Jorge Rivas Arancibia has just been convicted for the murder of two young men during the dictatorship, whom he deceived by making them believe he was from the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR).

The dictatorship used various repressive mechanisms, including infiltrating leftist organizations to dismantle them. One such case is that of Jorge Rivas Arancibia, a former Carabineros corporal accused of being the perpetrator of the homicide of 18-year-old Iván Palacios Guarda and 19-year-old Eric Rodríguez Hinojosa.

The young men had been contacted by Rivas, who made them believe he belonged to the MIR, although in reality, the undercover agent's objective was to dismantle these organizations. It was Rivas who assigned the task of placing a bomb on a high-voltage tower in San Pablo on April 18, 1989, while simultaneously notifying the CNI, who murdered Palacios at the scene, while Rodríguez survived for several months.

Both young men were murdered by the CNI in 1989 while they were carrying out an action against the dictatorship. Rivas Arancibia lived with 27 years of impunity. Rivas Arancibia is the owner of a security company in Iquique.

As shown in a 2009 public contract with the Municipality, he held a contract to handle security services for coastal guards for more than 9 million pesos. This is one more example of how these agents, responsible for brutal human rights violations, remained unpunished for decades due to the same policies of the Concertación and the right wing that guaranteed them anonymity and a lack of justice for those who fought against the dictatorship.

Rivas has just been confronted with other CNI agents and prosecuted for the case. The story was told in the book “La Trampa. Historia de una infiltración” by Víctor Cofré, which “accounts for the infiltration of a member of the military regime's security services into a supposed militant appendix of the MIR called La Resistencia, whose members, about twenty young people—the vast majority of them minors—fell into the trap of the self-styled “Commander Miguel,” their cell leader, and two of them, Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez, were murdered in a “mousetrap” that the CNI had prepared for them.”

Source: laizquierdadiario.com, September 4, 2016

The "Ojitos Saltones," Jorge Rivas Arancibia, the CNI agent who infiltrated the left.

Two young men murdered in April 1989, bombs in the Metro, petty robberies, and the creation of an armed leftist group formed by relatives of political prisoners of the MIR. All of this was orchestrated by a supposed MIR leader who was no such thing and who called himself “Miguel.” The justice system prosecuted and arrested him this week after former militants and former CNI agents identified him as the infiltrator.

A former Carabineros officer named Jorge Rivas Arancibia. Ronald Quinteros’s life changed in December 1981, when his father was shot to death. He was eight years old, and his father, a MIR militant in charge of logistics, was murdered in the street by a team from the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), the regime’s security agency.

Ronald Quinteros’s life changed again in February 1989, when he had to leave Chile quickly on a plane bound for Cuba, escaping an intelligence operation that had him on the verge of collapse. He was 16 and believed he was participating in a militant appendix of the MIR.

That is what he and about twenty other minors who were participating clandestinely in a leftist contingent that was trained in the use of weapons assumed. The leader of that group called himself “Miguel,” presented himself as an experienced MIR militant, and had recruited the young people one by one in the months prior.

But “Miguel” turned out not to be who he claimed, and at the beginning of 1989, his pupils discovered they were victims of an infiltration. Along the way, a dozen minors fled Chile, and two adolescents were left dead on the streets of Santiago.

And nothing more was heard of “Miguel.” Until March of this year. Ronald Quinteros had agreed to come forward and testified in court in February. During those days, he contributed a composite sketch of “Miguel.” He returned a month later to a court in downtown Santiago, where they showed him a photograph of a man, a reproduction of an identity card from 20 years ago.

And Ronald Quinteros, a 43-year-old filmmaker, recognized the man who had once changed his life in less than a second, with 100% certainty, according to the file. This Monday, Ronald Quinteros stood next to the guy he knew as “Miguel.” In the offices of Judge Mario Carroza, Quinteros was confronted with the suspect and identified him again as the infiltrator from the late 80s.

Twenty-seven years later, Miguel appeared with his true identity. A former Carabineros officer who penetrated the periphery of the MIR. * At the corner of Radal and San Pablo, in the commune of Quinta Normal, Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez waited for darkness.

They intended to approach an electrical transformer installed on top of two poles and detonate a bomb. When they approached their target, the CNI began the operation. Witnesses say the lights went out and the shooting began, that the bursts of gunfire lifted both hooded men into the air, and that later, on the ground, one of them was convulsing while being kicked by unidentified civilians.

