It is practically proven that the CNI orchestrated an operation to eliminate three MIR militants and one socialist by simulating an explosion. Thanks to this systematized strategy, some 20 cases have currently not been recognized by human rights commissions as political crimes.

The Government will reopen the processes for the reclassification of cases, and this is, without a doubt, the most advanced one.

On the night of November 10, 1981, a member of the 3rd Fire Company of Puente Alto arrived, along with his colleagues, to extinguish a fire. It was on the road to Las Vizcachas, right in front of the house of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, René Rojas Galdames.

When they arrived at the scene, they encountered a terrifying sight: on one side of the street, three bodies lay engulfed in flames inside an automobile. A fourth was burning a few meters from the scene.

For a second, everyone froze. "It was macabre, imagine bodies burning, and seeing them through the flames. Furthermore, one of them was decapitated; there are no exact words to describe it," the firefighter recalls.

Personnel from the 1st Company of the commune joined the group. Together, they prepared for action and looked for the best position to extinguish the fire. But at that moment, the volunteer remembers that a man stopped them. "Halt right there," he told them.

At first, he thought it was a recommendation to avoid the ravages of the fire, but then he realized that was not the case. It was a group of five men carrying pistols and machine guns. Their faces were distorted with rage, and they were cordoning off the area.

In a desperate act, the chief in charge of the two fire units gave the order to put out the fire, but now everything was clear. "Get out of there, I am the one giving the orders," replied the subject who, it became clear, was from the CNI. Instantly, the rest of the agents pointed their machine guns at them.

The firefighter who witnessed this currently lives in Denmark and, according to high-level sources in the investigation, it is very likely that he will be called to testify in the framework of the judicial process for this case, known as "Calcinados" (The Charred), which is being substantiated by the minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Joaquín Billard.

In the press of the time, the information indicated that the people who died inside the automobile were the MIR members Luis Pincheira and Jaime Cuevas; Juan Ramón Soto Cerda, a militant of the Socialist Party; and a body attributed to Nelson Araneda, which remains unidentified.

This body was missing its head, legs, and hands. The official version, then, established that the subversives were parked outside the chancellor's house with the alleged intention of carrying out an attack.

At that moment, a CNI patrol passed by the place and asked them to get out of the car. But they were met with a rain of bullets. With no other possibility, the dictatorship's agents fired at the automobile, which, due to the shots, exploded. Then the fire began, and the bodies were charred.

Billard's investigation has shown notable progress. Step by step, it has been proven that it was not a confrontation, but an operation deliberately orchestrated by the CNI, which did not have the freedom to act that its predecessor, the DINA, had.

The case is an emblem, since until now all the CNI setups, termed by human rights organizations as "deaths by explosion," are part of the long list of cases where there is still no conviction regarding the participation of agents.

This implies that they are not recognized by the State as terrorist crimes of the dictatorship, being cataloged as accidents attributable to other causes. It is estimated that there are 30 victims out of a total of 20 episodes.

The "Calcinados" case accounts for a systematic way of acting tending to disguise crimes with surprise explosions and false confrontations. But it gains more importance after the relatives of victims of political executions and torture met on March 3rd with the Secretary General of Government, Francisco Vidal.

Once the meeting concluded, a topic that has been generating controversy for some time was clarified: the Government is going to open a review process for those cases that remained outside the Rettig and Valech commissions, due to the lack of conviction that they were political crimes.

In fact, the new process is contained in the bill that will initiate the National Institute of Human Rights. "Although the Institute has not been approved, there is agreement on this point in both chambers. A budget was even assigned to it so that those who qualify will have access to benefits," María Luisa Sepúlveda, presidential delegate for human rights, explained to LND.

Before the three bodies of the MIR members appeared charred in the automobile, the leadership of that group knew that they had been missing for some time. All of them had orders to meet in Talca to organize the Nahuelbuta guerrilla, after the disaster that occurred in Neltume, where 25 militants were murdered.

Nelson Araneda was in command of the mission. Luis Pincheira was his second-in-command, and Jaime Cuevas was a peasant recruited months earlier. The three were captured during the last days of October 1981, in that city.

This reconstruction has been possible after long work by the magistrate, in conjunction with the officers of the Special Affairs and Human Rights Brigade (BAES) of the Investigations police.

One of those who decided to "loosen his tongue" was the Army Colonel (Ret.) and head of the CNI barracks in Talca, Gonzalo del Real Anthauer. According to his statement of May 2, 2007, at the end of 1981, he received a call from the CNI in Santiago.

They ordered him to conduct surveillance on a home located on Calle 2 Sur. "That same day, around 6:00 PM, three to four vehicles arrived from Santiago, with about ten people who were under the command of Captain Sandoval, nicknamed 'Pete El Negro'," he recounts.

The person identified by Del Real is Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia, convicted, among other cases, for the crime of 13-year-old Carlos Fariña in 1973. He is currently an official of the Municipality of Providencia.

Del Real adds that two subjects were identified in a home in the VII Region. The surname of one of them was Pincheira. He also declared that the MIR members were detained shortly thereafter on public roads, while they were walking down the street.

The former CNI agent from Talca and Police Sergeant (Ret.), José Manuel Nolasco, emphasizes what was pointed out by his superior and adds that "at that time, when there were detention procedures, we all participated, regardless of which office we worked in." He also clarified that the arrest order came from the capital because the two subjects were staying in a house located on Calle 2 Sur "and they were denounced, apparently, by the homeowners themselves." The agent declared that the two men were part of the Neltume guerrilla.

Former CNI agent Ruperto Núñez González is even more specific in his statement and acknowledges that the subjects were detained in a restaurant located on a central street of the city, along with two other people who were later released.

According to his testimony, the next day "we dedicated ourselves to looking for a third subject, who was the liaison for the tallest person, but this subject was detained the following day, also on a public street."

Once transferred to the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, the three MIR members were taken to the dungeons. The statement provided by CNI radio operator Aladino Pereira helped determine how the PS militant, Juan Soto Soto, was added to the group of charred victims.

In his statement, he points out that on November 8, he received a call from operational agents who had just detained a PS militant. He adds that when Álvaro Corbalán found out the news, he told him: "Attention that team, this is eleven zero zero, bring that bastard here because I need him for tonight." Pereira adds that "throughout the day, different agents of the group were preparing the vehicle with incendiary materials, such as gasoline, aluminum powder, etc."

Another fundamental piece of information provided by the radio operator is that the automobile where the MIR and PS militants burned was seen shortly before at the Cuartel Borgoño.

"That same day, I found out over the Carabineros radio that two armed subjects had stolen a Chevrolet Opala taxi. Minutes later, I saw an automobile with the same characteristics as the stolen car enter the barracks, and I realized it was the same vehicle, as the license plates matched," he recounts.

According to his testimony, Francisco "El Gurka" Zúñiga and agent Américo Correa got out of the car.

