Minister Mario Carroza indicted seven former CNI agents for the disappearance of five FPMR members, kidnapped in retaliation for the kidnapping of Colonel Carlos Carreño. Visiting Minister Mario Carroza indicted seven former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for the qualified kidnapping of five young militants of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) in September 1987.

The magistrate indicted them for varying degrees of participation in the kidnappings of José Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola, which occurred beginning on September 1, 1987.

The resolution affects Juan Carlos Orellana Morales, Hernán Antonio Vásquez Villegas, Raúl del Carmen Durán Martínez, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Marco Antonio Pincheira Ubilla, and Jorge Raimundo Ahumada Molina.

The list also includes Iván Quiroz Ruiz, who had remained a fugitive in the Operation Albania case and was arrested on Wednesday night. According to the ruling, the first six former agents face charges as perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of Peña Maltés, while Quiroz was indicted for the same case, as well as for those of Pinochet Arenas, Sepúlveda Sánchez, Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Muñoz Otárola.

The investigation considers it proven that the five FPMR members were kidnapped in retaliation for the kidnapping of Colonel Carlos Carreño Barrera, then an official of the Army Factories and Shipyards (Famae), perpetrated on September 1, 1987.

According to the investigation, the bodies of the five victims were thrown into the sea, for which Army helicopters were used. Other indicted individuals Before leaving the case and ascending to the Supreme Court in May 2007, Judge Haroldo Brito had indicted General (Ret.) Julio Cerda Carrasco, former head of the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE), and retired officer Fernando Rafael Rojas Tapia, also a member of the aforementioned military body.

Meanwhile, he indicted Aquiles Navarrete Izarnotegui, Víctor Campos Valladares, and Hugo Barría Rogers as accessories to the disappearances. And in September 2006, Brito indicted twelve former CNI agents, among whom are General (Ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel and his subordinates, Brigadier (Ret.) Álvaro Corbalán Castilla and Krantz Bauer Donoso, as co-perpetrators of the kidnapping of Sepúlveda Sánchez, Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Muñoz Otárola.

On that occasion, the judge also indicted former agents Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, César Acuña Luengo, and René Valdovinos Morales as co-perpetrators of the kidnappings of Peña Maltés, Sepúlveda Sánchez, Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Muñoz Otárola.

They were joined by former CNI members Víctor Ruiz Godoy, Manuel Ramírez Montoya, Luis Sanhueza Ross, and Luis Santibáñez Aguilera, who were indicted as co-perpetrators of the kidnappings of Pinochet Arenas, Sepúlveda Sánchez, Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Muñoz Otárola.

Source: elmostrador.cl, January 24, 2008

Former CNI agents convicted for the death of opponents in 1981

Those involved include Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, Fernando Rojas Tapia, and Enrique Sandoval Arancibia. The justice system convicted four former agents of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship this Tuesday, in the first instance, for the death of four opponents murdered in 1981 in the outskirts of Santiago, judicial sources reported.

Judge Joaquín Billard sentenced Álvaro Corbalán Castilla and Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, both former members of the feared National Intelligence Center (CNI), to twelve years in prison. In addition, he set a six-year prison sentence for Fernando Rojas Tapia and Enrique Sandoval Arancibia, also former CNI agents.

In contrast, Luis Correa Soto, who was indicted in this case, was acquitted after his lack of participation in the events was proven. The five had been indicted in April 2008 for the homicides of four leftist militants that occurred on November 10, 1981, in the Las Vizcachas mountain sector.

The victims were Juan Ramón Soto Cerda and Jaime Alfonso Cuevas Cuevas, both militants of the Socialist Party, and Luis Pincheira Llanos and Nelson Luis Araneda Loaiza, who were members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

Their bodies were found in a burned-out car in front of the house of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, René Rojas. According to leftist organizations and relatives of victims of human rights violations, the four militants were murdered after being detained by the secret police, who then set fire to the car and staged a fake shootout at the scene.

An expert report by the Investigative Police confirmed that the victims did not cause the impacts received by the National Intelligence Center (CNI) car, as the dictatorship tried to make people believe at the time. The judge also determined that the Treasury and the four convicted individuals must jointly pay 30 million pesos to seven relatives of the victims.

Source: elmostrador.cl, March 18, 2010

Case File No. 143.671-J: Qualified kidnapping of Sergio Fernando Ruiz Lazo

141. Judicial statement of Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, on page 1424, in which he maintains that in 1981 he was assigned against his will to the CNI, where it was his duty to carry out search orders and work missions consisting of seeking information on weaponry, terrorist activities, and persons linked to the MIR.

