The Supreme Court ratified the sentence for the kidnapping and murder of former DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos. The longest sentence was handed down to Arturo Silva Valdés (15 years and 1 day in prison), who was part of the core group that executed the Army’s most clandestine operations in the 1980s and well into the democracy.

The following report, published in 2002 by the magazine Siete+7, reveals that the former officer also holds the secrets of two of the most powerful men in Chile: Augusto Pinochet and Agustín Edwards, owner and director of the newspaper El Mercurio.

Other protagonists of the operation to murder Berríos in Uruguay in 1992 who were sentenced today include Uruguayan military officers Tomás Casella, Eduardo Radaelli, and Wellington Sarli, as well as the former Army auditor general Fernando Torres Silva and the former director of Army Intelligence Eugenio Covarrubias, among others.

Tall, attractive, elegant, with a gift for command, a man of the world, an intelligence expert, an expert marksman, a polo player, and surrounded by an aura that even earned him the nickname of the “Chilean James Bond.” These are some of the characteristics attributed to Major (Ret.) Arturo Rodrigo Silva Valdés, a member of the Secret Service of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), who is identified by at least two testimonies as the Chilean perpetrator—the other being Uruguayan—of the shots that ended the life of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos.

But Silva Valdés has other attributes that contributed to enhancing his legend. He is the keeper of the secrets of two of the most powerful men in Chile: Augusto Pinochet and Agustín Edwards, the director and owner of the newspaper El Mercurio. He served as personal security chief for both, master of their rearguard and movements.

The name of Silva Valdés was already known in the courts. He came to prominence when Minister Sergio Muñoz prosecuted him as an accessory to the murder of Tucapel Jiménez. But his identification became known within the heart of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE) before he was prosecuted.

And measures were taken. By then, he was serving as personal bodyguard to Agustín Edwards. A role he abandoned abruptly.

One of the aspects that remains to be clarified in his record is whether, in September 1994, Arturo Silva was indeed sent on a service commission to work for Agustín Edwards by the then-director of Army Intelligence, General Eugenio Covarrubias.

Because later, when his retirement from the military institution occurred, his employment relationship with El Mercurio and Edwards was assumed by the security company SERPROTEC S.A.

This company has two main partners: Juan Luis Herrera Villena and Inversiones Canelo Seis y Compañía, whose main partners are Agustín Edwards Eastman, Agustín Edwards del Río, and Inversiones Nacionales.

Valdés did not arrive alone to work for Edwards. A group of men, all trained in the CNI and in the small, select team of the Secret Service, accompanied him. Among them were Nelson Hernández Franco, who in 1982 served under the alias “Marcos de la Fuente” in the CNI and who was also prosecuted for the murder of Tucapel Jiménez; Marcelo Sandoval, Nelson Román, and even a woman: Erika Silva.

Later, Major Eduardo Martínez Wogner, who had been an aide to the director of the CNI, would join as chief.

General Eugenio Covarrubias followed the steps of Agustín Edwards’ security detail very closely. And their ties tightened when his son, also named Eugenio Covarrubias, assumed the management of SERPROTEC, a position he held until 1999.

Not everything in the life of this exclusive security expert has been adrenaline and glory. To his more than 500 trips around the world, one must contrast the death of one of his children. A wound that destabilized him and left him vulnerable to life. Today, despite his actions in Ecogas Limitada, Ceqsachile S.A., and Consultsistem Chile S.A., his world is collapsing once again.

VIP ADVISOR

Arturo Silva began to stand out for his skills in intelligence work in the early 80s when he was part of the CNI squadrons. There are those who say that at that time they called him “Alvarito,” drawing a connection to Álvaro Corbalán, the powerful operational chief of the security agency.

Those were times when the connecting vessels between the CNI and the DINE were fluid and diffuse. A relationship that some officers today describe as “perverse” because it involved the institutional intelligence agency, intended for territorial security, in criminal operations, such as the murder of Tucapel Jiménez.

Today, Judge Olga Pérez is investigating another similar event that could have significant consequences: the murder of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva via botulinum toxins. His death occurred days before a DINE squadron murdered Tucapel Jiménez (1982).

But Silva’s time of glory arrived on the occasion of the 1988 plebiscite, when he was able to deploy all his talents by becoming the main “security advisor” to General Augusto Pinochet.

His role began the moment the general decided to take a trip. That was when he went into action. He would travel to the chosen location, interview the hosts and the country’s military intelligence agencies, conduct a complete review of the conditions of potential hotels to choose one, always keeping at least two alternatives in case of emergency; the nearby hospitals, the vehicles that would be used, the drivers, ambulance, medical check-ups, and medical records on hand.