Within the framework of this case, the ballistics expert from Investigations, Gustavo Lynch, who was in charge of the ballistics report in 1981, declared in the case: "bullets do not cause an explosion. I believe the vehicle was sprayed with some type of fuel and then set on fire directly."

Added to all the evidence is that although the agents do not acknowledge that it was a premeditated crime, several have already admitted that they were there that early morning while the automobile was burning.

These agents were the ones who, that night, did not let the firefighter extinguish the fire. The helplessness and anguish of observing such a horrendous scene caused changes in him that would accompany him for the rest of his life. And now he may become a key witness.

Source: La Nacion, March 23, 2008

Minister Jorge Zepeda ordered the detention of the Providencia neighborhood security official, Major (Ret.) Enrique Sandoval Arancibia, whom he prosecuted last week for the kidnapping and homicide of the minor Carlos Fariña Oyarce (14), who was taken from his home in La Pincoya on October 13, 1973.

After notifying the former uniformed officer yesterday, the magistrate expressed satisfaction "in that an investigation is being concluded." However, he specified that "the tragedy is on the side of the victims and on the side of those who, at the time, had some responsibility." Enrique Ibarra, Sandoval's defense attorney, reported that the minister granted him release upon payment of a 50,000 peso bail and with consultation to the Santiago Court of Appeals.

Therefore, until the court resolves his situation, Sandoval will remain detained in the facilities of the Peñalolén Military Police Battalion.

Surprise in the family

The victim's brother, Iván Fariña, said he was surprised by the potential release of Sandoval and announced a meeting for today at noon with Minister Zepeda, "to know what I can expect, when there will be convictions."

In his investigation, the judge specified that the personnel who acted in the operation belonged to the No. 3 Yungay Mountain Infantry Regiment of San Felipe, which at that time was quartered in the Quinta Normal facility.

Sandoval was then in command of the second section of the first "Cazadores" company of the Regiment and was allegedly the material author of the minor's homicide.

This is the second prosecution issued by Zepeda in the case, as Major (Ret.) Donato López, who was in charge of this military unit, has been charged - for the same crimes - since 2004.

The former uniformed officer works as a technical inspector of external services for the commune's neighborhood security directorate.

Labbé: "I have no opinion"

The mayor (UDI) of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, maintained that he will wait for justice to investigate and for the courts to resolve the official's situation.

He added that "I have no opinion on this. Mr. Sandoval is an administrative official who has no security responsibilities and who has no activities with the community."

In an interview with Canal 13, the mayor stated that "the only thing I feel is that we continue with the subject 30-something years later (...) As an official, Mr. Sandoval has the full support of the municipality until justice rules."

Source: La Nacion, December 28, 2005

Fariña Case: Freedom granted to former military officer prosecuted for child's crime

The former military officer, who must pay a $50,000 bail to access the benefit, is prosecuted as the author of the kidnapping and homicide of Carlos Fariña Oyarce, detained when he was only 13 years old.

The Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals ratified the benefit of provisional release in favor of the Army Major (Ret.) and current official of the Municipality of Providencia, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia.

The former military officer, who must pay a $50,000 bail to access the benefit, is prosecuted as the author of the kidnapping and homicide of Carlos Fariña Oyarce, who was detained in 1973 when he was about to turn 14, becoming one of the youngest victims of the military regime's repression.

The decision was adopted unanimously by ministers Jorge Dahm and Patricio Villar, as well as the participating lawyer María Victoria Valencia.

Also prosecuted for the minor's death is Army Major (Ret.) Donato López, who is also held responsible for the crimes of Víctor Vidal, 16, and Héctor Araya, 20.

According to the judicial investigation, Fariña Oyarce was kidnapped from his home in the "La Pincoya" neighborhood on October 13, 1973, at ten in the morning, by a contingent made up of two Carabineros, four soldiers, and two civilians.

He was taken to a soccer field near his house, where all those detained in the raid were gathered and those who were to go to prison were selected. From there, Fariña Oyarce was taken in a military truck to an unknown destination.

After 27 years had passed, on July 30, 2000, workers performing work on a construction site at the intersection of Avenida Américo Vespucio and San Pablo, near Pudahuel airport, found the minor's remains.

Source: elmostrador.cl, December 29, 2005

The fearsome history of "Pete el Negro"

The former DINA and CNI agent killed 13-year-old Carlos Fariña in the back in 1973 and burned the corpse of the dictatorship's youngest victim. In 1979, he commanded the "cleanup" of the bodies buried in Cuesta Barriga to throw them into the sea.

In 1981, he killed the MIR member Lisandro Sandoval. Today, he works alongside Colonel (Ret.) Cristián Labbé, current mayor of Providencia, a safe commune.

In the middle of the night in October 1973, illuminated only by the truck's headlights, the boy looked at the officer and shouted that he did not want to die. Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia, "Pete el Negro," ordered two soldiers to put him with his back turned, because he did not want to look at him.

The boy continued to beg for mercy. The officer raised his Steyr pistol and fired four shots into his head. Then, a conscript sprayed the body with fuel, and the officer from the Yungay Regiment lit a match and threw it on him.

The flare illuminated the terrified faces of the two soldiers, who covered their faces so that the stench of burning flesh would not enter their souls as an indelible memory. Pete remained imperturbable. No one said anything else. They dug the clandestine grave quickly in the desolate site.

At 14 years old, Carlos Fariña Oyarce became the youngest victim of the Pinochet dictatorship. With the gasoline consumed and the scene wrapped in the infernal gloom of the vehicle's lanterns, they pushed the smoking remains into the improvised grave.

The earth that began to cover the boy did not manage to free the soldiers from the horror. Pete was not moved and remained firm in command. They cleaned up every trace and returned in silence to the Internado Barros Arana in Quinta Normal.

That was the place chosen where the troops of a Yungay detachment that came from the city of San Felipe, in the V Region, under the command of its commander, Donato López Almarza, were installed.

Turning classrooms into prison and torture cells for those who were falling in street raids and selective detentions, they installed their headquarters there hours after the 1973 military coup. Their mission in Santiago: to reinforce terror.

At 24 years old and with the rank of lieutenant, "Pete el Negro" – as they called him in the Army because of his ugly appearance – was in those days in command of the Second Section of the First Company of the Yungay detachment. A few months before the coup d'état, he traveled to the School of the Americas in Panama to learn how to repress effectively.

His ferocity made him climb positions to work in Villa Grimaldi, commanding the Condor Group of the Caupolicán Brigade, raiding and detaining people alongside the select group of Miguel Krassnoff and "Ronco" Marcelo Moren Brito.

Today, Sandoval Arancibia – prosecuted by Judge Jorge Zepeda with the accusation of killing and burning the boy Fariña – is, paradoxically, the supervisor of security for the commune of Providencia, under the command of the also former DINA agent, Colonel (Ret.) and Mayor Cristián Labbé. "Pete's" function is "the Technical Inspection of external contracts for the Neighborhood Security Directorate."