He performed these tasks in the Blue Brigade, a role he carried out at the Borgoño barracks, participating in arrests and other operations, including interrogations of detainees, but he never used illegitimate coercion.

He adds that he did not know Sergio Ruiz Lazo and that his superior was Captain González. He concludes by saying that the Blue Brigade monitored the military structure of the MIR, but the political and foreign structures were monitored by special units that depended directly on the directorate.

Source: Judiciary, November 29, 2013

Case File No. 39.122-C: Qualified kidnapping case of Julián Peña, Alejandro Pinochet, Manuel Sepúlveda, Gonzalo Fuenzalida, Julio Muñoz

M.- That the following are convicted

AQUILES NAVARRETE IZARNOTEGUI, FERNANDO RAFAEL ROJAS TAPIA, JULIO CERDA CARRASCO, MARCO ANTONIO BUSTOS CARRASCO, AND HUGO PRADO CONTRERAS, already identified in the case files, for their participation as accessories to the crimes of Qualified Kidnapping of Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola, each to the penalty of THREE YEARS AND ONE DAY OF MINOR IMPRISONMENT IN ITS MAXIMUM DEGREE, and the accessory penalties of suspension from public office or position during the time of the sentence, and the payment of the costs of this case.

Source: Judiciary, October 14, 2013

6 CNI agents indicted for attempted homicide using explosives in May 1984

This Monday, January 18, the extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, issued an indictment against six former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the crime of attempted qualified homicide of Héctor Enrique Muñoz Morales, perpetrated in May 1984, on Cerro San Cristóbal, in the Metropolitan Region.

In the resolution (case file 238-2010), the visiting minister indicted the former Army Lieutenant Colonel Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, alias "Faraón", the also former Army Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, alias "El Piscola", the former Army Captain Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, alias "El Huiro", and the former civilian Army agents Patricio Leonidas González Cortez, alias "El Gigio", Luis René Torres Méndez, alias "Negro Mario", and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, alias "El Suave", as co-perpetrators of the crime.

All those indicted were agents of the CNI's Blue Brigade. During the investigation stage, Minister Carroza managed to determine the following facts: "On May 17, 1984, between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM, under circumstances where Héctor Muñoz Morales, a MIR militant, and his partner María Loreto Castillo were returning to their home located in the Pedro Aguirre Cerda commune, Dávila neighborhood, after having gone to buy food, they were intercepted on the public road by operational agents of the Blue Brigade of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) who were moving in at least two vehicles, who, after subduing them through the use of firearms, put them into a van, blindfolded them, and transported them to the institution's Borgoño Barracks, where they were beaten and interrogated for several hours, until a moment when they were transported to another point in Santiago, still blindfolded, near the La Pirámide sector of Cerro San Cristóbal, where they were separated. On that occasion, Héctor Muñoz Morales was beaten repeatedly and forcefully on the head by CNI agents, losing consciousness, waking up moments later surrounded by explosives that could not be detonated, managing to flee the scene to a medical center where he was able to recover and report what had happened. It is necessary to indicate -the resolution points out- that Héctor Muñoz Morales was being followed and watched that day and on previous days by agents of the CNI's Blue Brigade, who knew his routine and his movements." The act constitutes the crime of attempted qualified homicide, the ruling concludes. Days later, Héctor Muñoz Morales, accompanied by lawyers from the Vicariate of Solidarity, made a public denunciation of the event, as well as the murder of his partner. María Loreto Castillo Muñoz had also managed to break free and flee the place where they tried to blow her up along with Héctor, but she was almost immediately recaptured by the henchmen who transported her to another place and this time managed to execute the treacherous crime. María Loreto was found the next day in the Pudahuel commune, next to some high-voltage towers, where she was murdered by the CNI agents using another explosive device. At the same time, Jorge Eduardo Muñoz Navarro, another MIR member detained on the same date, who also remained in the Borgoño Barracks along with the couple, was taken to another place in the Renca commune where he was also murdered, next to a power line, staging a fake shootout to cover up the crime. Last June, Minister Carroza indicted these same subjects as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of María Loreto Castillo Muñoz, and Álvaro Julio Corbalán Castilla, Fernando Rafael Rojas Tapia, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, and Rafael Primitivo Salas Cataldo as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of Jorge Muñoz Navarro. The farces of the fake shootouts and the treacherous crimes by bombs committed by the repressive agents of the dictatorship are little by little being unveiled by the justice system and, despite the cover-ups, pressures, and maneuvers of impunity, the truth ends up prevailing.

