Address: Valenzuela Llanos 3682, Apt. 32, Población San Joaquín, San Joaquín commune, Santiago Marital Status: Single Occupation: Weaver, FACH conscript Repressive Status: Member of the FACH Intelligence Service on detached duty with the DINA Date of Detention: July 23, 1974

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez, 19 years of age, a FACH (Chilean Air Force) conscript, was detained on July 23, 1974, at his home in the presence of his aunt, María González. On that occasion, a young man, about 20 years old, tall, robust, with brown hair, a beard, light eyes, and wearing a blue FACH jacket, arrived at the victim's house.

The agent said he had come to look for Rodolfo. According to Mrs. María's testimony, the two entered the house and spoke for a while; she only managed to hear her nephew tell the agent that he did not have his TIFA (Armed Forces Identification Card). They then left without saying where they were going. To this day, the victim has not returned home.

Rodolfo González had joined the Chilean Air Force on April 2, 1973, to fulfill his military service. Once inside, the coup d'état occurred, and in November of that year, he was assigned to perform tasks for the FACH Intelligence Service (SIFA).

Once there, he was sent on detached duty to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA). He was tasked with performing duties in Colina, Tejas Verdes, La Rinconada de Maipú, and later at the Military Hospital.

His aunt reported that from the time he joined the SIFA, civilians would come to the house to look for him; he never wore his uniform again, he was paid a salary, and he was given suits and shoes as gifts. On one occasion, he showed her his DINA card.

At that time, a brother of the victim was seeking asylum in the Argentine Embassy, as he was a leftist militant. This situation left him very worried and confused, which he had communicated to his family and to some of the detainees he was tasked with guarding.

Among the tasks he had to perform once assigned to security duties was guarding political prisoners held at the Military Hospital, where it is confirmed that he helped Osvaldo Puccio and Tito Palestro. He was constantly concerned with maintaining contact between the detainees and their families.

Later, he performed carpentry work at the home of Army General Agustín Toro Dávila.

According to the testimony of Luz Arce, a former socialist militant who was detained by the DINA and later became a collaborator for that security service, she met the victim in the Tower of Villa Grimaldi in July 1974, during the time she was detained by the DINA.

There, she noticed that the other agents referred to Rodolfo González in a derogatory manner. Even on the night she arrived at the DINA facility located on José Arrieta, she heard two guards referring to him (Rodolfo González), commenting that "he is in the clinic because he threw himself from the Tower." Luz Arce was later able to confirm, when the victim was transferred to the Villa Grimaldi facility, that he indeed had a cast on his right leg.

She also points out that earlier, during the time she was detained at the Military Hospital, when the victim was still working as an agent, he told her about his brother seeking asylum, and that when she was doing poorly, he would help her; he even personally took charge of delivering letters to her family and brought back letters or things that her family sent to her.

In a publication by the newspaper O'DIA of Curitiba, Brazil, a list of "59 Chilean extremists belonging to the MIR, most of whom fell dead, others were wounded, and some managed to escape in those clashes" was published, as noted in the July 25, 1975, edition of the Chilean newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias.

The name of Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez appears on the aforementioned list. The falsehood of this information was demonstrated in several judicial proceedings; the newspaper was published only on that occasion, there were never any such clashes, and all the people mentioned on the list had been detained by the DINA in Chile and remained forcibly disappeared.

Furthermore, in the particular case of the victim, he was not a member of the MIR, nor of any party; rather, he had been a DINA agent. In her testimony, Luz Arce states that "he had no idea about anything, zero training, it is impossible that he could have been from the MIR."

Regarding what might have happened to him, she points out that during the interrogations she was subjected to, Captain Raúl Carevic would insistently ask her about what Rodolfo González had told her, if he had spoken to her about his brother, and what he said about the DINA.

Finally, they took him away, although she does not remember when, but she constantly heard that they would kill him themselves, the DINA agents themselves, and that they referred to him as a traitor. She even notes that years later, FACH officers blamed her for the victim's death.

Years later, on January 31, 1977, the then-Air Force Lieutenant Gustavo Garretón Rodríguez appeared at the home of the victim's aunt, Mrs. María González, and, accompanied by an assistant, removed the victim's military garments.

His relatives did not cease their efforts to find out what happened to Rodolfo González; they went to all FACH units and the Ministry of Defense on multiple occasions, and also sent letters to General Toro Dávila in hopes that he would help them, but their efforts were always fruitless.

