By the end of the nineties, Lieutenant Conrado García Gaier had become the colonel in charge of the Army's Intelligence Department II, and previously, the head of the CNI's Anti-Terrorist Unit. To signal the start of torture in Pisagua, he would play the organ from the parish that had been moved into the prison.

It was the second time that night that young Luis Carló had come rolling down the stairs from the second floor of the Pisagua prison. Upstairs, the "Crazy Monk" laughed again with that booming voice that matched his height of over one meter eighty and his light-colored eyes.

Once the almost daily torture of the teenager—the son of an Army non-commissioned officer—was finished, the "Crazy Monk" locked him back in his cell and went down to the first floor. He opened the organ that he had ordered to be moved from the parish of the legendary cove and began to play.

He did not play well, but he knew a little. With those chords, he announced that the performance was beginning. Inside their cells, the couple of hundred prisoners felt their stomachs tighten. They knew of the "Monk's" bestiality.

They baptized him that way because of the organ, but Lieutenant Conrado García Gaier was no monk. He was the most brutal officer at the Pisagua concentration camp after the 1973 military coup. That night, he ordered everyone to go down and form up in the prison courtyard and forced them to take off their clothes.

The night in Pisagua was freezing and the wind was blowing hard, even though it was November. The "Monk" had two large oil drums prepared. The stones were also ready up on the hill. He chose the two detainees who would begin the peculiar session and ordered them to go up, guarded by soldiers.

The small hill was about 150 meters high with a very steep slope. Once the prisoners reached the summit, Lieutenant García shouted from below to his subordinates to put them inside along with the pile of stones. "Go!" the "Monk" commanded, and his men pushed the drums down the hill with their human cargo.

They stopped far away, closer to the sea, which was roaring agitatedly. The two men crawled out, bloodied and dizzy. Before taking the others who would roll down the slope, the "Monk" forced the prisoners to lie on the ground of dirt and pebbles, with their backs to the starry sky.

Several were shivering from the cold. In two strides, the "Monk" returned to the religious keyboard and hammered out some chords that only he understood. But it did not matter, as his audience feared him too much to throw eggs or tomatoes at him.

The organ stopped playing and the "Monk" ran down the few steps from the first floor to the courtyard. Then he began to jump on the bare backs, running across that human carpet. From time to time, he would stop and beat someone at random.

And he would continue his crazed race, shouting insults, his large, light eyes wide open so as not to fall. On the afternoon of the following day, when the sun was burning mercilessly, the large metal sheet that covered part of the prison courtyard was scorching.

Now, Lieutenant García revealed another of the gray walls of his sick mind. He ordered a formation again. This time, they were bare-backed, so that the sun would end up wounding the detainees' skin. He flew up the steps from the courtyard to the first floor like an angel and unleashed a storm of notes on the instrument, running both hands across the entire length of the keyboard several times.

Later, when some fainted outside, he took a few and ordered them to sit on the red-hot iron sheet. He left them there until they began to scream in pain from the burns on their buttocks, despite their pants.

The tradition of the "Crazy Monk" was fulfilled once again, announcing torture with the sound that Bach loved most while playing for kings and learned scholars. The dramatic days and nights in Pisagua under the not-so-sacred mantle of the "Crazy Monk" have been recalled by dozens of former prisoners in the thousands of pages of the case being investigated for the crimes against humanity that occurred in Pisagua.

Among others, by Luis González Vives and Luis Morales Marino. The story of the "Crazy Monk" in that concentration camp was embedded in them forever, at the point of blood and pain. Thirty-five years later, and for the first time, the hand of justice reached Conrado García last week.

In the end, he could no longer continue to pass himself off as a retired colonel who had nothing to do with the crimes of the dictatorship. The Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals indicted him and ordered Judge Joaquín Billard to arrest and book him for the kidnapping and forced disappearance of Jorge Marín Rossel and William Millar Sanhueza, which occurred in Iquique between September 23 and 25, 1973.

Along with the "Crazy Monk," retired officers Karl Hans Stuckhart and Pedro Collao also fell for the first time; at the time, they were in charge of military intelligence in that city, along with García.

The "Monk" later went to Pisagua. Billard had previously exonerated all three of both kidnappings. Plaintiff lawyer Adil Brkovic expressed his satisfaction "because it was very difficult for us to hunt down this sinister character." Acting for the Ministry of Interior's Human Rights Program in this matter was lawyer Rodrigo Cortés.

One winter morning in 1998, I called Colonel Conrado García. I told him I needed to speak with him. That I had twenty judicial testimonies against him. Former prisoners accused him of being a torturer and having a twisted mind.

He received me on the seventh floor of the Armed Forces building. I found him in uniform, smoking and pacing nervously. He invited me into his office. I showed him the testimonies. He denied everything.

He told me that he was now the commander of the Army's Department II. That is, intelligence. A high position. I told him I did not believe him, but that I would include his version in my report. He insisted on his innocence.

I then stood up to leave. Suddenly, he got up and grabbed me by the shoulder. "Look, Mr. Jorgito, don't screw up my career, please; I want to be a general and I am about to be one," he said with his eyes wide open.

I remained silent to gain a few seconds. The colonel surprised me. He offered me a cigarette and a coffee again, which I did not accept. "I'm sorry, I cannot make a pact with you; I am going to publish my report," I told him, and I left. Years later, I learned that the "Crazy Monk" had also been the head of the feared CNI Anti-Terrorist Unit.

Source: Sunday, January 11, 2009 La Nación