Intentional confession

The remains of the boy Fariña were found by chance on June 30, 2000, after an excavation in the sector of Avenida Américo Vespucio and San Pablo, west of Santiago.

A week ago, Sandoval finally confessed to the minor's crime before Minister Zepeda. Although he tried to cover up the murder as an "execution by a firing squad" before which "I placed the minor facing forward and gave the order to fire," thanks to the collaboration of the twelve conscripts that "Pete" commanded that night, it was established in the judicial investigation that the crime occurred as related in this chronicle.

At least, that is certified by the indictment and the formalization document of the accusation issued against Sandoval and López Almarza by the judge.

But the clearest proof that Fariña did not die as Sandoval claims is the autopsy protocol performed on his remains and incorporated into the file, which indicates that he was shot in the back. In his confession, "Pete" blamed his commander, López Almarza, for ordering him to "eliminate and make disappear" the boy on the same day of his detention in La Pincoya on October 13, 1973, during a massive raid in search of "extremists."

Operation Cuesta Barriga

With the DINA gone at the end of 1977, "Pete" moved to the National Intelligence Center (CNI), where he became one of Álvaro Corbalán's favorites and came to command the Blue Brigade that pursued the MIR. There, he operated under the alias "Roberto Hernán Fuenzalida Palma."

It was January 1979; shortly before – in November 1978 – the bodies of 15 peasants were found in an abandoned mine in Lonquén, south of Santiago. Jerónimo Pantoja, in command of the CNI replacing General Odlanier Mena, who was on vacation, ordered Pete: "Blow up the Cuesta Barriga mine! We don't want any more problems!"

Information arrived at the CNI headquarters, provided by a rabbit hunter, about the existence of several human bodies thrown into a mine shaft. His dogs found the remains by scent. According to Sandoval's judicial statements, the hunter told of the discovery first at the Vicariate of Solidarity and asked for money, "but they took too long and I arrived first."

First, they thought about blowing up the mine, but the necessary explosive "would cause a magnitude three earthquake" that would be recorded by seismographs. Then, Pantoja ordered him to burn the bodies with acid, which he rejected because of the danger it implied for him and his people.

"Pete" called General Mena at his summer home in Mehuín and told him his return to Santiago was urgent. At twelve the next day, the CNI helicopter arrived at the Tobalaba airfield and Mena ordered: "Take the bodies out and clean the mine!"

Sandoval, alias "Pete," says he chose ten agents and left for the slope with "one hundred potato sacks" and the necessary implements. They worked for three days and three nights and filled "about 50 to 80 sacks with human remains." Some were skeletonized, "few still had tissue, but the smell was putrid."

In some of the sacks, they also put remains of clothing. "Everything that revealed the presence of human remains had to be removed," the agent stated in the Cuesta Barriga process. He could not specify the number of bodies extracted, but suspects there were more than 20, all disarticulated.

To Malloco and Peldehue

Finished with the task, they improvised a large broom with shrub branches and swept well so as not to leave traces. They loaded the sacks onto a truck and disguised them with hay bales they brought for that purpose. On top, they sprinkled oats "to minimize the smell of the cargo, in case we ran into people."

According to Sandoval, under the orders "of General Mena," they took the remains to the plot of land expropriated from the MIR in Malloco, where they spent the night. The next morning, very early, they left for the Army training field in Peldehue, where they loaded the sacks onto a helicopter and threw them into the sea tied to rails.

For this phase of the operation, "Pete" remembers that "we took the route that leads to the sanctuary of Sor Teresita de los Andes."

Everything finished, Sandoval Arancibia returned to the mine and threw five dead dogs into the shaft, "to justify the presence of bones there, as the hunter had told the Vicariate."

Two years later, in August 1981, being a CNI captain and in the company of "Juan Pablo Aguilera Espinoza," who turned out to be agent Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, "El Choco," in the vicinity of the Metro Ecuador station in Santiago, Pete shot and killed the MIR member Lisandro Sandoval Torres.

He confessed to the crime in the trial, but was favored with the benefit of the statute of limitations for the crime.

Three deaths and a feeling

But why did the boy Fariña have to die? What was Commander López Almarza's interest in ordering the death of a 14-year-old schoolboy?

The Special Affairs and Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police managed to decipher the mystery after locating the conscripts who participated in the raid in La Pincoya, where Fariña was detained, and who took him out of the Barros Arana school commanded by Sandoval Arancibia.

According to the information gathered, Carlos Fariña Oyarce allegedly died because of a revenge triggered by a romantic relationship, and not for political reasons. Two other crimes committed by military personnel were linked to his death, one in the same hours as Fariña's murder, and the other, days later.

Shortly before the military coup, while playing with a firearm, Carlos Fariña accidentally wounded a six-year-old boy. For this, he was interned in a juvenile home, from which he escaped and took refuge in the house of his mother, Josefina Oyarce, in La Pincoya.

He was in bed with a fever the day the Yungay contingent carried out the sweep operation and ordered all adult men to go out to a nearby field, to then load them onto buses.

An officer entered the Fariña house and forced the mother to hand over Carlos, in a selective action. At the same time, "a young officer with a mustache, who wore a black beret and exercised command over his group," as established in the process, abducted Víctor Iván Vidal Tejeda from another street in the neighborhood.

The minor, 16, had the same fate as Fariña, but his body was delivered to the morgue in the early hours of October 14, 1973.

Six days later, in a sector of Américo Vespucio, the body of the artisan Ramón Zúñiga Sánchez, 31, appeared, according to the autopsy having died as a result of large-caliber bullet impacts "fired from a long distance."

The key clue What united the three deaths? In procedural statements by Leontina Díaz Huerta, mother of the boy wounded by Fariña, she maintains that the commander of the Yungay Regiment, Donato López, established a romantic relationship with her and that after the military coup he took her out of La Pincoya, installing her in another house outside the area, visiting her sometimes.

The artisan Ramón Zúñiga Sánchez, whose body was found shot, was Leontina's husband and at the same time the father of the boy wounded by Fariña. Zúñiga Sánchez also had another parallel relationship with a woman, who turned out to be the older sister of the 16-year-old adolescent Víctor Vidal Tejeda.

In this way, the fine police investigation managed to determine that the deaths of Carlos Fariña, Víctor Vidal, and Ramón Zúñiga Sánchez are united by a sentimental link.

In his confession last week before Judge Zepeda, "Pete el Negro" maintains that the night Commander Donato López ordered him to kill Fariña, he told him: "He is a bad egg involved in crimes. A danger to the population. The other day he shot a six-year-old boy. Kill him and make his body disappear!"

Both the current "supervisor" of the security of the neighbors of Providencia and López Almarza are prosecuted and accused by Minister Zepeda as authors of the kidnapping and qualified homicide of Carlos Fariña, and risk a prison sentence.

