden pole, with handcuffs, they took off my clothes from the waist up; in the interrogation they asked me about weapons, while they put electric plates on me, and so that I wouldn't faint, they threw water on me violently or threw themselves on me abruptly; said interrogation was repeated several times consecutively and was directed by Jaime Román Figueroa, whom I could identify by his perfume and voice. Finally," she adds, "I was on the Esmeralda until September 18, 1973."

What one of the convicted declared

Page 2600: "That while giving an investigative and evidentiary statement, the accused Bertalino Segundo Castillo Soto, on pages 192, 340, and 1,033, points out (...) Regarding the detainees they interrogated, they arrived at the War Academy transferred by the Carabineros de Chile and the Gendarmería de Chile. (...) He also points out that he had to dress in civilian clothes at the moment of interrogating a person, covering his face with a ski mask so that they would not recognize him, in order to prevent future attacks or personal or family reprisals."

"He states that the interrogation techniques were only dialogue, he only asked and they answered, there were no beatings, torture, or degrading or inhuman treatment, nor was there the application of electric current or torment of any other type."

Sentences constitute another slap in the face to the victims

The statements are of a cynicism that irritates, which is why the visiting magistrate rejected them for not being in accordance with the reality of the facts. However, having so much time passed, they were acquitted of the rapes, as the tribunal could not consider them proven, and although they did occur, the judge could not convince himself that the convicted were the ones who raped the women.

Three years and one day was the sentence. Added to the benefits, they will never be imprisoned for the aberrations they committed.

Only the 19 days when they were arrested for the first time.

It is estimated by Human Rights organizations that 500 political prisoners were on the Esmeralda, 1,000 on the Ship Maipo, and 4,000 on the Ship Lebu. Nearly 3,000 people passed through the Valparaíso Stadium, 4,000 through the War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks, all of whom were tortured and several of them murdered.

A bloody testimony

María Eliana, a literature student, recounts: "They were stuck to all the walls, I counted eight marines, some hooded and others with their faces painted black. They tell me to undress. I started to undress and I left my bottom part on, because I had a menstrual pad on.

So, when they forced me to even take off my panties, I said I couldn't, because I was indisposed. They forced me to do it and then all the feminine rebellion came, the rebellion of the fighter; as much as they wanted to make us feel like animals, the moment arrived when the dignity of the human being rebelled against all that.

And such was my anger, the indignation, that I took off my panties, took the pad with blood, and put it on the face of the lieutenant who was directing the group."

It was not enough: "After that, still naked, by order of the lieutenant, two marines from behind grabbed my buttocks and bent down to look through my anus." They were surely the same ones who raped women to demonstrate their power and lower the dignity of the detainees.

They covered their faces with ski masks and hid their ranks. "On the Esmeralda," María Eliana remembers, "there was violence 24 hours a day; they would take out the comrades, beat them, torture them, they would return bruised and vomiting blood."

"When they transferred me to the Lebu, we were separated from the comrades who were in the holds. We were in the cabins and there were so many of us that we couldn't breathe; we had to sleep sitting on the floor. They fed us only once a day, at 9 in the morning. They were beans that even had worms; once we complained, they told us mockingly, 'why are you complaining if they are giving you meat?'"

The treatment was truly inhuman and cruel. Among the torturers, there were also civilians and Carabineros. On one occasion—María Eliana relates—"they took me to a cabin that had been set up as an interrogation room, and there was a lieutenant who began to grope me and shout, saying: 'defend yourself now, you bitch!' He groped me in a frightening way; it was more than an hour of just that."

The horror of the Naval War Academy

María Eliana also passed through the Naval War Academy, on the Playa Ancha hill. "I was there for about four weeks; they took me out every night to interrogate me, they hit my ears with their hands, they put current on my tongue, in my vagina.

They took us out to have fun with us, to sexually abuse us. There were mass rapes. In the end, one disconnects, tries to sublimate what is happening, but it is impossible to forget; in fact, when I was already in prison, I developed a serious infection, with vomiting and fever."

