Minister Mario Carroza sentences retired General for the kidnapping of a teenager in 1973.

The visiting minister sentenced Luis Prüssing Schwartz to 3 years and one day in prison, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, as the perpetrator of the crime committed starting on October 20, 1973, in Santiago.

The visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, sentenced the former officer for his responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of 16-year-old Mario Salinas Vera, an illicit act committed starting on October 20, 1973, in Santiago.

In the ruling (case file 604-2010), the presiding minister sentenced former General Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz to 3 years and one day in prison, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, as the perpetrator of the crime; meanwhile, he decreed the acquittal of retired General Hugo Eduardo Arias Saez and retired Colonel Hamilton Orlando Rousseau Rosales Barrueta due to a lack of participation in the events.

During the investigation stage of the case, Minister Carroza was able to establish the following facts: Following the events that occurred in the country on September 11, 1973, the military government ordered total control of the city of Santiago, for which it distributed missions to be carried out in geographical locations of the city to different military units, as in this case, when the battalion of the N° 18 "Guardia Vieja" Regiment, which was based at the FISA facility in the Cerrillos commune, was under the command of the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Luis Víctor Prüssing Schwartz, seconded by Major Hamilton Orlando Rousseau Rosales Barrueta, with their contingent being responsible for controlling the Maipú commune. In that context, it is maintained that the regiment had transferred a large part of its contingent from Los Andes, belonging to the Infantry, Cazadores, Mortar, Artillery, and Andean companies, not only to the International Fair of Santiago (FISA) facility, but also proceeded to quarter its troops in the rodeo arena and the municipal gymnasium of the Maipú commune, authorizing them to carry out patrols in the Cerrillos industrial belt, in the Estación Central commune, Avenida 5 de Abril, Pajaritos, Las Rejas, General Velásquez, and other sectors of the jurisdiction. It is also noted that on October 20, 1973, 16-year-old Mario Salinas Vera, who had no political affiliation, was detained without a judicial warrant from the Los Nogales neighborhood of the Maipú commune, currently the Estación Central commune, by personnel from said regiment, by virtue of orders issued by the regiment's command. They put him on an Army truck and took him to the gymnasium of the aforementioned commune, located at the intersection of Avenida Las Rejas and 5 de Abril, a place where his brother Miguel Salinas Vera was detained and claims to have "seen him on that occasion." In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay compensation of $20,000,000 (twenty million pesos) to the victim's relatives.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, April 26, 2018

Court of Appeals sentences two former military officers for the disappearance of a teenager in 1973

In a unanimous ruling, the court sentenced Luis Prüssing and Hamilton Rosales for the aggravated kidnapping of Mario Salinas. The third chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced two retired Army officers to ten years in prison for the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of a 16-year-old teenager in October 1973, a few days after the coup d'état.

In a unanimous ruling, the court sentenced Luis Prüssing and Hamilton Rosales for the aggravated kidnapping of Mario Salinas. The 16-year-old student was detained without a judicial warrant by a group of soldiers on October 20, 1973, near his home in a neighborhood in Maipú.

According to the sentence, Mario Salinas was put on an Army truck and taken to a neighborhood gymnasium. One day later, he got back on the truck and the vehicle passed by his parents' home, who exchanged a few words with the soldiers, and shortly after, the trail of the young man was lost.

The detainee's father stated in an amparo appeal filed a few days after his son's disappearance that the soldiers mentioned that the teenager was involved in an incident and would be released a few days later.

The soldiers in charge of Salinas's detention belonged to the Guardia Vieja regiment, headed by Commander Luis Prüssing, one of those sentenced. Major Hamilton Rosales, for his part, was assigned as second in command of that regiment after the coup d'état of September 11. In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay 20 million pesos to the victim's brother.

Source: elmostrador.cl, September 30, 2019

Sentence issued against six former military officers for the crimes against three workers in 1973

It was announced today that the extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, issued a sentence against six former members of the army who in September 1973 executed workers Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán.