What now remains to be judicially accredited, having been achieved in a police manner, is the link between the deaths of the boy Fariña and the other two residents.

Source: La Nacion, November 26, 2006

Fariña Case: Judge Zepeda sentences retired military officers for murders of children in 1973

Commander (Ret.) Donato López Almarza and officer (Ret.) Enrique Sandoval Arancibia were sentenced to 14 years in prison and five years of supervised release, respectively, for the kidnapping and homicide of three minors from the La Pincoya neighborhood.

Visiting Minister Jorge Zepeda Arancibia put an end on Wednesday to the investigation into the murders of the children Carlos Fariña Oyarce (14 years old), Víctor Vidal Tejeda (16), and the young Héctor Araya Garrido (20), murdered by Army agents in a sector of the La Pincoya neighborhood, which became one of the most symbolic crimes committed after the military coup.

The magistrate sentenced retired commander Donato López Almarza to 14 years of effective imprisonment for the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicides of the three minors at the time of the events, and five years to retired officer Enrique Sandoval Arancibia, who was granted the benefit of supervised release.

Sandoval Arancibia currently serves as head of security for the municipality of Providencia, and on several occasions, relatives of the murdered minors have requested his removal from the public position.

The sentence of more than 60 pages issued by Minister Zepeda also condemns the State to pay a total sum of $120 million to the relatives of the murdered minors, divided into $24 million to each of the five plaintiffs in the process.

The judicial sentence gives a clear account of the repression in the first days of the dictatorship and how state agents, without apparent motive, deployed a policy to "instill fear" in the population in general and in the residents in particular.

Zepeda establishes that a battalion of the No. 3 Yungay Regiment of San Felipe was transferred to the northeastern sector of Santiago, specifically to deploy repression in popular sectors such as the La Pincoya neighborhood and others where they carried out various raids in search of those opponents.

"In one of those operations, that of October 13, 1973, they arrived at the house of the minor Carlos Fariña Oyarce, located at Los Músicos 6074, and took the 14-year-old minor from his sickbed. The reason for such a demand was that days before, the minor Carlos Patricio, manipulating a firearm, fired a projectile in a casual act, wounding the boy Ramón Zúñiga Díaz, 6 years old, being for this fact admitted, by order of the First Juvenile Court of Santiago, to the Children's Home, where Carlos Patricio desperately asked to see his mother; she, Mrs.

Josefina, found him in that boarding school crying and feverish, upon suffering the attack of other interned minors," the resolution points out.

"The military, aware of the incident referred to above, ultimately abducted the minor Carlos Patricio Fariña Oyarce from his mother's side, who was in his sickbed; transferring him immediately, along with other detainees gathered in the 'Las Siete Canchas' sector of the La Pincoya neighborhood, to the base barracks of the Yungay No. 3 Regiment, inside the Quinta Normal, using for this, among other means of transport, a minibus driven by a private individual; subsequently, several of the detained persons - the perpetrators seeking minimum danger and the physical and moral concealment of the night - just like the minor Carlos Patricio Fariña Oyarce, were executed without any protection or mercy," it adds.

On the same day, from a house on Calle Los Pomelos, the minor Víctor Vidal Tejeda was taken and Héctor Araya Garrido was detained; they met the same fate as Carlos Fariña, after being executed in the field sector.

Carlos Fariña's body was only found on June 30, 2000, while an expansion of Avenida Américo Vespucio was being carried out upon reaching San Pablo, being identified by the Legal Medical Service days later and delivered to his siblings, since the boy's mother died without knowing his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the remains of Araya Garrido were found in a pit in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery and later cremated by his relatives, while the destination of Vidal Tejeda's remains is unknown.

Minister Zepeda classifies these crimes as crimes against humanity, so he does not apply the 1978 Amnesty Law and rejects applying the figure of the statute of limitations, following the criterion of the Supreme Court that International Human Rights Treaties prevail over Chilean legislation by the legal principle of jus cogens.

"That, without a doubt, it is also possible to establish that the acts described above, due to their seriousness, constitute a flagrant attack on human dignity, given the special and extreme cruelty used against the minor victims - two of them children and one a young man - and their environment – especially, against the mothers of the three, who remained, until it was possible for them, next to their detained children, guarantors and faithful to their duty of protection and care - considering also that these were generalized and systematic actions to instill terror in the civilian population, tolerated and promoted by the command of the subordinates who executed them, as demonstrated by the high number of victims killed just like the minors," he states.

Source: elmostrador.cl, June 28, 2007

Appeals Court maintained the sentences for the crimes of Carlos Fariña Oyarce and Víctor Vidal Tejera.

The Santiago Court of Appeals ratified the conviction in the investigation into the homicides of Carlos Fariña Oyarce, Víctor Vidal Tejera (both minors at the time of the events), and Héctor Araya Garrido, which occurred starting October 13, 1973, in Santiago.

For the magistrates, the first-instance ruling issued by Minister Jorge Zepeda fully conforms to the facts, although they made a caveat in the case of one of the defendants.

Ministers Cornelio Villarroel, Mario Carroza, and the participating lawyer Roberto González indicated that Donato López Almarza must serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison, without benefits; while Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 5 years in prison with the benefit of supervised release for a period of 6 years.

Judge Zepeda had previously sanctioned that López Almarza should serve a sentence of 7 years for the crimes of qualified kidnapping of the three victims and another 7 years for the qualified homicides.

The magistrates chose to reject the lawsuit against the State that had been accepted in the first instance and set at 24 million pesos for each of the 5 plaintiffs in the process as payment for moral damages.

Minister Villarroel provided, in any case, the dissenting vote, as he was in favor of applying the statute of limitations to the criminal action due to the time elapsed.

Source: La Nacion, October 16, 2008

Former CNI agents convicted for death of opponents in 1981

Among those implicated are Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, Fernando Rojas Tapia, and Enrique Sandoval Arancibia.

Justice convicted four former agents of Augusto Pinochet's 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 fearsome National Intelligence Center (CNI), to twelve years in prison.

In addition, he set six years in prison for Fernando Rojas Tapia and for Enrique Sandoval Arancibia, also former CNI agents.

In contrast, Luis Correa Soto, prosecuted in this case, was acquitted upon the accreditation of his lack of participation in the events.

The five had been prosecuted in April 2008 for the homicides of four left-wing militants that occurred on November 10, 1981, in the mountain sector of Las Vizcachas.

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 automobile in front of the house of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, René Rojas.

According to left-wing 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 automobile and staged a false confrontation at the scene.

An expert report by the Investigative Police accredited that the victims did not cause the impacts that the National Intelligence Center (CNI) automobile received, as the dictatorship wanted to make people believe at that time.

The judge also determined that the State and the four convicted must jointly deliver 30 million pesos to seven relatives of the victims.