Subsequently, Mrs. González passed away without being able to learn the final fate of her nephew, who is currently classified as a forcibly disappeared person.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On November 19, 1974, a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the victim was filed with the 4th Criminal Court of San Miguel. The case was registered under file No. 12.328.

On September 17, 1975, the case was dismissed. After the resolution was appealed, the case was returned to the summary stage on February 1, 1977, without being able to make progress in determining the fate of the victim.

On June 10, 1991, after the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation sent the case files to the courts, his mother filed a criminal complaint against the DINA agents for the crimes of kidnapping and others that could be established in the disappearance of the victim.

The filing requested the consolidation of the complaint with case No. 12328, which was investigating the same facts in the 4th Criminal Court of San Miguel. That case was transferred to the Third Criminal Court of the President Aguirre Cerda Court, and by the end of 1992, it was in the summary stage.

It is important to mention that it has not been possible to verify the existence of a desertion case against the victim in the Aviation Court, and if one existed, there has been no access to it. According to the Aviation Court, the case is dismissed because Rodolfo González Pérez was not found.

Source: Corporation report

General (Ret.) Hernan Ramirez Hald sentenced to 10 years and 1 day in prison

The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice sentenced Army General (Ret.) Hernán RAMÍREZ HALD to 10 years and 1 day in prison as the perpetrator of the qualified kidnapping of communist militant José Orlando Flores Araya, which occurred in 1974.

Once the sentence is finalized, the General (Ret.) must enter the Punta Peuco Prison to serve his sentence. For the same victim, the same crime, and also as a perpetrator, Army Colonel (Ret.) Haroldo LATORRE SÁNCHEZ was sentenced to 10 years and 1 day in prison.

The Criminal Chamber also sentenced former DINA agents Gerardo URRICH GONZÁLEZ and Manuel CAREVIC CUBILLOS to 10 years and 1 day in prison as perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of the Chilean Air Force conscript and former DINA agent, Rodolfo González Pérez, an event that occurred in 1974.

For both victims, who are currently disappeared, the Criminal Chamber also sentenced former DINA agents César MANRÍQUEZ BRAVO and Marcelo MOREN BRITO to 10 years and 1 day in prison as perpetrators of qualified kidnapping.

The Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security is a co-plaintiff in both cases, and its participation constituted a fundamental contribution to the judicial resolutions that culminated in the final sentence of the Supreme Court.

In August 2002, General RAMÍREZ HALD was sentenced by Judge Sergio Muñoz to 800 days of suspended prison as an accessory to the murder of union leader Tucapel Jiménez, which occurred on February 25, 1982.

On that occasion, RAMÍREZ HALD was the only officer in active service to be convicted, and for that reason, he was called to retire from the institution. Two years later, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed this sentence, which the high-ranking officer served in freedom under the supervision of the Gendarmerie.

In the case of conscript Rodolfo González, according to the judicial investigation, after the 1973 military coup, he became part of the DINA. As such, he performed surveillance duties at different detention centers and at the Military Hospital, guarding some detainees.

But González began to sympathize with the detainees, serving as a courier for communication with their families. While performing duties at the Military Hospital, he provided the same help to detainee Luz Arce Sandoval, who was hospitalized due to a gunshot wound.

Later, Luz Arce became a collaborating agent for the DINA and, according to case records, denounced the conscript. González Pérez was arrested on July 23, 1974, and taken to Villa Grimaldi, where he was brutally tortured, leading him to attempt suicide.

His name is inscribed on the list of the 119 disappeared of "Operation Colombo." In the case of José Flores Araya, he was detained on August 23, 1974, by a patrol under the command of then-Lieutenant Haroldo LATORRE and taken to the Army Non-Commissioned Officers School.

There, he was placed in the charge of then-Lieutenant Hernán RAMÍREZ HALD, who was the commander of the Intelligence Section II of that facility, in charge of the detainees. From there, Flores Araya was taken to the Villa Grimaldi center, from where his whereabouts have remained unknown to this day.

Source: mediabanco.com, March 3, 2015

Date: 03-03-2015

Supreme Court issues sentence for the qualified kidnapping of two young men during the dictatorship

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, decided to accept an appeal for cassation that condemns the State for moral damages to Magaly González Pérez, the sister of one of the victims, who will receive compensation of 70 million pesos.