That several vehicles arrived at the same time and that the shooting lasted several minutes, as if it were a massive confrontation. It was around 9:00 PM on April 18, 1989, the last day of official protest against the regime of Augusto Pinochet.

On the sidewalk, 18-year-old Iván Palacios, a graduate of Liceo A 78, died almost instantly. Beside him, on the road, Eric Rodríguez, a year older and another former student of the same school in Quinta Normal, lay dying.

He passed away in September of that year, after several months hospitalized. Rodríguez and Palacios knew each other from A 78, but had formed closer ties through the same militancy. Both had leftist ideas, and in 1988, before the plebiscite, they joined a group that called itself La Resistencia and which followed, they assumed, instructions from the MIR.

It was La R. The CNI reported that night that it had been a confrontation, that both of the fallen were Rodriguezist militants, and that an agent had been wounded. In the investigations later conducted by the Military Prosecutor’s Office, three agents testified, all using false identities.

They said that during a patrol, they encountered Palacios and Rodríguez by chance and that there was an exchange of gunfire. And that only those three were there for the CNI. What they declared was a lie, they admitted years later, using their real names, to Judge Carroza, who is investigating cases of human rights violations from those years and who reopened this case in 2010.

In reality, several teams of three people each operated that night. The CNI arrived at the scene with privileged information: they knew in advance what Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez were going to do.

It was an ambush. Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, alias “El Huiro,” head of the Blue Brigade, which pursued the MIR within the CNI, declared in 2014 that in those days they received another tip from the same source: a Metro line would be the target of an explosive attack.

The CNI monitored several areas, but did not patrol the San Pablo Station, where on April 17, 1989, at 3:03 PM, a bomb destroyed carriages of an empty train. According to former members of La R, Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez were there.