The crimes were perpetrated in an underpass in the Santiago commune. In the sentence (case file 481-2011), Minister Carroza sentenced former army general Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz to 15 years and one day in prison, as the perpetrator of the homicides of the victims who were detained at different points in the current Cerrillos commune and taken to the International Fair of Santiago (FISA) facility, where personnel from the N° 18 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja were based, and were later executed in the underpass located at the intersection of Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla. Meanwhile, former army lieutenant colonel Luis Rodrigo Albornoz Costa must serve 7 years in prison as the perpetrator of the crimes; meanwhile, the former conscript soldiers at the time of the events, Sergio Eduardo Padilla Abarca and René Palominos Zúñiga, were sentenced to 4 years in prison as accomplices, but were granted the benefit of intensive supervised release for the duration of the sentence; and the other former conscripts, Eugenio Segundo Díaz Parada and Manuel Jesús Zúñiga Jofré, were sentenced to 800 days in prison as accomplices to the crimes, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence. However, in a brutal reflection of covered-up impunity, the visiting minister suspended the fulfillment of the corporal punishment imposed on former general Prüssing Schwartz due to the mental alienation affecting the convicted man, for which he was released under custody and treatment bail to his family. The minister also decreed the acquittal of former army brigadier Joaquín Arnoldo Penroz de la Barra and former army non-commissioned officer Rubén Santiago Pinilla Riquelme for failing to prove their participation in the crimes, which is also explained by the inoperative and late work of the courts of justice. The resolution established the following facts: "Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, 27 years old, married, chemical engineer, member of the Communist Party and former comptroller of the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas, was deprived of his liberty on September 24, 1973, while he was at his home located at Calle Alejandro Flores N° 6383, Villa Cerrillos in the Maipú commune, around 8:00 PM in the presence of his spouse Ángela Ocaranza Bruna, by military personnel, among whom was an officer of the N° 18 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja, who informed that Nicholls Rivera would be taken to the facilities of the International Fair of Santiago (FISA). Servando Antonio González Maureira, 28 years old, President of the Workers' Union of the company Rayón Said Industriales Químicos SA and a sympathizer of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 24, 1973, in a raid carried out by the same soldiers. Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán, 24 years old, operator at the Yarur Chemical Plant and member of the Communist Youth, was deprived of his liberty on September 23, 1973, at night, in a raid on the plant located in the Cerrillos sector, by the same troops. In that context, Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, Servando Antonio González Maureira, and Jaime Patricio Millanao Caniuhuán were taken to the facilities of the International Fair of Santiago (FISA), where part of the N° 18 Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Guardia Vieja was based, under the command of a lieutenant colonel. Finding themselves all in that facility, on the night of September 24, 1973, they were ordered to board a truck and, once done, were taken to the 'Lo Valledor' bridge, located at the intersection of Calle General Velásquez and Camino a Melipilla, where an Army officer, accompanied by military personnel under his command, ordered them to descend into the underpass and ordered his subordinates to shoot them with their firearms, which, upon being activated, seriously wounded them and caused the loss of their lives at the same place, in absolute defenselessness, and their bodies were abandoned at the site, under military guard, waiting for the moment when another military patrol would remove them and take them to the Legal Medical Service. The relatives of Nicholls Rivera and Millanao Caniuhuán, seeing that they did not return to their homes, began their search, finding their mortal remains in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. In the case of Servando González Maureira, his relatives went out to look for him on September 25, 1973; upon passing by the 'Lo Valledor' bridge, they saw his lifeless body next to two other male corpses, all of them guarded by military personnel. Upon confirming that it was their loved one, they carried out the necessary procedures to bury him. By virtue of what was reported by the Legal Medical Service, the victims Servando Antonio González Maureira and Jaime Pablo Millanao Caniuhuán would register their date of death as September 25, 1973, at 2:00 AM; and in the case of Carlos Enrique Mario Nicholls Rivera, September 24, 1973, with the place of their deaths being Calle General Velásquez and Camino Melipilla."

Source: resumen.cl, August 25, 2020

Supreme Court sentences former Army officer for the kidnapping and disappearance of a 16-year-old in 1973

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that condemned former Army officer Hamilton Orlando Rousseau Rosales Barrueta to 10 years in prison, as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of 16-year-old Mario Salinas Vera, who was detained by military personnel in October 1973 and has remained disappeared since that date.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 33.853-2019), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, minister María Teresa Letelier, and lawyer (i) Gonzalo Ruz—rejected the appeal for cassation on the merits filed by the defense of the convicted and dismissed the admissibility of the appeal filed against the sentence issued by the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals in November 2019, which sentenced Rosales Barrueta and former Army general Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz to the aforementioned 10 years in prison.

Likewise, the Criminal Chamber refrained from issuing a pronouncement regarding the appeal for cassation filed on behalf of the convicted former Army officer, Prüssing Schwartz, due to his death. In the first-instance ruling, issued in April 2018 by Minister Mario Carroza, the now-deceased Prüssing Schwartz had been sentenced to 3 years in prison, and the court acquitted Rosales Barrueta and the also-prosecuted Hugo Eduardo Arias Sáez.

This sentence was revoked by the aforementioned ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals. The facts The convicted former Army officers were part of the uniformed contingent that, as part of the coup d'état and the subsequent repression, was mobilized from the provinces to Santiago to exercise control over the capital.

The individuals implicated and convicted in these events formed the command of a battalion of the N° 18 "Guardia Vieja" Regiment, from Los Andes, which was based at the International Fair of Santiago (FISA) facility in the current Cerrillos commune with the purpose of imposing terror in the western area of the capital.

The aforementioned battalion was under the charge of the then-lieutenant colonel and commander of the N° 18 Regiment, Luis Víctor José Prüssing Schwartz, seconded by the then-major Hamilton Orlando Rousseau Rosales Barrueta.

The "Guardia Vieja" Regiment had transferred a large part of its contingent from Los Andes, belonging to the Infantry, Cazadores, Mortar, Artillery, and Andean companies, who installed themselves not only in the FISA facility but also quartered in the Rodeo Arena and the Municipal Gymnasium of the Maipú Commune, carrying out patrols and controls in the Cerrillos industrial belt, in the Maipú commune, in the current Estación Central commune, and other sectors of the western area of Santiago.

On October 20, 1973, the young student Mario Salinas Vera, who had no political affiliation, was detained by military personnel from said regiment from his home located in the Los Nogales neighborhood, in the current Estación Central commune.

They put him on an Army truck and took him to the municipal gymnasium of the commune, in the vicinity of Avenida Las Rejas and 5 de Abril, a place where his brother Miguel Salinas Vera was already detained, who was a witness to his brother's arrival as a prisoner of the uniformed men.

The next day, in the morning hours, Mario Salinas Vera was taken by the same uniformed men in a military truck to his parents' house; they spoke with them, searched the home, and immediately afterward, took him away to an unknown destination.

It has never been possible to learn the fate of the detained young man. After almost 49 years since the events occurred, with the inexorable result of the passage of time, with a weak and lax judicial investigation in between, only one of the implicated criminals will have to serve an effective sentence. by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, August 12, 2022