Minister Carlos Gajardo has indicted retired Colonel Aquiles González and former Army civilian employee Claudio Sanhueza as the perpetrators of the homicide of MIR member Fernando Iribarren González. Two former members of the dissolved Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) have become the first individuals indicted in the human rights violation investigations that Minister Carlos Gajardo inherited from retired judge Juan Guzmán.

They are retired Colonel Aquiles González, former head of the repressive agency's Blue Brigade (Brigada Azul), and former Army civilian employee Claudio Sanhueza, who was also part of the former CNI, against whom the magistrate ordered preventive detention.

The two accused were notified of their indictment this Tuesday and transferred to the Military Police Battalion, where they were placed in pretrial detention. Defense attorneys for the accused announced that they will request the provisional release of their clients in the coming hours.

The former military officials were held responsible for the death of former Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) militant Fernando Eugenio Iribarren González, who was killed on February 7, 1983.

Upon leaving his home, Iribarren González realized he was being followed by agents of the former CNI, so according to witnesses, he ran toward Plaza Manuel Rodríguez, where he was cornered, resisted, and was shot down by security forces.

Source: El Mostrador.cl, January 10, 2006

Those responsible for the homicide of MIR member Fernando Irribarren detained

The two former Army members who were indicted last Friday by special judge Carlos Gajardo as the perpetrators of the homicide of MIR militant Fernando Irribarren were detained this morning at the Peñalolén Military Police Battalion.

They are retired Colonel Aquiles González and retired civilian employee Claudio Sanhueza Sanhueza, who were notified of their new procedural status this morning at the Palace of Tribunals. Fernando Irribarren was detained on February 7, 1983, by CNI agents.

The young man, who was 26 years old at the time, tried to flee toward the vicinity of Plaza Manuel Rodríguez in Santiago, but was cornered and shot down by said agents.

Source: El Mercurio, January 10, 2006

Court reduces sentences for former CNI agents who participated in the crime against MIR member

In a unanimous ruling, the Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals resolved to reduce the sentences handed down against the former agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) who participated in the qualified homicide of the young member of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), Fernando Iribarren González, which occurred on February 7, 1983, in the Estación Central commune of the Metropolitan Region.

Both retired Colonel Aquiles González Cortés and retired Sub-officer Claudio Sanhueza Sanhueza will only have to serve five years in prison, rather than the 10 years imposed by Minister Carlos Gajardo, who led the investigation.

This is because the appellate court considered that "for the purposes of diminishing the criminal responsibility affecting the accused, there is no legal or constitutional impediment to applying the rule contained in Article 103 of the Penal Code, which establishes for every defendant a gradual prescription or half-prescription, in consideration of the time elapsed since the perpetration of the punishable act," the ruling states.

The chamber that ruled on the case was composed of Minister Cornelio Villarroel, Magistrate Rosa María Maggi, and member attorney Enrique Pérez. Judge Maggi is currently a member of the Supreme Court.

Source: La Nación, July 23, 2009

Santiago Court increases sentence for former CNI agents for the homicide of a teacher in a staged confrontation

In a unanimous ruling, the Ninth Chamber of the appellate court increased the sentences to be served by eight agents of the defunct Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of teacher Alan Rodríguez Pacheco.

The crime was perpetrated on January 3, 1985, in a staged confrontation in the Maipú commune. The Santiago Court of Appeals increased the sentences to be served by eight agents of the defunct Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of teacher Alan Rodríguez Pacheco.