Source: resumen.cl, January 20, 2016

Former CNI agents convicted for fake shootout

The events occurred in the Quinta Normal commune on September 7, 1983. The visiting minister sentenced Roberto Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles González Cortés to 20 years in prison.

For their responsibility in the homicides of Alejandro Salgado Troquián and Hugo Ratier Noguera, the extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez Plaza, convicted 23 former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI).

The events occurred in the Quinta Normal commune on September 7, 1983, and were made known at the time as a shootout, which turned out to be fake. Minister Vázquez sentenced Roberto Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles González Cortés to 20 years in prison.

Meanwhile, former agents José Aravena Ruiz, José Salas Fuentes, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, Egon Barra Barra, Jorge Vargas Bories, Norman Jeldes Aguilar, Fernando Rojas Tapia, Manuel Morales Acevedo, Sergio Canals Baldwin, and José Vidal Veloso must spend 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crimes.

Raúl Méndez Santos, Rodolfo Olguín González, Ema Ceballos Núñez, Miguel Gajardo Quijada, Rosa Ramos Hernández, Francisco Orellana Seguel, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Escobar Díaz, Rafael Ortega Gutiérrez, and Luis Gálvez Navarro were convicted as accomplices to 10 years and one day in prison.

During the investigation of the case, Minister Vázquez managed to establish that Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián died from bullet wounds received in the back, after agents of the CNI, the Chilean Investigative Police, and other repressive bodies began to fire without any provocation and with great firepower against the property located at 5707 Janequeo Street.

Source: eldinamo.cl, July 22, 2019

Santiago Court convicts 23 former CNI agents for murders in a 1983 fake shootout

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the first-instance sentence issued by Minister Miguel Vásquez Plaza on July 19, 2019, which convicted 23 former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified homicide of Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) militants Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián.

The crimes were perpetrated on September 7, 1983, in a fake shootout on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune. In the ruling (case file 4741-2019), the Third Chamber of the appellate court - composed of ministers Verónica Sabaj Escudero, Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, and Rodrigo Carvajal Schnettler - resolved to reject the appeals and cassation motions filed by some of the convicted individuals and to confirm the first-instance sentence with the declaration of reducing from 20 to 17 years in prison the sentences applied to the former Army officers and former CNI leaders Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, as co-perpetrators of the crime. The first of the convicted, Schmied Zanzi, served as head of the CNI's Metropolitan Division; Corbalán Castilla was head of the Anti-Subversive Division, and Aquiles González acted as head of the Blue Brigade, specialized in the repression of the MIR. Meanwhile, former Army officers Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and former agents José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Egon Antonio Barra Barra, Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, and José Isaías Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crimes.

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Convictions confirmed for five former CNI agents for the homicide of two MIR members in a 1980 fake shootout For their part, former agents Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Francisco Javier Orellana Seguel, Miguel Fernando Gajardo Quijada, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Boris Méndez Santos, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, and Rafael Ricardo Ortega Gutiérrez were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the crimes.

In the case, the acquittal of agents Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, Jorge Raimundo Ahumada Molina, and Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza was decreed, as their participation in this event was not proven. Another individual indicted in this case, the former PDI officer Jorge Arnaldo Barraza Riveros, died during the course of the process; meanwhile, the indicted former Carabineros officer Miguel Ángel Patricio Soto Duarte remains a fugitive.

This fake shootout was carried out by the CNI on the same day and immediately following the execution of three other MIR militants on Fuenteovejuna Street, in a criminal act also orchestrated as a fake shootout.

Judicially, both events are processed as separate episodes, in circumstances where it was a single repressive operation. In the investigation of the repressive act, it was demonstrated that the dictatorship's repressive body developed a tracking and surveillance operation during the months prior on a group of MIR members who were acting in the underground in the resistance struggle against the tyrant regime.

With the data obtained from that prior observation, the CNI orchestrated the extermination operation that meant the detention of a dozen people, the attack and murder of the three occupants of the house on Fuenteovejuna Street, in the Las Condes commune, and then the attack and murder of two other militants in the house on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune.

On September 7, 1983, dozens of agents from the CNI, SIFA, the Investigative Police, and other repressive bodies went to the address located at 5707 Janequeo Street, Quinta Normal commune, which had been under surveillance for some weeks, proceeding to surround and cordon off the place, and then, through the use of a base of fire and other weaponry, to fire without any provocation and with great firepower against the property, as a result of which Hugo Ratier Noguera, 39 years old, died from various bullet wounds in the backyard of the home.