Source: El Mostrador, March 18, 2010

Human Rights: Supreme Court issues final sentence for crimes against youths after the 1973 coup

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court issued a final sentence in the investigation into the kidnapping and qualified homicide of the minors Carlos Fariña Oyarce (13) and Víctor Vidal Tejeda (16), as well as for the crime of Héctor Araya Garrido (18), which occurred in October 1973, in the Metropolitan Region.

The highest court sentenced Major (Ret.) Donato López Almarza to a sentence of six years in prison without benefits.

Meanwhile, officer (Ret.) Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia received five years in prison, but the benefit of supervised release was granted.

The majority vote was from Minister Jaime Rodríguez and the participating lawyers Jorge Medina and Guillermo Ruiz, while the minority vote was from judges Nibaldo Segura and Rubén Ballesteros, who were in favor of accepting the figure of the statute of limitations for the criminal action.

In the first instance, visiting minister Jorge Zepeda Arancibia had determined two sentences of seven years in prison for López Almarza; and one of five years, with the benefit of supervised release, for Sandoval Arancibia.

In 2008, however, the Santiago Court of Appeals had imposed a single sentence of 10 years and one day in prison for the retired major and maintained the conviction for Sandoval Arancibia.

Fariña Oyarce was detained at his home in the La Pincoya neighborhood by a military patrol of the Yungay Regiment and disappeared. His remains were found with 12 bullet impacts in 2000, in a vacant lot in Américo Vespucio, Pudahuel commune, when excavations were being carried out for the construction of an industrial park.

The other two victims were arrested in the same operation in La Pincoya, in October 1973, and were subsequently executed by Army troops.

Source: Noticias 123, August 19, 2010

Former CNI leader convicted for torture of detainee in the former Fuerte El Morro in Talcahuano and at the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago

The Minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations at the Concepción Court of Appeals, Yolanda Méndez Mardones, sentenced former Army officer and agent of the dissolved National Information Center (CNI) Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia to 4 years of effective imprisonment.

He was found guilty as the perpetrator of the consummated and repeated crime of political imprisonment and torture, as a crime against humanity, against political prisoner Arinda Graciela del Carmen Ojeda Aravena, perpetrated in 1981 at the former Fuerte El Morro in Talcahuano and at the CNI’s Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago.

The militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) was arrested on April 16, 1981, in the commune of Penco, and subjected to cruel torture in both CNI barracks in Concepción and Santiago.

In the ruling (case file 24-2010), Minister Méndez Mardones also applied to Sandoval Arancibia the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence, in addition to the payment of court costs.

At the time of the events, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia operated as the head of the CNI’s "Brigada Azul," whose primary objective was the persecution and annihilation of MIR militants. Sandoval Arancibia, alias "Pete el Negro," had his base of operations at the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago but repeatedly carried out repressive actions in various cities across the country.

In mid-April 1981, Sandoval Arancibia, who operated under the false identity of "Roberto Hernán Fuenzalida Palma," and the operational teams of the aforementioned brigade moved to Concepción with the aim of arresting members of the revolutionary organization that was promoting popular resistance against the dictatorship.

In the Concepción area, the repressive agents carried out simultaneous operations in Concepción, Hualpencillo, Tomé, Penco, and other localities, which resulted in approximately 25 people being arrested.

The resistant Arinda Ojeda was seized on a public street by a group of CNI agents shortly after leaving her home in the city of Penco. They forced her into a utility van where she was blindfolded and handcuffed with her hands behind her back.

She was immediately subjected to beatings and threats. Finally, her captors took the victim to the secret detention and torture center "Fuerte El Morro" in Talcahuano. In this clandestine facility, the prisoner was subjected to multiple torture sessions that included the application of electric shocks on the so-called "parrilla" (grill) that the agents kept on-site; all of which caused her enormous harm.

On April 18, 1981, she was transported by light aircraft to the city of Santiago, a fact she did not realize until days later due to the poor physical and mental state she was in as a result of the torture sessions.

She was taken to the Cuartel Borgoño, the CNI's operations center in Santiago, where she was again subjected to violent interrogations that included the application of electric current on "the grill" and open-handed blows to the head, using a technique known as "the telephone," which left her with severe physical sequelae.

She was held at the Cuartel Borgoño for 18 days, during which time she was subjected to various abuses, including being stripped, the application of electric current to various parts of her body, being forced to maintain strained positions, sleep deprivation, and constant threats of "making her disappear" and going to find her son to subject him to similar rigors.

Subsequently, the detainee Arinda Ojeda was prosecuted and convicted by the Military Court of Concepción, accused under the Arms Control Law, clandestine entry into the country, and other dictatorial fabrications, forcing her to remain incarcerated for many years in the Coronel Prison.

As a result of a reduction in the sentences that had been applied to her, she regained her freedom in August 1989, after more than 8 years of arbitrary imprisonment.

The now-sentenced Enrique Sandoval Arancibia is currently serving sentences at the Punta Peuco Prison for other crimes against humanity.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, December 3, 2022

Minister Yolanda Méndez sentences CNI agent for torture at Fuerte El Morro and Cuartel Borgoño

In the ruling (case file 24-2010), Minister Méndez Mardones also applied to Sandoval Arancibia the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence, in addition to the payment of court costs.

The Minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations at the Concepción Court of Appeals, Yolanda Méndez Mardones, sentenced former National Information Center (CNI) agent Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia to 4 years of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the consummated and repeated crime of political imprisonment and torture, as a crime against humanity, against Arinda Graciela del Carmen Ojeda Aravena.

The illicit act was perpetrated in 1981 at the Fuerte El Morro in Talcahuano and the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago.

In the ruling (case file 24-2010), Minister Méndez Mardones also applied to Sandoval Arancibia the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence, in addition to the payment of court costs.

In the sentence, Minister Méndez Mardones established the following facts:

“ a) In mid-April 1981, a group of agents from the National Information Center (hereinafter CNI) based in Santiago, belonging to the "Brigada Azul," which at that time was under the command of Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia, and whose mission was to investigate and dismantle the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) nationwide, moved to the city of Concepción with the purpose of arresting specific individuals, members of the MIR already identified by CNI agents from Concepción who operated in this city and surrounding communes.