He reviewed every last detail, including the selection of the men who would make up his security detail, and then he would sit down with Pinochet and his aide-de-camp of the moment to report on the chosen program and refine it.

His mission should have ended there, but the closeness, trust, and affection that Pinochet placed in him were such that it became a custom that when the trip began, Arturo Silva Valdés became his shadow.

To the point that on more than one occasion, the hotels where Pinochet stayed were registered in his name. This happened in October 1993, when Pinochet traveled to Brazil for vacation and the press reported that the former dictator had used the false identity of Arturo Silva Valdés at the Intercontinental Hotel in Rio de Janeiro.

But by then, Silva had become an ultra-secret agent of the DINE. A path he began in 1990 when he was chosen as one of the operational arms of the “casualty control” operation, the clandestine exit from the country of those military personnel in danger of being imprisoned or prosecuted for kidnapping, torture, or homicide during the dictatorship.

Thus, Silva Valdés was the key piece that operated in the escape of Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross and Carlos Herrera Jiménez. Silva Valdés prepared that operation by traveling to Argentina on September 7, 1991, returned on the 12th, and left again on the same day as Herrera: September 19, 1991.

They were intense days. The escape of Eugenio Berríos was already decided and prepared. But this was cloaked in all special precautions: Berríos must not fall into Argentine hands. It was Arturo Silva who prepared every last detail, and when Berríos crossed the border in the south toward Río Gallegos on October 26, 1991, Silva did the same toward Argentina, but by air.

From then on, he controlled every one of Berríos’ steps in his new residence. And also those of the other package he sent to be kept in Uruguay: Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross.

The story that follows was told in edition No. 32 of Siete+7. But there is a chapter to detail. When Berríos escaped from his guards in November ‘92 from the town of Parque del Plata, 50 kilometers from Montevideo, Arturo Silva Valdés was there, controlling his capture step by step.

Along with him was Major Jaime Torres Gacitúa, one of his best friends and also a “security advisor” to Pinochet and a member of the DINE Secret Service.

When they finally recovered Berríos, the other story began. One that culminates—according to testimonies—with the murder of Berríos, which would have been executed by Silva Valdés and the Uruguayan Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo Radaelli (see box).

A witness to the operation was Major Torres Gacitúa. There, a pact between intelligence officers would be sealed, revealing that “Operation Condor” remains a latent danger.

SECRET SERVICE UNDER BRITISH IMPRINT

The transfer of the sash and the pin symbolizing the presidential power that General Pinochet made to President Patricio Aylwin on March 11, 1990, marking the beginning of the transition, was the trigger for other movements in the shadows. Shortly thereafter, the Army audit, headed by General Fernando Torres Silva, rang the alarm bell.

According to a high-ranking Army officer of the time, it was with precise instructions from the high command that the first meeting between the audit and the institution’s Director of Intelligence, plus the head of the Secret Service that depended on the DINE, was held, in which a meticulous analysis was made of which trials were “ripe”: which processes were in danger of obtaining the identification of uniformed torturers, kidnappers, and murderers.

It was in that core that the strategy to remove military personnel “in danger” from Chile was designed. And the operational arm was precisely the impregnable and most compartmentalized jewel of the DINE, the Secret Service that for many years was directed by officer Maximiano Ferrer Lima and which was created under the advice of MI6, the Secret Service of Great Britain, spurred by the English invasion of the Falklands in 1982.

That unit was exposed during the course of the investigation into the murder of union leader Tucapel Jiménez, conducted by the minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Sergio Muñoz. But it has been the investigation by Judge Olga Pérez, who is investigating the murder of chemist Eugenio Berríos, that has allowed for the unveiling of the identities of its members as well as the execution of other criminal operations carried out by the group.

According to statements by Brigadier Víctor Pinto Pérez, head of the Army Intelligence Command (CIE), in mid-1982—the invasion of the Falklands occurred in April—he chose a small group of intelligence officers to travel to Great Britain and familiarize themselves with the functioning of MI6 to create a similar unit in Chile, naturally keeping the proportions in mind.

Major Maximiliano Ferrer Lima was one of the officers who played an important role in the DINA as “Captain Max,” one of the founders of the Army Secret Service in his capacity as head of the Counterintelligence Unit of the CIE.

Why incorporate the Secret Service, intended for the mission of shielding territorial security, into activities of covering up murderers and torturers? That is the key question that those responsible for a failed management must answer today.

Because a brief analysis of the escape operations carried out in ’91 allows one to conclude that all of them failed. And mainly, due to the deceptions and errors committed by the men in charge of “casualty control.”