Additionally, upon arriving at the same address where he resided, Alejandro Salgado Troquián, 30 years old, was gunned down by multiple bullet wounds and executed on the public road, that is, on Janequeo Street in front of number 5946.

A minor, an adopted son of Salgado and a resident of the house along with Salgado and Ratier, was a victim and witness to the events but in the middle of the shootout managed to flee toward neighboring houses, thus saving his life and later denouncing the criminal attack.

Source: resumen.cl, November 18, 2021

Supreme Court confirms convictions of 22 CNI agents for crimes in a fake shootout in Quinta Normal in September 1983

The Supreme Court confirmed the convictions against 22 agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified homicide of Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) militants Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián.

The crimes were perpetrated on September 7, 1983, in a fake shootout on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune, in Santiago. In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court (case file 10.047-2022) - composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, Jean Pierre Matus, and the acting lawyers Gonzalo Ruz L. and Leonor Etcheberry C. - ruled out any error of law in the sentence and rejected the cassation motions in form and substance filed by almost all of the convicted individuals against the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals, issued in November 2021, which in turn confirmed with some changes the first-instance ruling issued in July 2019 by Minister Miguel Vásquez Plaza. In the resolution, the Second Chamber confirms the sentences applied to the former Army officers and former CNI leaders Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, who are sentenced to 17 years in prison as co-perpetrators of the crime. The first of the convicted, Schmied Zanzi, served as head of the CNI's Metropolitan Division; Corbalán Castilla was head of the Anti-Subversive Division, and Aquiles González acted as head of the Blue Brigade, specialized in the repression of the MIR. Meanwhile, the former Army officers and CNI operatives Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and the former agents José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Egon Antonio Barra Barra, Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, and José Isaías Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the crimes. For their part, former agents Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Francisco Javier Orellana Seguel, Miguel Fernando Gajardo Quijada, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Boris Méndez Santos, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, and Rafael Ricardo Ortega Gutiérrez were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the crimes. The agent Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, also convicted in the previous instances, died during the course of the process. Fake shootout On September 7, 1983, dozens of agents from the CNI, SIFA, the Investigative Police, and other repressive bodies went to the address located at 5707 Janequeo Street, Quinta Normal commune, which had been under surveillance for some weeks, proceeding to surround and cordon off the place, and then, through the use of a base of fire and other weaponry, to fire without any provocation and with great firepower against the property, as a result of which Hugo Ratier Noguera died from various bullet wounds in the backyard of the home. Simultaneously, upon arriving at the neighborhood and the same address where he resided, militant Alejandro Salgado Troquián was gunned down by multiple bullet wounds and executed on the public road, that is, on Janequeo Street in front of number 5946, two blocks from the attacked house. Hugo Norberto Ratier Noguera, 39 years old, was of Argentine nationality, originally from Misiones, and had resided in Chile since 1970. He was a leader of the MIR and remained active in the underground. He was married and the father of three children; shortly before these events, his wife and children had left the country for security reasons. Alejandro Salgado Troquián, 30 years old, a veterinarian by profession, also a MIR militant, was married and a substitute father to his partner's children. A minor, an adopted son of Salgado and a resident of the house along with Salgado and Ratier, was a victim and witness to the events but in the middle of the shootout managed to flee toward neighboring houses, thus saving his life and later denouncing the criminal attack. This fake shootout was carried out by the CNI on the same day and immediately following the execution of three other MIR militants on Fuenteovejuna Street, in the Las Condes commune, in a criminal act also orchestrated as a fake shootout and where Arturo Vilavella Araujo, Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela, and Sergio Peña Díaz were murdered. The three had returned clandestinely to Chile to join the fight against the dictatorship. Judicially, both events are processed as separate episodes, in circumstances where it was a single repressive operation. In the investigation of the repressive act, it was demonstrated that the dictatorship's repressive body developed a tracking and surveillance operation during the months prior on a group of MIR members who were acting in the underground in the resistance struggle against the tyrant regime. With the data obtained from that prior observation, the CNI orchestrated the extermination operation that meant the detention of a dozen people, the attack and murder of the three occupants of the house on Fuente Ovejuna, and then the attack and murder of two other militants in the house on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune. by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, January 27, 2024

CNI lawyer convicted for crime committed during the dictatorship

Visiting Minister Sergio Troncoso issued a verdict that considered the responsibility as an accessory of the lawyer, who traveled from Santiago to La Serena to – the ruling indicates – instruct the agents on what they should say to evade their responsibilities.