The crime was perpetrated on January 3, 1985, in a staged confrontation in the Maipú commune. In a unanimous ruling (case file 4.940-2019), the Ninth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Minister Miguel Vázquez and Ministers Dobra Lusic and Blanca Rojas—increased the sentences imposed on Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés to 15 years in prison, in their capacity as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, the accused Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Víctor Eulogio Ruiz Godoy, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, and Claudio Segundo Sanhueza Sanhueza must serve 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified homicide, rejecting the claim that they had participated as accomplices in the proven facts. "Regarding the participation of the convicted, the examination of the evidentiary records existing in the case leads this Court to share the motivations of the lower court to conclude the responsibility as perpetrators of those who have been convicted as such," the ruling states. The resolution adds: "However, regarding the accused Olguín, Ruiz, Salas, Jorquera, Oyarce, and Sanhueza, the elements of conviction gathered in the case lead the Court to the conviction that their responsibility is that of co-perpetrators, who acted in the events in the manner provided for in Article 15 No. 3 of the Penal Statute, since the 'operation' carried out was executed by members of the so-called Blue Group (Agrupación Azul), tasked with pursuing and exterminating members of the MIR, after an extensive plan of surveillance of the victim, dividing functions between those who would provide security, monitor the external perimeter, including the neighborhoods, and those who would proceed directly against the person of Alan Rodríguez, all of which accounts for a detailed planning that prevents considering the aforementioned as mere accomplices." In the civil aspect, the sentence ordering the state to pay a total indemnity of $180,000,000 (one hundred eighty million pesos) for moral damages to the victim's relatives was confirmed. Victoria Street In the appellate ruling, the special visiting minister Mario Carroza established the following facts: " 1.- That the Central Nacional de Informaciones, CNI, was created on August 13, 1977, through Decree Law No. 1878, whose norm established its structure, with powers and faculties similar to those of its predecessor, the DINA, imposing a dependency on the Ministry of the Interior, consistent with its function of gathering and processing all national information coming from various fields of action that the '... Supreme Government requires for the formulation of plans and programs, and the adoption of measures necessary for the safeguarding of national security, the development of national activities, and the maintenance of institutional order'. The organization had a military nature and counted on both armed forces personnel and civilian personnel for the performance of its functions, being endowed with its own means, detention centers, etc., all under the charge of a General Director, who exercised national command and to whom all its members were subordinate. In the Metropolitan Region, there was the Anti-Subversive Division, based at the Borgoño Barracks, and within it, among others, was the Blue Brigade, which had as its objective, at the date of the occurrence of the events, the investigation and repression of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. The Brigades were organized at the top around a commanding officer, who established the guidelines, objectives, and priorities of the work. At this middle level of structure, as in any hierarchical organization, contact and information channels were maintained with their superiors in the case reviewed, to whom work was reported and from whom guidelines were received. The operations of the Brigades were carried out by groups or work teams, composed of members of the Army, Carabineros, and the Chilean Investigative Police, who followed the orders issued by the Brigade chiefs. 2.- That such being the case, Alan Williams Rodríguez Pacheco, 28 years of age, a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR, on January 3, 1985, lived together with his partner Emilia Rosa López Cifuentes, who was pregnant, in the house at Calle Victoria No. 2304 in the Maipú commune. He gave private English lessons and did typing work at home, while she performed administrative functions at the VECTOR Center for Social and Economic Studies. On the mentioned day and after having said goodbye to his wife at the door of the house, he returned and remained inside until nearly 10:30 hours, at which moment the property was attacked by security agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones, CNI, who for several months had been conducting surveillance that allowed them to detect his location and detail his routines. The attack on the property lasted incessantly for nearly half an hour, and as a consequence of it, Rodríguez Pacheco resulted dead due to cervical-thoracic trauma from a gunshot wound, and his body was charred as a consequence of the fire generated by the use of war weaponry. 3.- That the official information provided on that occasion to the press media by the security agency and that recorded in the statements given by the agents in the investigation substantiated in the Military Prosecutor's Office, the operation would have been developed with the purpose of detaining a subject linked to subversive activities, but when they tried to fulfill the task, they were received with bursts of gunfire from inside the property, and had to repel the attack. 4.- That the proceedings carried out and the information accumulated during the development of this investigation allow for the assertion that the official version was only a disguise for what really happened, since there was from the beginning a conscientious preparation of the operation, with permanent tracking and surveillance of Alan Rodríguez Pacheco, then his location and routine were established in advance, since the departure of his wife from the property was awaited, which allowed for the preparation of the site and the firing base. This detailed gestation is not typical of a detention, but of an action that sought his death as a result; for the same reason, the decision to operate on the property on Calle Victoria in the Maipú commune had been taken previously by the operational chiefs and communicated through the respective channels to the institution's directorate, which approved it and issued the pertinent order."

Source: adnprensa.cl, January 4, 2022

Supreme Court convicts CNI agents for the homicide of a teacher executed in a staged operation

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court confirmed the sentence that convicted nine agents of the dissolved Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified homicide of teacher Alan Williams Rodríguez Pacheco.

The crime was committed in the Maipú commune in January 1985. The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted nine agents of the dissolved Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI) for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified homicide of teacher Alan Williams Rodríguez Pacheco.

The crime was committed in the Maipú commune in January 1985. In a unanimous ruling (case file 10.237-2022), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of Ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Leopoldo Llanos, Jean Pierre Matus, Minister María Cristina Gajardo, and member attorney Eduardo Gandulfo—rejected the appeals for cassation on the merits filed against the sentence that convicted Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés to 15 years of effective imprisonment, in their capacity as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, the former repressive agents Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Víctor Eulogio Ruiz Godoy, José Guillermo Sala Fuentes, Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, and Claudio Segundo Sanhueza Sanhueza must serve 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators.