"They sent me to the Naval Hospital and there they said it was just a gallbladder attack and they sent me back to prison. However, it was something much more serious. It was gonorrhea, and it was impossible to know how and where I had contracted it—on the Esmeralda, on the Lebu, at the Academy? The only thing clear is..."

that my endometrium was totally and absolutely destroyed," she concludes in her account.

The priest Miguel R. Woodward It is estimated that some 40 women were detained at the Esmeralda, where they were subjected to all types of mistreatment, torture, abuse, and rape. Among the detainees, the presence of the Chilean-British Catholic priest, Miguel R.

Woodward, is notable; he died as a result of torture when, on September 22, 1973, he was taken to the Naval Hospital of Valparaíso on the orders of a doctor from the Navy itself. Although the Catholic Church claimed his body, it was never handed over, and he was buried in a mass grave over which a road was later built.

Source: Cambio21, May 17, 2014

Case No. 21-2016: kidnapping with grave injury and illegal detention of Marco Antonio Contardo Guerra

VI.- That BERTALINO SEGUNDO CASTILLO SOTO, VALENTIN EVARISTO RIQUELME VILLALOBOS, RICARDO ALEJANDRO RIESCO CORNEJO, and JAIME SEGUNDO LAZO PEREZ are sentenced as authors of the crime of kidnapping with grave injury against the person of Marco Antonio Contardo Guerra, an act that occurred between the months of October and December 1973, to the penalty of SIX YEARS of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, with the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence.

Source: Judiciary, April 30, 2019

The multiple faces of impunity in Chile: former members of the Navy prosecuted 21 years after the complaint was filed

Some media outlets have highlighted the recent resolution issued on August 2, 2021, by the Minister in Extraordinary Visit for Human Rights cases, Magistrate Max Cancino, in which he rules: "that he submits to prosecution Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Gilda Mercedes Ulloa Valle, Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, and Ricardo Alejandro Riesco Cornejo as authors of the crimes of Kidnapping with Grave Injury and Application of Torture, provided for and sanctioned in articles 141, paragraph 3, and 150 No. 1 of the Penal Code in force at the date of the occurrence of the events, illicit acts perpetrated in Valparaíso on November 14, 1974, and August 8, 1975," since there are "well-founded presumptions to estimate that they participated as authors in the crimes of Kidnapping with Grave Injury and Application of Torture against the person of Aminie Susana Calderón Tapia, as stated in the second preceding consideration." In the final part, the Minister states that "Bearing in mind the health situation in the country due to Covid-19, and given that the defendants are elderly, they shall remain under house arrest, under the custody of the Carabineros of the sector where they reside, while the resolution granting them provisional release is approved, which will be issued below in the consultation process before the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso." Silva Palma Barracks (detention and torture center) In this same document in which he submits the former members of the Chilean Navy to prosecution, Minister Max Antonio Cancino exposes: "That the aforementioned background information (...) demonstrates that Aminie Susana Calderón Tapia was ordered to be detained by the authorities of the Intelligence Service of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area Command (SICAJSI), due to her militancy in the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), which was carried out on two occasions. The first, on November 14, 1974, while she was attending secondary school at Liceo No. 1 in Valparaíso, and this deprivation of liberty, without a judicial order to justify it, lasted for two days. On that occasion, she was taken by Navy personnel to the Silva Palma Barracks, where a group of interrogators, organized and coordinated by military commanders, was present, with the objective of having her provide information about alleged weapons hidden in the educational establishment and about her comrades in the Party. While hooded, she was interrogated and tortured through beatings, particularly on her ankles, and ordered to hold a beam with her arms extended under the threat that if she lowered them, she would be beaten. On the second occasion, she was detained by order of the CIRE, the successor to the SICAJSI, which took place on August 8, 1975, at her home in Valparaíso, and she was again taken to the Silva Palma Barracks (...), where a group of individuals, organized and coordinated by military commanders, proceeded to keep her locked up without a judicial order to justify it, kept her hooded, interrogated her, and tortured her through beatings on her ribs and ankles, with an object, deprivation of food and water, and threats. After two weeks in that place, when she was apparently going to be released, she was transferred to detention centers in the city of Santiago, finally being expelled from the country in July 1976, thus configuring the crimes of Kidnapping with Grave Injury and Application of Torture, provided for and sanctioned in articles 141, paragraph 3, and 150 No. 1 of the Penal Code in force at the date of the occurrence of the events." The fact that State agents are being prosecuted for the kidnapping and torture of a high school student, a 17-year-old girl, is undoubtedly news that should be highlighted, but one must also keep in mind its significance, as this is a very important stage of the judicial process, but it has not yet concluded, especially considering that this occurs 21 years after the complaint was filed. Impunity regarding Human Rights has different forms of manifestation, ranging from the non-investigation of events, the slowness of judicial processes, partial statutes of limitations, and the application of sentences that do not correspond to the gravity of the investigated events and that often mean, in concrete practice, the fulfillment of these with precautionary measures such as supervised release or house arrest. When the fulfillment of the sentence in prison is defined, it is served in special facilities such as the Punta Peuco prison, with a series of benefits and comforts that other common and ordinary prison facilities do not have. The slowness and long judicial processes, as another form of Impunity, often translate into what is called "Biological Impunity," since those accused of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity pass away even before being prosecuted. Bearing in mind the considerations previously exposed, what has happened once again in this specific case related to our comrade Aminie Calderón Tapia, beyond the fact that those responsible have been prosecuted, is a form of Impunity due to the long time elapsed before reaching this judicial resolution. The "justice to the extent possible" established in Chile and promoted by the civil governments of the post-dictatorship continues to show its shameful face.