For the first time, since investigations into human rights violations during the dictatorship began in 1991, a visiting minister has convicted one of the lawyers who provided services to the defunct National Intelligence Center (CNI), the secret police of Augusto Pinochet, which only formally ceased to exist in 1990.

In previous rulings, different judges had indicted and convicted other lawyers linked to the repression unleashed after the 1973 coup d'état, as happened with the former Army auditor and former military prosecutor ad hoc, Fernando Torres Silva, convicted for the crimes of Eugenio Berríos and Tucapel Jiménez (and pardoned in 2021 due to a terminal illness), or with the former military prosecutor of Temuco, Alfonso Podlech, convicted for several crimes executed in La Araucanía.

However, different actors in the human rights world indicate that, before the convictions issued by the visiting minister of the La Serena Court of Appeals, Sergio Troncoso, for the homicide of former intendant Daniel Acuña and the attempted homicide of his son, there were no precedents like the current one, due to the conviction as an accessory of the lawyer Guido Poli Garaycochea, 78 years old.

The ruling According to what was investigated by the special judge, the events occurred during the early hours of August 13, 1979, in Coquimbo, when a CNI commando attacked Daniel Acuña Sepúlveda, a Socialist Party militant and former intendant of Antofagasta, and his son Roberto Enrique Acuña Aravena in their home.

The investigation determined that the operation was carried out by an "elimination order" issued against Acuña Sepúlveda, issued by the Regional Division of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) in Santiago.

According to what was confessed many years later on his deathbed by Captain Patricio Padilla Villén (who died 13 years ago), the CNI agents under his command traveled to plot 222 in Tierras Blancas, Coquimbo, where after falsely identifying themselves as Carabineros, they fired at the victim's son, Roberto Enrique Acuña Aravena, who managed to survive, and then entered the house, where Padilla shot Daniel Acuña Sepúlveda in the skull.

Subsequently, in an attempt to cover up the murder and make it look like a suicide, the CNI agents placed dynamite on the victim's body and detonated it, destroying his corpse. The survivor, meanwhile, was detained in the hospital and then subjected to preventive detention for around six months, under the false accusation of crimes linked to the Arms Control Law and possession of explosives.

After the investigation, Minister Troncoso convicted Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton, head of the CNI Regional Division, for qualified homicide (15 years and one day); while Gustavo Adolfo Camilo Ahumada was convicted to 10 years for the homicide and 540 days for the serious injuries caused to Acuña Aravena.

Regarding the accomplices, Manuel Humberto Catalán Arriola received 5 years and one day for the homicide and 41 days in prison as an accessory to the serious injuries, while René Hugo Ojeda Caro was sentenced to 5 years for the qualified homicide.

Finally, the lawyer Guido Poli was convicted as an accessory to both illicit acts, receiving sentences of 3 years in prison for the qualified homicide and 40 days in prison for the serious injuries, obtaining the benefit of parole.