One day before falling under a hail of gunfire. Twenty-five years later, Sanhueza Ross acknowledged that the CNI operation that ended with two young men killed was carried out based on information provided by a CNI agent known as “Miguel,” who was infiltrated into leftist groups and who “had many intelligence qualities, of command of operations.” Former companions of the two deceased maintain that “Miguel” gave them the order that same day to place the bomb at San Pablo and Radal. “This was pure snitching,” Eric Rodríguez told his mother weeks after being wounded, at the Hospital San Juan de Dios, before his health deteriorated beyond repair. In February 2015, with the thesis of a confrontation already debunked, Judge Carroza prosecuted six members of the CNI for the qualified homicide of Palacios and Rodríguez. It was still necessary to discover the undercover agent. It was only known that he was originally from Concepción and that in the CNI in Santiago, he had direct access to the leadership of the Metropolitan Agency. At the end of last year, Judge Carroza opened a separate file to identify “Miguel.” And the lead he was waiting for arrived. * On the last night of 1988, half an hour before the New Year, the disciples of “Miguel” placed three bombs. It was an inexplicable and reckless tribute to the Cuban Revolution, which was turning three decades old. The targets were the Housing and Urban Development Service, the general management of the Metro, and the headquarters of the Derco car dealership. All in downtown Santiago. A dozen young people participated in the three simultaneous attacks, crowning a feverish year of armed actions. They assaulted blue-clad guards in Quinta Normal, placed noise bombs at the funeral of MIR militant Pablo Vergara Toledo, attacked Mormon churches, and robbed a mountaineering store and a liquor store, sometimes with knives, other times with revolvers, which were rather scarce. The leader of the group was “Miguel,” who posed as a commander of the three factions into which the MIR had divided, the most militaristic one. “Miguel” had approached groups of relatives of political prisoners a few years earlier, but in the first part of 1988, he began to recruit young people linked to that political culture: children, cousins, and nephews of historical MIR militants. Territorially, the majority came from Quinta Normal and Pudahuel; later, other recruits from Villa Francia joined. And many also came from two schools: A 78 and Andacollo. In a short time, several high school students joined La R. Among them, Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez. Among them, Marco Rodríguez, son of two emblematic MIR militants. Rodríguez participated in that group and years later, in 2002, was arrested in Brazil for the kidnapping of publicist Washington Olivetto, a kidnapping that sought money for the FARC in Colombia. Eight years later, he escaped from Brazil, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. Everyone who participated at that time was a minor. The law established the age of majority at 21, which was lowered to 18 only in 1993. “Miguel” photographed them with weaponry and instructed them in the handling of AK and FAL rifles, Uzi submachine guns, pistols, TNT, and fuses. Many military instructions were carried out in chapels in the western area of Santiago. One of those former militants claims adherence to the anti-Pinochet cause. “We lived and thought that we were doing something for the country,” analyzed a few years ago the person who used the false name “Pedro.” But the radicalization blinded them. So much so that in leftist circles, they were known as “the ayatollahs.” Or in revolutionary jargon, “gun-heads.” Carlos Moreno, a leader from Pudahuel and regional head of the MIR, assumes that those who threw stones and fired at his house in those years were the disciples of “Miguel,” who criticized his “yellowism” and his lack of daring. They had dedicated a knife to him with a slogan inscribed on it: “La R kills you for being a traitor.” “Miguel” used to criticize the Political MIR. At the beginning of 1989, doubts among the militants of La R grew. While “Miguel” traveled to the south, as was his habit, they cross-referenced data: the abundance of resources “Miguel” had—weaponry and vehicles—was unusual, and his radical political discourse was full of inconsistencies. But another fact caused surprise: no one in the MIR knew him. Terrified, several militants contacted the Comité de Derechos del Pueblo (Codepu), a human rights defense organization linked to the MIR, and asked for help. In a few weeks, the precocious subversives made sworn statements that they kept secret, and many fled. The majority crossed the Andes by bus at the beginning of April toward Argentina, where they stayed for years. Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez did not travel. “They did not agree with the idea (that) “Miguel” was an infiltrator (…). They stayed in Santiago and continued in contact with him,” declared Ronald Quinteros in February. After the death of Iván Palacios, the truth came out. Codepu provided the information to the magazine Pluma y Pincel, which published the story of “Miguel” a few days after the shootout on San Pablo Street. And “Miguel” vanished from the map. * Jorge Enrique Rivas Arancibia walked up the stairs of the Hotel Araucano in Concepción. He was with two other agents, a soldier and a sailor attached to the CNI, in search of a radio transmitter that had broadcast a proclamation from Radio Liberación from there. On the 10th floor, in room 1017, a bomb placed by the MIR exploded. The soldier and the sailor died that March 25, 1985. Jorge Rivas, a Carabineros officer on detached duty with the CNI since 1984, suffered various fractures, was left with severe acoustic trauma, and had a scar on his neck. Former members of La R said that “Miguel” had a scar on his neck, that he looked like Alvaro Corbalán, the head of the CNI, and that he had toad-like eyes. Due to the aftermath of the Hotel Araucano attack, Jorge Rivas retired from the Carabineros in June 1986, with the rank of second corporal and 13 years of service. But he remained in the CNI until 1989. His name reached Mario Carroza through the mouth of one of the militants of La R. The topographer Evelina Bahamondes was 20 years old when she joined the group at the end of 1988. She participated in the Villa Francia cell. She told the judge that she had severe disagreements with “Miguel” and that after a shouting match, and in a moment of carelessness by her boss, she rummaged through his bag and found an identity card. She memorized a name: Jorge Rivas Arancibia. The judge then requested information from the Civil Registry. The copy of the identity card issued in 1994 was registered on page 107 of the separate file, and the judge began to summon witnesses. Evelina Bahamondes recognized him immediately. “I have no doubt that it corresponds to the CNI infiltrator,” declared Ronald Quinteros in March. Two other people said the same. Also three CNI agents, among them, Luis Sanhueza, convicted for Operation Albania and the murder of Jécar Neghme. Jorge Rivas arrived on July 1 at the Homicide Brigade of the PDI in Iquique, the city where he lives and works: he is the security manager for the Deportes Iquique club. In October, he turns 67. In April 1989, he was 39. Rivas denied everything. “During my time in the CNI, I was never offered to carry out any mission as an undercover agent,” he said in the first statement he has given for human rights cases. The former uniformed officer said that in the CNI he had the nickname “Manolo,” that he worked as a vehicle driver, and that he never carried out operational activities. That he only worked in Concepción and that he only went to Santiago once a month to drop off correspondence, as a messenger. “I never had contact with young people with political ideologies contrary to the military government,” he stated to the detectives. His record includes two arrests for bad checks in 1991 and 1994. And he has a retirement pension of $408,000, according to a Capredena report. Carroza ordered Rivas to be brought to Santiago and interrogated him on Thursday, August 25. Rivas repeated his denial and stated that in the CNI he only performed administrative tasks and barracks guard duty. “I have never been called ‘Miguel’,” he insisted. But on Monday of this week, he was confronted with those who had once seen “Miguel,” inside and outside the CNI. And everyone recognized him. Seven people. Evelina Bahamondes, Ronald Quinteros, and Carlos Moreno identified him as the infiltrator of 1988. And also four other CNI agents. Carroza prosecuted him that day as the author of the qualified homicides of Iván Palacios and Eric Rodríguez, and he is now being held at the Carabineros Transitional Detention Center in Ñuñoa. Two of the agents with whom he was confronted remembered, upon seeing him, another significant detail that fit his physical description. At the CNI’s Grajales Barracks, his colleagues knew him as “Ojitos Saltones” (Bulging Eyes). Jorge Rivas was betrayed by his eyes. by Víctor Cofré