Likewise, the sentence imposed on the appellant Eduardo Avelino Fuenzalida Pérez of 5 years and one day of effective imprisonment is maintained. "That, in successive pronouncements, this Court has declared the reasons regarding the impropriety associated with the isolated interposition of the cause indicated in numeral 7 of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in which an infringement of the law regulating evidence is denounced," the ruling states. "In this case, it has been maintained that if it is argued in isolation and is not linked to another of the grounds for invalidation provided for in Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it must be dismissed," it adds. "Indeed," it continues, "if the intention is to alter the factual substrate of the challenged ruling, it is necessary that another of the grounds for nullity that said precept establishes be raised jointly, since the mere mutation of the facts does not allow this court of cassation to make use of its invalidating powers and determine, ex officio, which of those other grounds—taxatively indicated in the procedural statute of the field—that denote an erroneous application of the law corresponds to make concurrent, in such a way that the appeal contains a defect that entails its rejection." The resolution adds: "That, in the same way, it is necessary to reaffirm the position that jurisprudence traditionally maintains in matters of criminal cassation, in particular regarding the ground invoked by the appellant. Indeed, the protest raised is that contained in numeral 7 of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which refers to the violation of the laws regulating evidence, which must have a substantial influence on the dispositive part of the sentence." "In particular, the appellant questions the assessment executed by the judges, pointing out that it violates the laws regulating evidence and would not allow reaching the condemnatory conclusion arrived at. However, beyond this assertion and the reproduction of the observed aspects, nowhere in their plea do they adequately develop the way in which said valuation norms were affected. Moreover, the author merely asserts the infringement, building their claim on assertions as general as those observed in the ruling and which, in reality, seek for this Court to perform an exercise forbidden for this venue, which is a new assessment of the evidentiary means that, moreover, were duly appraised by the lower court judges," the resolution affirms. "In this sense," it delves, "it is not superfluous to mention that the lower court judges are sovereign regarding the establishment of the facts and with that, the Supreme Court is denied their review and is forced to accept them, provided there is no manifest and flagrant violation of any law regulating evidence that, as the ground for cassation provides, substantially influences the dispositive part of the sentence. In that understanding, it was held at the time that 'the lower court judges are responsible for the establishment of the facts and for this purpose they have the private and sovereign power to assess the intrinsic merit of the various legal means of evidence accumulated in the case, without the exercise of this power to weigh and compare those same elements of the process discretionally and subjectively being subject to the censure of the court of cassation, nor can it fall within the scope in which the ground of No. 7 of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure operates, since the laws regulating evidence, whose infringement provides the basis for the appeal for cassation on the merits, are only those that establish prohibitions or limitations to the aforementioned power, as would be the admission in the grounds of the ruling of evidence extraneous to the means of proof recognized as such by Article 457 of the Code of Criminal Procedure' (Rev. D. y J. T. LI, Second Part, Fourth Section, Page 56, cited in the work Treatise on Criminal Procedural Law. T. II, Pages 393 and 394, by author Rafael Fontecilla Riquelme). In the same sense, it was resolved that, 'the appreciation of the laws regulating evidence to which No. 7 of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure alludes, implies the violation of a legal norm related to evidence, but not to the appreciation of the facts, which the law always vests, sovereignly, in the lower court judges' (Rev. D. y J. T. LI, Second Part, Fourth Section, Page 89, cited by the aforementioned author)." For the highest court: "As can be seen, there is already a settled interpretation regarding the invariability of the facts pointed out by the lower court judges, who have the power to assess the evidence to determine them, and that scope escapes the reviewing action of the Supreme Court, unless the judges violate the norms regulating evidence in a serious manner and this has an influence on the dispositive part of the ruling—which is not the case in the present proceedings—which must be described with clarity, an enumeration of the legal norms denounced as violated or the partialized description of certain evidentiary elements being entirely insufficient, which, moreover, were duly assessed regarding the analysis carried out by the lower court judges in the exercise of their own powers, an idea that predominates since the Draft of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the Republic of Chile and which is revealed in the words of Mr. Manuel Egidio Ballesteros, who expressed: 'we set general rules for the manner of estimating evidence, and we record the cases in which it should be considered sufficient to prove the existence of a fact, but at the same time we leave the judge the freedom of criteria to make their inductions or deductions'." "With what has been said, it is possible to conclude that the appeal seeks the execution of a task that has already been carried out, providing legal reasons for adopting the decision that is now questioned, but which, in concrete terms, is based on a private exercise of the judges and in which the vices attributed to them are not observed, thus the appeal presented must be dismissed," it highlights. Likewise, the ruling records: "That on behalf of the attorney for the convicted Sylvia Oyarce Pinto, an appeal for invalidation on the merits is presented, which is