The Schneider case On October 10, 1970, at 23 years of age, Poli – who at that time was studying law at the Catholic University and was a militant of the National Party – was arrested, accused along with two other defendants of having installed several explosive devices (some of which failed) in different areas of Santiago, in the midst of the maneuvers prior to the homicide of General René Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of the Army at that time and a strict constitutionalist, who maintained that, if Salvador Allende were elected by the Plenary Congress on October 24, 1970 (after having won the first round on September 4 of that year), the Army should remain attached to the Constitution and not participate in any military uprising. That led to an absurd plan concocted in Washington D.C. at the behest of Agustín Edwards, in which US military intelligence agents (the CIA chief in Santiago, Henry Hecksher, was removed from the plot due to his criticism of how poorly designed it was), retired and active-duty Chilean generals, common criminals, and young people belonging to far-right groups and others of pro-Nazi thought participated, as was the case of Guido Poli, who was part of several movements of that type. On October 22, a clumsy attempt to kidnap Schneider culminated in his homicide, and in 1972 the individuals involved were sentenced to different penalties. Poli was one of the 43 convicted in that case, although he had no responsibility in the homicide; rather, in the first instance, he received a sentence of 2 years of relegation in Caldera for violation of the State Internal Security Law, but later, after the 1973 coup d'état, almost all the participants were pardoned. The legal advisor In 1979, as established by Judge Troncoso's ruling, Poli worked as a CNI lawyer, being second in hierarchy in the staff of lawyers of said secret police. According to him, his function was "to provide legal advice on all requests made, analysis of legal bodies and bills, and to prepare responses to the courts, in accordance with the information provided to them." That team, as specified by former CNI agent Fernando Rojas Tapia, was composed, in addition to Poli, of several lawyers, among them Víctor Gálvez (who was the head), René Alegría, Juan Carlos Manns, Fernando Dumay, and a certain "Iribarra". Poli assured the Justice system that in August of that year, Chiminelli ordered him to travel to La Serena in order to "advise" Captain Padilla on the statement that he would provide to the military prosecutor's office, for which he ordered another CNI agent, Captain Manuel Catalán, to accompany him. Still according to Poli's statement, on August 13, 1979, in the afternoon, Víctor Gálvez told him that "an event had occurred where CNI personnel were involved and that a person had died as a result of an explosion in their home, managing to travel around 11:00 PM in a CNI vehicle. They arrived in La Serena the following dawn, waiting out the time in the unit's facilities. Around 08:30 AM, Captain Padilla, who was the head and with whom he had to interview, arrived at the unit. At that moment, he explained his version of the events and that everything was reported to the Regional Government. He indicated to Padilla that, if there were requests from the court, he should satisfy them in a timely manner." Subsequently, he accompanied Captain Padilla to the Intendancy, then they returned to the unit, and shortly after, he returned to Santiago on August 14, never to hear about the case again. Likewise, as he argued, "the legal department only knew the official version of the events." Poli also asserted that he did not transmit any instruction to Captain Padilla regarding what to declare and that he only limited himself to telling him "to cooperate with the court." Likewise, he "manifested ignorance that the event was a setup, adding that Padilla never told him that there was an injured person who fled the scene and who was in prison" and asserted that it was "absurd that a lawyer be given an order to go and check the compliance of a military order." He also said that he "never worked with Chiminelli at that time (1979), and that they only had a social relationship."

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The doubts However, several pieces of information caused the judge to doubt the version. For example, the version provided by the then-procurator Miguel Ángel Parra Vásquez, who, in addition to saying that in the summer of 1980 he was sent to accompany Padilla to another statement, specified that the lawyers belonged to a unit called "legal intelligence," also explaining that Poli and Chiminelli knew each other from before and that between both "there was a very familiar treatment." In turn, one of the agents who participated in the event, Luis Pavez Silva, "pointed out having lied in court in his statement at the time and assured that they told him what he had to say, realizing that everything was a setup by the bosses," states the ruling, which points out that Poli's version that he only traveled to La Serena to carry out "the delivery of a brief message, regarding the duty to cooperate with the courts" is "inadmissible, since it lacks logic to organize a trip from Santiago to deliver a simple message like that, when it could have been delivered directly to Padilla by phone, or by telex if it was deemed necessary to encrypt the message. It is certainly absurd that a message like cooperating with the investigation should be delivered in person, when Padilla himself confessed that he received an order as serious as killing Acuña by telex, which notoriously merited more reserved treatment." Given this, among other arguments, Poli's defender, Maximiliano Murath, asserted that the elements against his client are not sufficient to be able to incriminate him, indicating that "it was not within his functions in the CNI Legal Department to prepare judicial angles or similar things" and that "it is contradictory to think that the lawyer Poli would go to tell the agents or the head of the operation what to say, since they had already prepared the events and the false version" and that "in that sense, one cannot cover up what is already covered up." However, the judge rejected the allegations and determined that the real motive for Poli's trip was "to meet with those involved in the execution operation of Daniel Acuña, to verify how the mission had been carried out and to impart directives for what would be the official version of the CNI before the courts," adding that "his trip was motivated by the need to protect the institution before the 'screw-up' (in Chiminelli's words) that implied the existence of a surviving victim and eyewitness to the events, making it necessary to coordinate the statements of those involved." It should be noted that, before being a member of the CNI, Poli was a member of the DINA and in that capacity, according to the biography of Manuel Contreras written by journalist Manuel Salazar, he had close contact with the Italian neo-fascists of the terrorist group Avanguardia Nazionale and their leader, Stefano Delle Chiaie. Poli became the Army's auditor general, in which he worked until 1999, and subsequently was one of the founders of the NGO Jure (Justice and Reconciliation), which defends military personnel accused of human rights violations. by: Carlos Basso Prieto

Source: elmostrador.cl, September 27, 2025