Source: latercera.cl, September 5, 2016

6 CNI agents convicted for the 1989 murders of 2 MIR militants in a fake confrontation

The minister visiting for Human Rights cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, convicted six former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for the homicides of young men Eric Rodríguez Hinojosa (20 years old) and Iván Palacios Guarda (19), militants of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), who were executed on April 18, 1989, in the commune of Quinta Normal.

The magistrate sentenced the former army general, who was Director of the CNI at the time of the crimes, Humberto Leiva Gutiérrez, and the former army lieutenant colonel Hugo César Acevedo Godoy, who was head of the CNI’s Anti-Subversive Division at the time, to 15 years and one day in prison for their responsibility as authors of the homicide.

Meanwhile, agents Juan Raúl Farías Orellana, Víctor Rolando Caro Pizarro, and Jorge Enrique Rivas Arancibia will have to serve a sentence of 5 years and one day in prison. The latter individual infiltrated popular and resistance organizations operating in the commune of Pudahuel, in Santiago, with the alias “Miguel,” presented himself as a MIR member, and set the trap that led to the murder of the two victims.

Former army captain Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, alias “El Guiro,” who was head of the CNI’s Blue Brigade at the time of the events, will have to serve a sentence of 3 years and one day in prison. Minister Carroza granted this criminal the benefit of supervised release.

The ruling acquits agent Armando Rodolfo Ávila Fierro. Previously, the former army brigadier and head of the CNI’s Metropolitan Division at the time, Enrique Leddy Araneda, had been acquitted due to dementia.

Minister Carroza established that the Anti-Subversive Division of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) organized an operation in search of the militants of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario of the time, for which it infiltrated an agent from its ranks into the organization who used the alias “Miguel.” “Thus, on April 18, 1989, at approximately 9:00 PM, two militants of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario, Eric Enrique Rodríguez Hinojosa and Iván Palacios Guarda, were summoned to meet on San Pablo Street near No. 4,000 by a subject identified as Miguel, who ultimately turned out to be an agent of the Central Nacional de Informaciones, who had infiltrated popular neighborhoods, claiming to be a zonal leader of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), his function being to recruit young people with the aim of having them join the so-called ‘Resistance Command.’ This individual, to gain the trust of the members of the Movement, provided them with weapons and imparted military instruction,” the resolution states. It adds that: “Prior to the arrival of the victims at the aforementioned meeting, the CNI officials of the Anti-Subversive Unit had deployed a vast operation in the sector with the purpose of preparing an ambush for them; therefore, when they arrive at the place and position themselves in the meeting zone, some of the agents appear and order them to stop, and before they could react, whether to protect themselves, flee, or repel the attack, the CNI agents initiate a shootout that wounds and takes the life of the victim Iván Palacios Guarda at the scene, and they leave his companion, Eric Enrique Rodríguez Hinojosa, seriously wounded, who had to be rushed to public emergency services, where he remained in a coma and died on September 4, 1989, as a result of the complicated, non-exit cranial-encephalic gunshot wound inflicted on him on that occasion.” Furthermore, it is considered that: “Subsequently, eyewitnesses have pointed out that the CNI agents, once the shootout ended, carried out a series of maneuvers at the scene of the event with the object of simulating a confrontation with the victims, arranging a context that they intended to be endorsed by the statements of the participants when they testified under operational names before the Military Prosecutor’s Office, providing as an official version that the victims were preparing to place explosive devices on two public lighting poles that held a transformer, but that when ordered to stop, they fired at them and they had no other alternative but to repel said attack with the consequences already described.”