Source: elclarin.cl, August 10, 2021

Justice prosecutes (retired) Navy members for kidnapping and torture of Mauricio Redolés

These events were committed between December 1973 and April 1974, at the Naval War Academy, Silva Palma barracks, the ship Lebu, and the Colliguay prisoner camp, among others. Along with this, the magistrate specified that between December 19 and 30, he remained at the War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks, an opportunity in which he was again interrogated and beaten.

The minister in extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso, Max Cancino, prosecuted six retired Navy personnel for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping and application of torture against the singer-songwriter and poet Mauricio Redolés.

These events were committed between December 1973 and April 1974, at the Naval War Academy, Silva Palma barracks, the ship Lebu, and the Colliguay prisoner camp, among others. In the resolution, Minister Cancino prosecuted Ricardo Riesco Cornejo, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Valentín Riquelme Villalobos, Bertalino Castillo Soto, Héctor Santibáñez Obreque, and Sergio Hevia Fabres as authors of the illicit acts.

In his resolution, the visiting minister indicated that Mauricio Redolés, "who was a law student at the University of Chile, Valparaíso branch, and a member of the Communist Party, was ordered to be detained by the authorities of the Intelligence Service of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area Command (SICAJSI), due to his political orientation.

The detention took place on December 10, 1973, at his home located in a university boarding house, and he was taken to the detention center located at the Naval War Academy, located in Valparaíso, where a group of interrogators, also organized and coordinated by military commanders, was prepared, with the objective of having him provide information about his political activities and alleged weaponry.

They proceeded to blindfold him, keep him locked up without a legitimate judicial order to justify it, interrogate him, and torture him through various techniques, among them, violent blows to the stomach and placing him in a situation where he could hear the screams of other detainees who were also being tortured.

He was transferred between December 12 and 18 to the ship Lebu." Along with this, the magistrate specified that between December 19 and 30, he remained at the War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks, an opportunity in which he was again interrogated and beaten.

From December 30, 1973, to February 2, 1974, he remained detained at the prisoner camp called 'Isla Riesco,' located in Colliguay; between February 2 and March 2, 1974, he was hospitalized at the Naval Hospital due to surgery for peritonitis; between March 2 and 9, 1974, he returned to the Silva Palma Barracks; between March 9 and 16, 1974, he returned to the 'Isla Riesco' detention center; between March 16, 1974, and April 10, 1974, he returned to the Silva Palma Barracks; between April 10, 1974, and June 10, 1975, he was kept deprived of liberty in the Public Jail of Valparaíso.