This was carried out in a simultaneous operation that extended between Hualpencillo and Tomé and culminated in approximately 25 detainees. b) Among the CNI officials summoned for this mission, that is, to neutralize the subversive activities that the MIR was developing in Concepción, was the Head of the CNI’s 'Azul' Unit or Brigade, based at the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia, who traveled to this city from Santiago where he performed his duties, together with a group of agents under his command, and did so under the operational identity of 'Roberto Hernán Fuenzalida Palma,' accompanied by other agents, among them, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, who acted under the operational identity of 'Raúl Inostroza Ortega.' c) Thus, on April 16, 1981, different operational groups of CNI agents from Concepción and Santiago deployed across the area in search of their already identified targets and their addresses, reporting, at the end of the operation, a total of 25 detainees, among them, Ms. Arinda del Carmen Ojeda Aravena. d) Arinda del Carmen Ojeda Aravena was apprehended on that April 16, 1981, in the morning hours (approximately 10:00 AM), on a public street, in the vicinity of her home located at Calle Alcázar N°101, in the commune of Penco, by a group of CNI agents; while she was walking after leaving her house, several subjects grabbed her from behind, a utility van quickly approached the group, the victim managed to see that it had curtains, and immediately after, they threw her inside that utility van, and from that moment the victim was deprived of her sight (blindfolded and/or hooded) and handcuffed with her hands behind her back. e) She was subjected to beatings and threats, and they even carried out a mock execution, to finally arrive later at the facility known as Fuerte 'El Morro' located in the commune of Talcahuano, where she was subjected to multiple torture sessions on a metal cot, through the application of electric current to various parts of her body, in what is known as 'the grill.' f) On April 18, 1981, she was transported by plane to the city of Santiago, a fact she did not realize until days later, due to the poor physical and mental state she was in as a result of the torture sessions. She was taken to the Cuartel Borgoño, the CNI's operations center in Santiago, where she was again subjected to violent interrogations that included the application of electric current on 'the grill,' and open-handed blows to the head, using a technique known as 'the telephone,' as a result of which she was left with physical sequelae, such as an injury to the temporomandibular joint and loss of teeth. g) She was held at the Cuartel Borgoño for 18 days, during which time she was subjected to various abuses, which included being stripped, the application of electric current to various parts of her body, being forced to maintain strained positions, sleep deprivation, and constant threats of 'making her disappear' and going to find her son to subject him to similar rigors. h) On May 5, 1981, she was presented before the Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago, after being forced to sign documents that she was not allowed to review or even read, at which point she realized she was in the capital, after having been transported by plane to said city on April 18, 1981. i) She was prosecuted by the Third Military Court of Concepción, in cases Rol 332-1981 and Rol 460-1985, and convicted of various crimes, among them, violation of the Arms Control Law and clandestine entry into the country. She regained her freedom on August 21, 1989, after having remained more than 8 years in prison, since by Decree N° 787, of July 18, 1989, the sentences she was serving were reduced, as with the end of exile, it was no longer possible to establish the crime of clandestine entry into the country."

Source: pjud.cl, December 2, 2022

Five former CNI officers sentenced for the kidnapping and disappearance of photographer Hernán Santos Pérez

The Minister for human rights violations cases at the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, sentenced five former Army officers for their responsibility in the consummated crime of aggravated kidnapping of photographer Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, perpetrated starting on October 19, 1977, in the commune of Pudahuel.

The Minister for extraordinary cases of human rights at the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, has sentenced five retired Army officers for the aggravated kidnapping of photographer Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, which occurred on October 19, 1977, in Pudahuel.

The convicted individuals, recognized as criminals against humanity, are Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, who must serve 10 years of effective imprisonment. Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 540 days as an accessory after the fact.

The kidnapping of Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez was part of a series of illegal detentions and torture perpetrated by security agents at the clandestine detention center "Villa Grimaldi." According to the resolution, "on Saturday, October 15, 1977, José Miguel Tobar Quezada, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was arrested and subjected to illegitimate coercion." The torture inflicted led to the identification and subsequent arrest of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, also a MIR militant, who was kidnapped on October 17, 1977.

Jenny Barra suffered the same torture as Tobar Quezada at "Villa Grimaldi." Subsequently, Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez was arrested.

The three victims, all collaborators of the newspaper "El Rebelde," were later transferred to the "Simón Bolívar" detention center. "Ultimately, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales and Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez died, on an undetermined date, in a violent manner, as a consequence of traumatic events caused by third parties, after which their bodies were thrown into a sinkhole at the 'Los Bronces' mine on the Cuesta Barriga, a place where in 2001 only some small skeletonized fragments were found, since in the month of January 1979, by decision of the authority of the time, agents of the National Information Center carried out an operation at that site with the purpose of extracting the remains of the executed prisoners, which were removed and transported to an undetermined location," the ruling indicates.

The bodies of Barra Rosales and Pérez Álvarez were thrown into a sinkhole at the "Los Bronces" mine, and in 2001 only small skeletonized fragments were found. In January 1979, agents of the National Information Center carried out an operation to extract and transport the remains to an unknown location.

Source: elciudadano.cl, June 4, 2024

Minister Marianela Cifuentes sentences State agents to 10 years in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of a Nursing student

In the ruling (case file 6-2002), the visiting minister sentenced former security agents and Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Juan Hernán Morales Salgado to 10 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime. Meanwhile, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accessory after the fact.

The Minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations at the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced four State agents for their responsibility in the consummated crime of aggravated kidnapping of Nursing student Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales. The illicit act was perpetrated starting on October 17, 1977.

In the ruling (case file 6-2002), the visiting minister sentenced former security agents and Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Juan Hernán Morales Salgado to 10 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime. Meanwhile, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accessory after the fact.

Established facts

In the resolution, Minister Cifuentes established the following facts:

"1° That on Saturday, October 15, 1977, in the morning hours, José Miguel Tobar Quezada, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was arrested by security agents traveling in a Peugeot 404 model car, who deprived him of his sight by placing adhesive tape over his eyelids, thereby preventing him from observing the location to which he was taken, the clandestine detention center known as 'Villa Grimaldi.' 2° That, upon arriving at said facility, the security agents subjected José Miguel Tobar Quezada to interrogations and illegitimate coercion in order to obtain information about other militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), managing to obtain the identification of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, a Nursing student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, a MIR militant, with the political name 'Hilda.' 3° That, subsequently, the security agents traveled in a Peugeot car to the vicinity of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales's home, located at Calle Industrias N° 1.675 in the commune of San Bernardo, interviewing her neighbor Jaime Vera Maulén, whom they questioned regarding her activities. 4° That on October 17, 1977, in the afternoon hours, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales was at the house of her friend Patricia Reveco Bastías, located at Calle José Joaquín Pérez N° 1.073 in the commune of San Bernardo and, upon leaving in the direction of her home in the same commune, she was arrested, without legal basis, by security agents, who, immediately after, transported her to the same facility where Tobar Quezada had been held since October 15, 1977, that is, the clandestine detention center 'Villa Grimaldi.' 5° That, while deprived of liberty at 'Villa Grimaldi,' Jenny Barra Rosales suffered the same suffering as the rest of the detainees; in fact, Tobar Quezada heard her voice and her crying at the moments she was being interrogated, and it was she who, broken by torture, provided the information that allowed for the arrest of Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, a photographer and MIR militant, carried out on October 19 of that year in the commune of Pudahuel, and the woman whom witnesses saw in the vicinity of the scene in a gray Peugeot 404 model car, license plate CH 800 of Renca –granted by said municipality to the DINA–, guarded by security agents. 6° That José Miguel Tobar Quezada, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, and Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, arrested consecutively between October 15 and 19, 1977, were militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and collaborated closely with the production of the publication known as 'El Rebelde.' 7° That, subsequently, José Miguel Tobar Quezada and Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales were transferred to the clandestine detention center known as 'Simón Bolívar,' where they remained illegally imprisoned. 8° That, ultimately, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales died, on an undetermined date, in a violent manner, as a consequence of traumatic events caused by third parties, after which her body was thrown into a sinkhole at the 'Los Bronces' mine on the Cuesta Barriga, a place where in 2001 only some small skeletonized fragments were found, since in the month of January 1979, by decision of the authority of the time, agents of the National Information Center carried out an operation at that site with the purpose of extracting the remains of the executed prisoners, which were removed and transported to an undetermined location. 9° That, as has been said, the events began execution in the month of October 1977, a time when the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) had been dissolved and the National Information Center (CNI) was operating, an intelligence agency that continued to carry out repressive actions against militants of political parties opposed to the government, especially the Communist Party and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and which, for such purposes, received the personnel and assets of the dissolved DINA, in particular the clandestine detention centers known as 'Villa Grimaldi' and 'Simón Bolívar,' the agents in charge of their operation, and their hierarchical superiors. 10° That, by reason of the above, in the period in question, the clandestine detention center 'Villa Grimaldi' was under the charge of Army Captain Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, who, in addition, exercised command of the operational teams in charge of pursuing and exterminating militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and, on the other hand, the clandestine detention center 'Simón Bolívar' was under the command of Army Major Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, who, additionally, held the leadership of the Lautaro Brigade. 11° That, likewise, Army General Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda –currently deceased–, Army Colonel Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo served as director, director of Operations, and deputy director of Internal Intelligence of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), respectively, and, after the dissolution of said agency, continued to perform their functions in the National Information Center (CNI) in the period in which the events that concern us began to develop."

Source: pjud.cl, April 25, 2024

Minister Mesa prosecutes two retired military officers for aggravated homicides in Neltume in 1981

The Minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations for the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, initiated proceedings against retired Army Major Sergio María Canals Baldwin and retired Army Lieutenant Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross as perpetrators of the consummated crime of aggravated homicide of: Rodrigo Obregón Torres, René Eduardo Bravo Aguilera, Julio César Riffo Figueroa, and Juan Ángel Ojeda Aguayo.

The illicit acts were perpetrated in the locality of Neltume, commune of Panguipulli, in 1981.

In the resolution (case file 1675-2003), Minister Mesa Latorre placed Canals Baldwin and Sanhueza Ross under the precautionary measure of preventive detention, in consideration of the nature of the crime and the penalty they face for their responsibility in the crime against humanity.

"Given the merit of the background information, from which it is clear that the freedom of the accused constitutes a danger to the safety of society; taking into account, also, the probable legal sanction for the crimes in which they are attributed participation; and having seen the provisions of Article 363 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the benefit of provisional release will not be granted to them," the resolution states.

"Having knowledge that the accused are currently incarcerated at the 'Colina I' Penitentiary Center of the Gendarmería de Chile, serving a sentence for crimes investigated by another court, the preventive detention decree is suspended until the completion of the aforementioned sentence and shall be entered in due course," the sentence concludes.

In the investigation stage, Minister Álvaro Mesa gathered sufficient evidence to establish the following facts:

A) That during the month of March 1979, a group of Chilean exiles belonging to the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), who were residing in Europe, decided to create a guerrilla front in the southern zone of Chile, for which they met in Paris at the end of 1980, traveling from Madrid to Argentina and entering our country, specifically the Neltume area, through unauthorized border crossings, creating the group called "Destacamento guerrillero Toqui Lautaro." In this place, they began a period of logistical work and military preparation, constructing shelters with the object of keeping their food, weapons, and clothing protected.

B) That the local residents noticed this situation and reported it to the Carabineros of the Neltume Station, current Los Ríos region, so in the month of June 1981, a group formed by personnel from the Special Troops Command Detachment Nº 8 "Llancahue," by instruction of Captain Rosauro Martínez Labbé, went to that sector with the object of verifying if the reports received were real or false.

C) That subsequently, on June 26, 1981, this group in charge of checking the area discovered one of the camps created by the members of the aforementioned Detachment and decided to raid it. As a result of this military operation, the Detachment group split, and the Army seized some of the belongings found in their shelters (maps, passports, food, weaponry).

D) That from that moment, the Military operation officially began, led by Captain Rosauro Martínez Labbé, which had as its object the annihilation of the members of this group of young guerrillas, with the following military and Carabinero units participating in this operation: Rancagua Aviation Regiment; Special Troops Command Company Nº 8; Valdivia Prefecture of Carabineros, and all its dependent units.

E) That during the second fortnight of August 1981, and with the object of reinforcing the battalion led by Rosauro Martínez Labbé, the Anti-Terrorist Unit of the National Information Center (CNI) arrived in the conflict zone, formed by approximately 15 uniformed personnel, and under the charge of Captain Conrado Vicente García Giaier.

By this date, the battalion commanded by Rosauro Martínez Labbé already had the Santiago and Valdivia units of the National Information Center attached to it, as well as its "Grupo Rojo," which was under the charge of Chilean Army Captain Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia.

F) That in that context, also having to keep in mind the inclement weather and scarce food that caused health problems for the young people belonging to the "Destacamento guerrillero Toqui Lautaro" group, the following situations occurred:

1) That on August 30, 1981, Julio Riffo Figueroa and René Bravo Aguilera, at moments when both were resting after being fed by the locals Pedro Morales and Julia Navarro, were arrested by a patrol composed of three Carabineros officials from the Malalhue Station in the Huellahue sector.

After their arrest, they were sent to Valdivia, specifically to the Las Ánimas Station. There they were interrogated by Carabineros of the OS7 from Santiago. Subsequently, Julio Riffo Figueroa and René Bravo Aguilera were transported to the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, of the National Information Center (CNI), where they were tortured and interrogated.

On September 16, 1981, Julio Riffo Figueroa and René Bravo Aguilera were again transported to the conflict zone, particularly to Neltume, with the object of being used by the battalion under the charge of Rosauro Martínez Labbé in the search for the other guerrilla camps and their members.

Finally, on September 21, 1981, they were executed, with the cause of death for René Bravo Aguilera being listed as craniocerebral and thoracic gunshot wounds, and for Julio Riffo Figueroa as a craniocerebral gunshot wound.