Source: resumen.cl, July 7, 2018

Santiago Court convicts CNI agents for homicides in a fake confrontation in Quinta Normal

The Fourth Chamber of the appellate court sentenced Hugo Acevedo Godoy, Juan Farías Orellana, Víctor Caro Pizarro, and Jorge Rivas Arancibia to 15 years and one day in prison; and Luis Sanhueza Ross to 10 years and one day, in their capacity as authors.

The Santiago Court of Appeals convicted five agents of the defunct Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified and repeated homicide of Iván Gustavo Palacios Guarda and Erick Enrique Rodríguez Hinojosa, militants of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), who were executed in a fake confrontation on April 18, 1989, in the commune of Quinta Normal.

In a split decision (case file 1,443-2019), the Fourth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Hernán Crisosto Greisse, Antonio Ulloa Márquez, and the lawyer (i) Jorge Benítez Urrutia—confirmed the appealed sentence in the part that convicted former agent Hugo César Acevedo Godoy to 15 years and one day in prison, in his capacity as author of the crimes.

Likewise, the chamber confirmed the conviction handed down against Juan Farías Orellana, Víctor Caro Pizarro, and Jorge Rivas Arancibia, with the declaration that the sentence they must serve as authors of the crimes is increased to 15 years and one day in prison; and in the case of former agent Luis Sanhueza Ross, the sentence he must serve, also in his capacity as author, was increased to 10 years and one day of effective imprisonment.