On January 7, 1975, he was subjected to a War Council and was finally deprived of liberty in an Investigative Police Barracks in Santiago, with a sentence of five years and one day of banishment to England, which became effective in September 1975. "The victim was only placed at the disposal of the Naval Prosecutor's Office by the SICAJSI leadership at the beginning of March 1974, however, he only gave an investigative statement at the beginning of April of the same year," concluded Judge Cancino. by Cristián Meza

Source: eldinamo.cl, May 12, 2022

Minister Max Cancino sentences (retired) Navy members for kidnapping with grave injury at Silva Palma barracks

In the case, the visiting minister decreed the acquittal of the former uniformed officers from the charges attributing authorship of the crime of application of torture and dismissed the statute of limitations and amnesty alleged by the defense of the convicted.

The minister in extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso, Max Cancino Cancino, sentenced three retired members of the Navy for their responsibility in the consummated crime of kidnapping with grave injury of David Emilio Navia Burgos.

An illicit act perpetrated in April 1974. In the ruling (case file 215-2016), Minister Cancino Cancino sentenced Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, and Héctor Vicente Santibáñez Obreque to 5 years and one day of effective imprisonment, with the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentences, as authors of the crime.

In the case, the visiting minister decreed the acquittal of the former uniformed officers from the charges attributing authorship of the crime of application of torture and dismissed the statute of limitations and amnesty alleged by the defense of the convicted.

In the resolution, the visiting minister considered the following facts proven: "That there existed a hierarchical and disciplined military intelligence group called the Intelligence Service of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area Command, known as SICAJSI, which operated actively starting September 11, 1973, formed by agents belonging to the various branches of national defense, particularly by officials of the Chilean Navy, whose main objective was the repression of people opposed to the military regime, for which they proceeded to search for and detain them, who were then deprived of liberty to obtain information through physical and psychological torture. After locating and detaining the people, the armed patrols took them to the Naval War Academy, or the adjacent Silva Palma Barracks building, both located in Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, where the people were locked up and interrogated. That in the first days of April 1974, David Emilio Navia Burgos was ordered to be detained by the authorities of the Intelligence Service of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area Command (SICAJSI), due to his status as a sympathizer of the Revolutionary Left Movement, which was carried out in the early hours of the morning at his home located at Calle Manuel Rodríguez No. 198, Cerro Esperanza, Valparaíso. He was taken by military officials to the Silva Palma Barracks, where a group of interrogators organized and coordinated by military commanders was present, with the objective of having him provide information about his comrades and accusing him of being part of a so-called 'Plan Z'. In that place, they proceeded to keep him locked up without a judicial order to justify it, interrogate him, and torture him through various techniques, among them, the application of electric current to various parts of the body, punches and kicks, the threat of shooting him in the head, and deprivation of food, among others, while he was hooded during said interrogations. Approximately at the beginning of May 1974, the victim was transferred to a detention center located in Puchuncaví called 'Melinka'. Finally, the victim was only placed at the disposal of the Naval Prosecutor's Office on May 22, 1974, and obtained his provisional release on September 26, 1974."

Source: Judiciary, August 18, 2023

Minister Max Cancino sentences four (retired) sailors for kidnapping with grave injury in Quillota

In the civil sphere, the court dismissed the statute of limitations opposed by the treasury and ordered it to pay compensation of $80,000,000 for moral damages to the victim. The minister in extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso, Max Cancino Cancino, sentenced four retired Navy officials for their responsibility in the crime of kidnapping with grave injury of Carlos Francisco Otazo Román.

