Sergio Manuel Fuenzalida Loyola
Comerciante — 55 years old.
Background
Sergio Manuel Fuenzalida Loyola
Comerciante — 55 years old.
Case summary
Sergio Manuel Fuenzalida Loyola, a 55-year-old construction worker and member of the MIR, was detained on June 28, 1976, in La Florida by plainclothes agents after leaving his home, allegedly in connection with a prior raid on his former residence. He had previously been detained and held at the Estadio Nacional following the 1973 military coup.
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos[1]
In the early hours of June 24, 1976, Oscar Eduardo AVELLO AVELLO, a medical student at the Universidad de Chile and a militant of the MIR, was arrested at his home.
On June 25, 1976, Orlando Patricio GUARATEGUA QUINTEROS, a student of Industrial Technology at the Universidad Técnica and a militant of the MIR, was arrested on a public street. His home was raided in the early hours of June 26 by several armed agents wearing red and white armbands who claimed to be searching for weapons. There has been no news of him since.
On June 27, 1976, Miguel Hernán OVALLE NARVAEZ, also a militant of the MIR, was arrested on a public street by agents traveling in a car without license plates. They forced the victim, who was already handcuffed, into the vehicle and took him to an unknown destination. The victim's home was also subsequently raided in search of weapons. To date, his whereabouts remain unknown.
On June 28, 1976, Héctor Manuel CONTRERAS ROJAS, a radio controller and neighbor of the also-disappeared Miguel Ovalle, was likewise arrested on a public street. His home was also raided in the days following his arrest. Since that date, nothing more has been known of him.
On June 28, 1976, another militant of the MIR, Sergio Manuel FUENZALIDA LOYOLA, was arrested by agents who took him to an unknown destination. He has remained disappeared ever since.
The Commission, noting the existence of witnesses to the arrests of these five victims, the fact that they formed a cell of the MIR, and that there has been no further news of them, reached the conviction that they were victims of human rights violations, consisting of their arrest and forced disappearance by state agents, even though it cannot state with certainty which agency arrested them.
MemoriaViva[2]
Relatos de los Hechos
Political Affiliation: Militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). Date of Detention: June 28, 1976 Sergio Manuel Fuenzalida Loyola, married, father of 7, construction worker, and MIR militant, was detained by security agents on June 28, 1976, at approximately 12:00 PM, after leaving his home in Villa O'Higgins headed for the Ministry of Education to carry out some paperwork.
He never arrived at those offices, nor did he return home. As established by the Rettig Report, Sergio Fuenzalida was detained under the aforementioned circumstances by plainclothes agents who forced him into a Citroën vehicle and drove off in an unknown direction.
Days earlier, on June 26, his previous residence on Calle Cuarta Transversal in the commune of San Miguel had been raided by civilians claiming to be from Intelligence, with the intent of detaining the victim.
The new residents informed the agents that he no longer lived there and proceeded to provide them with his new address. For this reason, it is presumed that his captors were the same individuals who had gone to his former home.
Furthermore, after the Military Coup in September 1973, Fuenzalida was detained and held at the Estadio Nacional for approximately one month, regaining his freedom in October of that year. On June 28, 1976, neighbors observed individuals of suspicious appearance who were not from the area loitering in the sector; they asked neighbors for Fuenzalida's full name and the times he could be located.
Sergio Fuenzalida was separated from his spouse and had formed a new family with Dina Lagos Lagos, the mother of his seven children, with whom he was living at the time of his detention. On another note, the military government responded to the United Nations in its "Observations on the Report of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the situation of Human Rights in Chile," stating that the victim had no legal existence, as his identification was not registered in the Identification Cabinet.
This was not the only forcibly disappeared person whose existence the government attempted to deny, but the victim's legal identification, as in other cases, was fully established both before the United Nations and in the courts that investigated his disappearance.
Despite all the efforts made by Dina Lagos to locate her husband, she was unable to find his whereabouts or learn the fate of the man who has been missing since June 28, 1976.
JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS
On July 6, 1976, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, case file 581-76. The Court requested a report from the Minister of the Interior, denying a request to the same effect from the DINA.
After receiving a negative response from that Secretariat of State regarding the detention of the victim, the amparo was rejected. However, it was ordered that the records be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court to investigate the reported facts.
Thus, on July 28, 1976, case file 44.160 was opened in the 1st Criminal Court of Santiago, whose judge, at the request of the affected party, sent the records to the 2nd Criminal Court of Santiago, the court that held jurisdiction.
Therefore, the disappearance of Sergio Manuel Fuenzalida was ultimately investigated by the 2nd Criminal Court, under case file 20.393 9. In compliance with an investigative order, the civil police reported on September 30, 1976, that according to information provided by the National Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), Sergio Fuenzalida Loyola had been detained by Army Intelligence personnel, and therefore it was presumed that his current location was not unknown, consequently ruling out the possibility that a tragedy had befallen him.
However, in a new report issued on October 13 of the same year, the same police unit reported differently, indicating this time that, having gone to SENDET, it was verified that the victim was not registered as a detainee.
Likewise, they indicated that Fuenzalida Loyola did not appear on the latest lists provided by the Minister of the Interior to the Investigations police. In relation to the first Investigations report, the Court resolved to issue official letters to the DINA, SENDET, and the Minister of the Interior to respond to the information provided.
The National Executive Secretary of SENDET, Army Lieutenant Colonel Sergio Guarategua Peña, responded that, according to information from the Minister of the Interior dated July 29, 1976, the victim had no record and was not being held by order of that Ministry.
The following year, on April 5, 1977, the Minister of the Interior, Division General César Raúl Benavides, sent a report to the Court responding to the inquiry directed to the DINA. In this response, he stated the same thing that had been manifested through SENDET, to the effect that that Secretariat of State had no records and had not issued an order against the victim.
He added that the DINA also had no information on Loyola. Finally, the Minister informed the Judge that any inquiry related to persons detained by virtue of the powers of the State of Siege should be channeled through that state agency, "for reasons exclusively of national security." After receiving this response, the Judge decided to close the summary proceedings and temporarily dismiss the case because the crime had not been proven, pending the presentation of better evidence.
On July 8, 1977, the Santiago Court of Appeals approved the dismissal resolution.
Source: Corporation report
Relatos de los Hechos
In case file No. 1-2019, instructed to investigate the crime of qualified kidnapping of Sergio Fuenzalida Loyola, it has been ordered to issue an URGENT request to you to send an email and/or issue a statement on your social and digital networks to all your collaborators, with the objective of locating witnesses to the detention of Sergio Fuenzalida Loyola, Oscar Avello Avello, Orlando Guarategua Quinteros, José Santos Hinojosa Araos, Miguel Hernán Ovalle Narvaez, Héctor Manuel Contreras Rojas, and Luis Enrique Elgueta Díaz, all members of the group or movement known as "Septiembre Rojo." Sincerely,
CARLOS FARIAS PINO
MINISTER ON EXTRAORDINARY VISIT
Source: villagrimaldi.cl 13/3/2023
Date: 03-13-2023
References
- 1Museum of Memoryhttps://interactivos.museodelamemoria.cl/victims/?p=3070
- 2