The Supreme Court issued a sentence for the qualified kidnappings of José Flores Araya and Rodolfo González Pérez, which occurred in 1974 during the Pinochet dictatorship. As reported by Radio BíoBío, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, decided to accept an appeal for cassation that condemns the State for moral damages to Magaly González Pérez, the sister of one of the victims, who will receive compensation of 70 million pesos.

Thus, the conviction of former DINA members César Manríquez Bravo, Marcelo Moren Brito, Gerardo Urrich González, Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Hernán Ramírez Hald, and Haroldo Latorre Sánchez to 10-year sentences was ratified.

The ruling details that "the indemnity action deduced is of a merely patrimonial nature, because the facts upon which it is based are outside of a contractual or extra-contractual relationship, but are instead constitutive of a crime against humanity, from which emanates, in addition to the penal action, a civil reparatory one."

Source: El Mostrador, February 27, 2015

Date: 27-02-2015

Villa Grimaldi Case: Bail granted to four former military officers

The Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, in a unanimous vote, granted release, upon payment of 500,000 pesos, to four retired Army officers whom Judge Alejandro Solís had indicted for the qualified kidnapping of eight dissidents to the military regime, within the framework of the "Villa Grimaldi" case investigation.

They are former members of the dissolved DINA: retired Generals Hernán Ramírez Hald and César Manríquez, and retired Brigadiers Gerardo Urrich and Manuel Carevic, who have been held at the Peñalolén Military Police Battalion since last Monday.

The appellate court was composed of magistrates Alfredo Pfeiffer, Humberto Provoste, and the participating attorney Ángela Radovic. Magistrate Solís adopted the resolutions based on the disappearances of Rodolfo González Pérez (July 24, 1974); Fernando Silva Camus (November 27, 1974); Anselmo Radrigán Plaza (December 12, 1974); Marcelo Salinas Eitel (October 21, 1974); José Orlando Flores Araya (August 23, 1974); María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda (December 9, 1974); Jaime Robotham (December 31, 1974); and Rafael Araneda Yévenes (December 12, 1974).

Source: lanacion.cl, August 12, 2005

Date: 12-08-2005

Judge issues 14 indictments for qualified kidnappings at Villa Grimaldi

A total of fourteen former agents of the military regime were indicted for the crime of qualified kidnapping, within the framework of the human rights violations committed at the Villa Grimaldi detention center in the Metropolitan Region.

The resolution was adopted this Monday by the visiting judge Alejandro Solís, as part of the investigation he is conducting into the disappearance of eight people inside Villa Grimaldi between July and December 1974.

The list of those indicted is headed by retired Generals Manuel Contreras, who was the head of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Hernán Ramírez Hald, and César Manríquez, the latter a former Undersecretary of War of the military regime.

Also indicted were retired Brigadiers Pedro Espinoza, Miguel Krassnoff, and Fernando Laureani; retired Colonels Marcelo Morén Brito, Haroldo Latorre, Rolf Wenderoth, and Gerardo Urrich; retired Captain Manuel Carevic; and retired Corporal Basclay Zapata, all from the Army.

Likewise, the magistrate brought charges against civilian Osvaldo Romo Mena and retired Gendarmerie Sub-lieutenant Osvaldo Manzo. All were indicted for the disappearances of Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez, a former FACH conscript; Fernando Silva Camus; Anselmo Radrigán Plaza; Marcela Salinas Eithel; José Flores Araya; María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda; Rafael Araneda Yévenes; and Jaime Robotham Bravo.

Magistrate Solís ordered that Carevic, Ramírez Hald, and Urrich remain in preventive detention at the Cordillera Prison, while he did not decree precautionary measures against the rest, as they were already enjoying conditional release or are serving sentences for other crimes.

According to the Rettig and Valech reports, which have documented the human rights violations committed in Chile, Villa Grimaldi—also known as Cuartel Terranova—was the most important secret detention and torture center of the DINA.

This Monday's resolution is the second of importance regarding the investigation into the abuses committed at Villa Grimaldi. Previously, Judge Solís indicted eight former military officers for illegal coercion against 22 people who were held at that facility.

The aforementioned ruling had also affected Contreras, Morén Brito, Espinoza Bravo, Krassnoff Martchenko, Romo Mena, Zapata Reyes, and Laurani Maturana, to which Maximiliano Ferrer Lima and Gerardo Godoy García were also added.

The former head of the DINA, along with Krassnoff, Moren Brito, and Laureani, are serving sentences for the qualified kidnapping of Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) militant Miguel Ángel Sandoval.

Source: Lanacion.cl, August 8, 2005

Date: 08-08-2005