In the case, the Santiago Court of Appeals revoked the first-instance resolution and decreed the acquittal of the then-head of the CNI, Humberto Leiva Gutiérrez, and confirmed the acquittal of agent Armando Rodolfo Ávila Fierro. “That the crimes sub-lite were committed by State agents in the context of the aftermath of a period of grave, massive, and systematic human rights violations, the victims being an instrument within a general policy of exclusion, harassment, and persecution of a large group of people, composed of politicians, workers, students, professionals, and anyone who, since September 11, 1973, during the duration of the military regime, was accused of belonging to or being ideologically aligned with the deposed political regime or considered suspicious of opposing or hindering the military government’s project,” the ruling maintains. The resolution adds that: “It is in this way that the established facts show that the victims were subjected to inhumane treatment, far from any due respect for the dignity inherent to human beings; without the most elementary pity for a fellow human, and far from any moral principle by instigating two people to carry out acts of resistance only to, after having prepared the site and place of the event, feign a confrontation and kill two people, thus configuring a multiple and continuous violation of numerous rights, which has been qualified by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States as ‘an affront to the conscience of the Hemisphere and constitutes a crime against humanity,’ crimes that the world community has committed to eradicate, since such acts deserve categorical reprobation from the universal conscience, as they attack fundamental human values, which no convention, pact, or positive norm can derogate, weaken, or disguise. That, therefore, the crimes in the case must be qualified as crimes against humanity.” Meanwhile, regarding the acquittal decision for the head of the CNI at the time of the events, the chamber reasons that: “(…) the conduct of the accused Humberto Leiva Gutiérrez during the leadership he was responsible for exercising in the CNI, in the opinion of this Court, is assimilated to an administrator profile, destined to terminate it and reassign its resources, and with an anti-subversive unit dismantled, since it became the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, in charge of Brigadier Enrique Ledy, without the realization of operational or combat activities.” “Indeed,” it continues, “there is no indubitable evidence indicating that the accused ordered or arranged the murder of the young victims of these crimes, or that he participated in a coordination meeting, or appeared at the scene of the events, or signed any communiqué. There is no evidence that can attribute an order or instruction to Ledy, Acevedo, or Sanhueza. Nor did he participate in the falsification of information to the military justice system that was already being investigated.” “That, given what has been reasoned and by virtue of what is established by Article 456 bis of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides that no one can be convicted of a crime unless the court judging them has acquired, through legal means of proof, the conviction that a punishable act has really been committed and that the accused has had culpable and legally punishable participation in it, these sentencers of the majority vote consider the foundation used by the first-instance judge to convict Leiva Gutiérrez insufficient, insofar as the criminal type of author of the crimes of qualified homicide of Mr. Iván Gustavo Palacios Guarda and Mr. Erick Enrique Rodríguez Hinojosa, under No. 1 of Article 391 of the Penal Code, which occurred in this city on April 18, 1989, is not configured with respect to him, for which reason, dissenting from the prosecutor’s report, he will be acquitted, thus dissenting from the opinion of the Judicial Prosecutor who was in favor of confirming the sentence in this regard,” it concludes. In the civil aspect, the appellate court confirmed the sentence that ordered the treasury to pay a total compensation of $100,000,000 (one hundred million pesos) for moral damages to the plaintiffs: two siblings and a cousin of the victim Palacios Guarda. The decision was adopted in the criminal aspect with the dissenting vote of Minister Crisosto Greisse, who was in favor of confirming the appealed sentence in the part that convicted Leiva Gutiérrez to 15 years and one day in prison as author of the crimes; and in the civil aspect, with the dissenting vote of the participating lawyer Benítez Urrutia, who was in favor of revoking the sentence and rejecting the claim, considering the compensation action to be time-barred. Fake confrontation In the first-instance ruling, the extraordinary visiting minister Mario Carroza established the following facts: “1.- That the Central Nacional de Informaciones, created on August 13, 1977, established through Decree Law No. 1878 its structure, powers, and faculties similar to those of its predecessor, the DINA, and like it, was dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, its primary function being to gather and process all national information coming from various fields of action that ‘… the Supreme Government requires for the formation of plans and programs, and the adoption of measures necessary for the safeguarding of national security, the development of national activities, and the maintenance of institutional order.’; 2.- That this intelligence organization was militarized, so it had personnel from the armed forces and civilian personnel for the realization of its functions, was endowed with its own means and also detention centers, all of this under the charge of a General Director who exercised command at the national level and to whom all its members were subordinate; 3.- That in the Metropolitan Region, subordinate to the command of the National Directorate, was the Anti-Subversive Division, installed in the República Barracks, located on Grajales Street, and dependent on the CNI’s Intelligence Department, and its object was to organize itself at the top around an Officer who headed the operational groups, also establishing the guidelines, objectives, and setting work priorities, then field activities were developed by groups or work teams, integrated by members of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, Investigative Police, and civilians; 4.- That thus, on April 18, 1989, at approximately 9:00 PM, two militants of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario, Erick Enrique Rodríguez Hinojosa and Iván Palacios Guarda, were summoned to meet on San Pablo Street near No. 4000 by a subject identified as Miguel, who ultimately turned out to be an agent of the Central Nacional de Informaciones, who had infiltrated popular neighborhoods, invoking being a zonal leader of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario –MIR–, his function being to recruit young people with the aim of having them join the so-called ‘Resistance Command,’ this individual, to gain the trust of the members of the Movement, provided them with weapons and imparted military instruction; 5.- That prior to the arrival of the victims at the aforementioned meeting, the CNI officials of the Anti-Subversive Unit had deployed a vast operation in the sector with the purpose of preparing an ambush for them; therefore, when they arrive at the place and position themselves in the meeting zone, some of the agents appear and order them to stop, and before they could react, whether to protect themselves, flee, or repel the attack, the CNI people initiate a shootout that wounds and takes the life of the victim Iván Palacios Guarda at the scene, and they leave his companion, Erick Enrique Rodríguez Hinojosa, seriously wounded, who had to be rushed to public emergency services, where he remained in a coma and died on September 4, 1989, as a result of the complicated, non-exit cranial-encephalic gunshot wound inflicted on him on that occasion; 6.- That subsequently, eyewitnesses have pointed out that the CNI agents, once the shootout ended, carried out a series of maneuvers at the scene of the event with the object of simulating a confrontation with the victims, arranging a context that they intended to be endorsed by the statements of the participants when they testified under operational names before the Military Prosecutor’s Office, providing as an official version that the victims were preparing to place explosive devices on two public lighting poles that held a transformer, but that when ordered to stop, they fired at them and they had no other alternative but to repel said attack with the consequences already described.”

Source: pjud.cl, October 1, 2021