2) That Pedro Juan Yáñez Palacios, in the course of his journey, suffered gangrene in his feet, for which he had to be left by his companions in the hollow of a trunk with a rifle; however, due to the strong smell of medicine he gave off, he was detected by the group of soldiers of the Command N° 8 of Llancahue –also integrated by Conrado García Giaier who was monitoring the area–, who killed him, his precise cause of death being a craniocerebral gunshot wound.

3) That as a result of the information provided by the detainees Julio Riffo Figueroa and René Bravo Aguilera regarding the meeting place and the password, a group of soldiers, among them Jerez Prussing and Enrique Sandoval Arancibia –already prosecuted in this case– and others from the Command N° 8 of Llancahue under the command of Rosauro Martínez Labbé, managed to find and kill Raúl Rodrigo Obregón Torres on September 13, 1981, when he was going to meet his companions, his precise cause of death being a cervicothoracic gunshot wound.

4) That around mid-1981, approximately, one of the young men, Juan Ángel Ojeda Aguayo, arrived at the house of a relative named Isaías Aguayo Márquez, located in the "Quebrada Honda" sector, in the vicinity of the Neltume locality, Panguipulli, staying in that place on repeated and discontinuous occasions where he went to look for food on different occasions, when specifically on November 28, 1981, a group of Army and Carabinero personnel stationed in the Neltume sector approached the mentioned house, where, after urging the residents to leave their home, Juan Ángel Ojeda Aguayo came out of the place, where he was gunned down by a group of soldiers who fired multiple shots at him, resulting in a craniocerebral-facial gunshot wound, in addition to multiple cervicothoracic gunshot wounds with rupture and bursting of organs and gunshot wounds in the lower extremities, which caused his death.

5) That Patricio Alejandro Calfuquir Henríquez, Próspero del Carmen Guzmán Soto, and José Eugenio Monsalve Sandoval arrived at the house of Ms. Floridema Jaramillo, in Remeco Alto, who provided them with food and immediately took actions to report them to the Carabineros, which was ultimately achieved by sending her son Juan Carlos Henríquez Jaramillo, who on horseback went to the Neltume Station reporting this fact; together with Carabineros, they headed back to her home and upon passing in front of the Remeco school, they notified soldiers who were in a camp in the place, who in turn gave notice by radio: that upon returning to the house there were some Carabineros posted in various places, around four, but at the same time Captain Rosauro Martínez Labbé arrived accompanied by at least two lower-ranking soldiers –among them Corporal 2nd Julio Araki Tepano– who, after urging the guerrillas to leave the house, fired against the property until leaving it practically unusable, as a consequence of which Patricio Calfuquir Henríquez, Próspero Guzmán Soto, and José Eugenio Monsalve Sandoval were killed; subsequently, a large military contingent arrived that continued with the operation and transport of the deceased guerrillas.

6) Miguel Cabrera Fernández, known as "El Paine" and who was the leader of the group, died in the locality of Choshuenco, on October 15, 1981, in an alleged confrontation with Carabineros belonging to the staff of the Station of that locality.

His precise, necessary, and immediate cause of death indicates "Cervicothoracic gunshot wound, anteroposterior, in a line, complicated by rupture of blood vessels and left lung."

G) That in events 1 through 4, Rosauro Martínez Labbé participated in his capacity as Captain, who at the time of the events held the position of Commander of the Command Company N° 8, of the "Llancahue" Battalion, dependent on the IV Army Division, a Company that was directing the operation in Neltume during the entire period it lasted.

The aforementioned Captain Martínez was in charge of organizing the different groups that moved through the sector, providing weaponry and giving instructions, among which it was highlighted that "They were at war" and that "upon seeing any man with the characteristics of a guerrilla, one should shoot to kill."

H) That among the members of the Command Company N° 8 who were collaborating with the operations commanded by Captain Martínez was Corporal 2nd Julio Araki Tepano, who was part of the reconnaissance group and among his participation in the search and arrest tasks of the guerrillas, he was in charge of giving notice to the group leader, Lieutenant Ivan Fuentes Sotomayor, that they had discovered a guerrilla base.

I) Likewise, regarding the events indicated in point 1, that is, Julio César Riffo and René Bravo Aguilera, Army Lieutenant Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, dependent on the Command Company N° 8, participated, who was one of the Officers in charge of one of the sections that was sent to the Neltume zone.

Thus, according to statements from conscript soldiers who were members of the squad that was under the charge of Lieutenant Sanhueza Ross, they have indicated their knowledge regarding detainees who were under the charge of CNI personnel, describing that they were guerrillas, with their hands tied and a stick crossing their backs that was tied with wires at each end of this at the height of their wrists, recounting how they were ordered to guard them and that subsequently, about fifty meters from where they were together with Lieutenant Sanhueza Ross, these detainees were executed, and then the same conscripts were ordered to wrap the bodies in polyethylene and load them into a helicopter that transported them to the Company in Valdivia. In the same way, regarding the events indicated in number 4, that is, Juan Ángel Ojeda Aguayo, Lieutenant Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross participated in them, in that he commanded the patrol that was in the vicinity of the Choshuenco locality and upon receiving a notice from the Carabineros of that locality, he headed together with the patrol that was under his charge to the house where Ojeda Aguayo was, mounting a security operation around the dwelling and participating in the events that resulted in the death of Juan Ángel Ojeda Aguayo.

J) That the Anti-Terrorist Unit of the National Information Center (UAT), directed by Captain Conrado García Giaier, also formed a fundamental part of this operation, who participated actively in the search, arrest, and subsequent death of some of the mentioned victims.

K) That in the same way, Army Major Sergio Canals Baldwin fulfilled active participation in the events described in numbers 1 and 3, that is, Julio Riffo Figueroa, René Bravo Aguilera, and Raúl Obregón Torres.

Major Canals Baldwin was part of the "Grupo Plomo" of the National Information Center (CNI) and was sent to the Neltume zone, posting himself together with his group and together with the other members of the CNI, in the Termas de Liquiñe, occupying the totality of the cabins during all the time they remained in said locality, facilities in which Julio Riffo Figueroa and René Bravo Aguilera were detained, and that as a result of the information provided by these detainees, it was possible to find and kill Raúl Obregón Torres.

This Officer performed operational and information-gathering work on the activities of the zone and was the Army Officer with the highest hierarchical rank of the group of people who integrated the National Information Center (CNI) and who were sent from Santiago to support the work of other branches of the Armed Forces that were in the zone.

That in all the reports that account for the death of the members of the "Destacamento Toqui Lautaro," it is mentioned that they would have died as a result of confrontations, which turns out to be implausible, since one cannot ignore the unequal and deteriorated condition in which the members of the "Toqui Lautaro" group were, not only in terms of weaponry and preparation, but mostly in their physical conditions, remembering that the victims were in a state of malnutrition and one of them even with part of his foot amputated.

The disproportion in the use of force by State agents was evident, since they could simply have apprehended the members of the group without the need to go so far as to execute them.

Source: diarioelranco.cl, August 30, 2024