This is what happened with Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, with Carlos Herrera Jiménez, and with Eugenio Berríos. Not only were they unable to evade justice, but they ended up muddying the institution and, in the process, even compromising national security.

If they had testified before the courts at the time, the Army would have already turned that page, and without any of the costs in money, image, and vulnerability of national security.

Also, and a fact not to be overlooked, is that all those operations meant a millionaire financial expense and ended up nesting hubs of corruption that to this day have not been investigated. Some questions as an example: to whom did Arturo Silva Valdés account for the expenses he incurred to pay for fake passports, multiple trips, and the stay of the guards and the fugitives abroad?

Where did those funds come from? And if it is true that Sarin gas and other deadly botulinum toxins were sold to Iraq or other countries in the late 80s, how many millions of dollars were received and in which accounts were they deposited?

RADAELLI: THE OTHER SHOT

In 1993, when the scandal of the kidnapping and disappearance of Eugenio Berríos exploded before public opinion in Uruguay, causing what they called a “technical coup” by the military, Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo Radaelli had to be brought in an emergency from Zaire, where he was on a “peace mission.”

And if at first it was thought that the officer would be punished and prosecuted, along with Lieutenant Colonel Tomás Casella, very soon the military pressure made it evident that President Lacalle was under guardianship.

Nine years have passed. Radaelli remains active and today must face a charge of homicide. He knows he is not alone. He is considered the “thinking” head of a group of nationalist Army intelligence officers who gathered around the former commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Fernán Amado. At the time of the Berríos scandal, Amado was the head of Army Intendancy.

In that same group, Casella and another of those involved in the kidnapping and murder of Berríos closed ranks: Lieutenant Colonel Wellington Sarli. The three officers are not unknown in Uruguay. They are linked to acts of state terrorism during the dictatorship of that country.

Especially a series of bomb attacks perpetrated against dissidents in the late 80s, which included a bomb at the law firm of then-President Julio María Sanguinetti.

The group was known under the acronym “Guardia de Artigas,” a group that was born under the protection of the largest and most powerful lodge—“Tenientes de Artigas”—but under a more clandestine profile.

The backstage of the power struggle of that time pitted General Amado against Sanguinetti. Later, when the Berríos scandal broke, the factions fought for power again. According to testimonies from Chilean officers, one prize that was in the middle of the dispute was the production of chemical weapons that Berríos had allegedly begun to carry out for the group of his Uruguayan guards.

The truth is that Amado denounced wiretapping. He blamed the Director of Intelligence, General Aguerrondo, who finally had to retire. Now the new factions are mixed with the old and current struggles in a fight for power and impunity. And Radaelli is in the eye of the hurricane.

Source: ciper.cl, August 11, 2015

Journalist Mónica González created a profile of Silva Valdés, who declared himself in rebellion and went into hiding.

Two of those convicted in the case of the murder of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos have not turned themselves in to justice to serve their sentence in Punta Peuco. They are the material authors of the homicide, one of them being Major (Ret.) Arturo Silva Valdés.

Silva Valdés, who is sentenced to 15 years and one day without benefits for kidnapping and illicit association, declared himself in rebellion and went into hiding to avoid serving the sentence.

He was a bodyguard for Pinochet and Agustín Edwards and had a particular nickname: the Chilean James Bond.

Those convicted of the homicide of chemist Eugenio Berríos entered Punta Peuco prison.

It was he who shot Berríos in Uruguay. Journalist Mónica González published a complete profile a few years ago for the now-defunct Diario Siete. This is an excerpt from the profile that can be read here in PDF.

“Tall, attractive, elegant, with a gift for command, a man of the world, an intelligence expert, an expert marksman, a polo player, and surrounded by an aura that even earned him the nickname of ‘the Chilean James Bond.’

These are some of the characteristics attributed to Major (Ret.) Arturo Rodrigo Silva Valdés, a member of the Secret Service of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), who is identified in at least two testimonies as the Chilean perpetrator—the other would be Uruguayan—of the shots that ended the life of DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos.

But Silva Valdés has other attributes that contributed to enhancing his legend. He is the keeper of the secrets of two of the most powerful men in Chile: Augusto Pinochet and Agustín Edwards, the director and owner of the newspaper El Mercurio. He served as personal security chief for both, master of their rearguard and movements.

The name of Silva Valdés was already known in the courts. He came to prominence when Minister Sergio Muñoz prosecuted him as an accessory to the murder of Tucapel Jiménez. But his identification became known within the heart of the DINE before he was prosecuted. And measures were taken. By then, he was serving as personal bodyguard to Agustín Edwards.”

Source: adnradio.cl, August 14, 2015