An illicit act perpetrated in April 1974. In the ruling (case file 258-2017), Minister Cancino Cancino sentenced Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, Héctor Vicente Santibáñez Obreque, and Sergio Hevia Febres to 5 years and one day of effective imprisonment, plus the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentences, as authors of the crime; and acquitted them of the charges that identified them as authors of illegal detention and application of torture. Likewise, the acquittal of the accused Gilda Mercedes Ulloa Valle and Guillermo Tomás Morera Hierro was decreed, as their participation as authors in the kidnapping of Otazo Román was ruled out. In the civil sphere, the court dismissed the statute of limitations opposed by the treasury and ordered it to pay compensation of $80,000,000 for moral damages to the victim. In the resolution, the visiting minister considered it proven, beyond all reasonable doubt, that on April 23, 1974, "Carlos Francisco Otazo Román was detained on a public street in the town of Quillota, being taken to the Silva Palma barracks, located in Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, where they left him in a common room next to the court where there were other prisoners, a place where he was kept locked up without an order to justify it. The next day they took him to the interrogation room, where he was interrogated by a group of organized interrogators, being beaten and tortured on more than one occasion through the application of electric current to his body, while also being blindfolded. He remained in this place for several days, during which time he was interrogated on various occasions, being subsequently taken to the Public Jail of Valparaíso and judged by a War Council, which ultimately ended with a sentence of banishment." "Indeed, on March 14, 1975, a War Council sentenced Carlos Otazo Román to the penalties of four years of minor banishment in its maximum degree as author of the crime provided for in article 4 letter d) of Law 12.297 and to the penalty of five years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree as author of the crime provided for and sanctioned in articles 1 and 2 of Decree Law No. 77, and then, on April 23, 1975, the aforementioned sentence was approved by the Military Chief of the Valparaíso Province Zone, with the declaration that Carlos Francisco Otazo Román is sentenced to the penalty of three years and one day of minor banishment in its maximum degree as author of the crime provided for in article 4 of Law 12.297 and to the penalty of four years of minor banishment in its maximum degree as author of the crime provided for and sanctioned in articles 1 and 2 of Decree Law No. 77, for which he left the country with his family to Oslo, Norway. Until the date of his banishment, it is recorded that Otazo Román was deprived of liberty in the Public Jail of Valparaíso," it adds.

Source: Judiciary, January 23, 2024

Supreme Court confirms sentence against former Navy members for kidnapping of student in 1974

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed this Tuesday the sentence against five former members of the Navy for the qualified kidnapping of the university student Silvio Vicente Pardo Rojas , who was forcibly disappeared in Valparaíso in April 1974, during the military dictatorship.

The convicted — Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur, Héctor Vicente Santibáñez Obreque, Sergio Hevia Febres, and Guillermo Tomás Morera Hierro — must serve 15 years of effective imprisonment , as authors of the crime.

The resolution, issued in case file 45.260-2024, was adopted by the Penal Chamber composed of Minister Leopoldo Llanos, Ministers María Cristina Gajardo and Eliana Quezada, along with the member lawyers Juan Carlos Ferrada and Carlos Urquieta.

Arguments of the ruling The court rejected the cassation appeals presented by the defenses, arguing that they lacked legal precision and actually sought to modify the manner of serving the sentences, which does not correspond to this procedural path.

In its ruling, the Court pointed out that the requests of the appellants were "vague and imprecise" and that they sought a "re-evaluation of evidence" which is forbidden in cassation proceedings. Likewise, it warned that the grounds invoked were contradictory to each other, which also led to the rejection of the appeal. "In reality, the purpose of the appellant is a new weighing of the evidentiary record (...), which reveals that the defense attorney seeks for this Court to perform an exercise that does not correspond to it," the resolution specified.

The case of Silvio Pardo The base ruling, issued by the minister in extraordinary visit of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso, Max Cancino Cancino, established that Silvio Pardo , a Law student at the Catholic University of Valparaíso and a member of the MIR, was detained on April 4, 1974 by agents of the Navy Intelligence Service.

The victim was held at the Silva Palma barracks, where he was subjected to interrogations, torture, and practices known as "porotear" —being forced to identify other people who were then detained. Subsequently, Pardo was transferred to the Puchuncaví prisoner camp and returned to Silva Palma at the beginning of May 1974.

His last communication with his wife, María Elena Zamora, was a card dated May 1, 1974 . Since May 6, 1974 , there has been no further news of him. Despite versions indicating that he would be released along with another detainee, his whereabouts were never known.

To this day, he remains a forcibly disappeared person. Historical context The case is framed within the action of repressive organizations created after the 1973 coup d'état, such as the

SICAJSI

(Intelligence Service of the Interior Security Jurisdictional Area Command), dependent on the Navy, which operated in Valparaíso under a hierarchical structure intended to persecute political opponents.

The Supreme Court's sentence reaffirms the line of criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity committed by State agents during the dictatorship, crimes that are imprescriptible and whose judicial prosecution remains in force more than five decades after the events occurred.

Source: elclarin.cl, September 25, 2025