based on numerals 1 and 7 of Article 546 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, denouncing the infringement of Article 15 No. 3 of the Penal Code, in relation to No. 1 of Article 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a matter that would occur by changing the participation attributed to the accused, who went from being an accomplice to a perpetrator, without, in their concept, there being evidence that allows for proving the requirements associated with the prior concert, nor the facilitation of the means for its execution, nor the fact of witnessing it without taking immediate part in it, in such a way that they understand that she never executed actions typical of co-perpetration, considering that, in passing, Article 488 No. 1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is infringed." "Consequently, they request to invalidate said ruling and issue a new sentence in accordance with the law and the merit of the process, which declares that there is no element in these records that allows for maintaining that Sylvia Oyarce Pinto did something in such a way that criminal reproach can be formed against her, in the terms of Article 15 No. 3 of the Penal Code," it concludes. Therefore, it is resolved that: "the appeals for cassation on the merits filed by the respective attorneys for the convicted Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, Eduardo Avelino Fuenzalida Pérez, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Víctor Eulogio Ruiz Godoy, Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, and Claudio Segundo Sanhueza Sanhueza, directed against the final sentence dated December 31, 2021, pronounced by the Ninth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, are REJECTED, and it is not null." Planned attack The first-instance sentence, issued by the visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, established the following facts: " 1.- That the Central Nacional de Informaciones, CNI, was created on August 13, 1977, through Decree Law No. 1878, whose norm established its structure, with powers and faculties similar to those of its predecessor, the DINA, imposing a dependency on the Ministry of the Interior, consistent with its function of gathering and processing all national information coming from various fields of action that the '... Supreme Government requires for the formulation of plans and programs, and the adoption of measures necessary for the safeguarding of national security, the development of national activities, and the maintenance of institutional order. The organization had a military nature and counted on both armed forces personnel and civilian personnel for the performance of its functions, being endowed with its own means, detention centers, etc., all under the charge of a General Director, who exercised national command and to whom all its members were subordinate. In the Metropolitan Region, there was the Anti-Subversive Division based at the Borgoño Barracks, and within it, among others, was the Blue Brigade, which had as its objective, at the date of the occurrence of the events, the investigation and repression of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. The Brigades were organized at the top around a commanding officer, who established the guidelines, objectives, and priorities of the work. In this middle level of structure, as in any hierarchical organization, contact and information channels were maintained with their superiors in the case reviewed, to whom work was reported and from whom guidelines were received. The operations of the brigades were carried out by groups or work teams, composed of members of the Army, Carabineros, and the Chilean Investigative Police, who followed the orders issued by the Brigade chiefs; 2.- That such being the case, Alan Williams Rodríguez Pacheco, 28 years of age, a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR, on January 3, 1985, lived together with his partner Emilia Rosa López Cifuentes, who was pregnant, in the house at Calle Victoria No. 2304 in the Maipú commune. He gave private English lessons and did typing work at home, while she performed administrative functions at the VECTOR Center for Social and Economic Studies. On the mentioned day and after having said goodbye to his wife at the door of the house, he returned and remained inside until nearly 10:30 hours, at which moment the property was attacked by security agents of the Central Nacional de Informaciones, CNI, who for several months had been conducting surveillance that allowed them to detect his location and detail his routines. The attack on the property lasted incessantly for nearly half an hour, and as a consequence of it, Rodríguez Pacheco resulted dead due to cervical-thoracic trauma from a gunshot wound, and his body was charred as a consequence of the fire generated by the use of war weaponry. 3.- That the official information provided on that occasion to the press media by the security agency and that recorded in the statements given by the agents in the investigation substantiated in the Military Prosecutor's Office, the operation would have been developed with the purpose of detaining a subject linked to subversive activities, but when they tried to fulfill the task, they were received with bursts of gunfire from inside the property, and had to repel the attack; 4.- That the proceedings carried out and the information accumulated during the development of this investigation allow for the assertion that the official version was only a disguise for what really happened, since there was from the beginning a conscientious preparation of the operation, with permanent tracking and surveillance of Alan Rodríguez Pacheco, then his location and routine were established in advance, since the departure of his wife from the property was awaited, which allowed for the preparation of the site and the firing base. This detailed gestation is not typical of a detention, but of an action that sought his death as a result; for the same reason, the decision to operate on the property on Calle Victoria in the Maipú commune had been taken previously by the operational chiefs and communicated through the respective channels to the institution's directorate, which approved it and issued the pertinent order."

Source: pdju.cl, December 11, 2024