Until now, it was believed that the first forcibly disappeared persons found had been riddled with bullets by Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo station before being thrown into the Lonquén kilns. But international experts confirmed to the families that the cause of death—according to the traces on the remains of the 15 peasants—was due to blunt force trauma.

There has not been an event in Isla de Maipo as horrendous as the murder of the 15 peasants at the hands of Carabineros from the station that existed in the commune in 1973. Today, the pain that has remained with the victims' families for nearly 35 years has become more intense after learning another major detail of the story: they were not murdered with gunfire, but were simply beaten to death, only to be thrown later into the lime kilns in Lonquén.

Only 517 bone fragments of the 15 victims were saved from disappearing forever and were identified following anthropological and dental analyses by a group of international experts convened by the Government.

It was the Spanish expert Francisco Echeverría who carried out the detailed follow-up of the entire forensic examination of these remains, as part of an Executive program to correct the identification errors of the remains found in the early nineties in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of Santiago.

Echeverría met with the families of the 15 victims and, through tears, told them of the discovery that made the Lonquén episode even more dramatic. "I can state with complete certainty today that the remains we have separated and examined correspond to those of the 15 victims who were found in 1978, and it was established that the cause of death corresponds to a violent, homicidal death.

There are no bullet impact injuries; these are blunt force traumatic injuries. Death was caused by beatings." According to the expert, the old report from the Legal Medical Service did not establish this fundamental fact.

Until now, the families were convinced that their loved ones, although they had suffered beatings at the Isla de Maipo station, were ultimately riddled with bullets before being thrown into the Lonquén lime kilns.

In these lime kilns, the bodies of Sergio Maureira Lillo and his four sons, Rodolfo Antonio, Sergio Miguel, Segundo Armando, and José Manuel; Óscar Hernández Flores and his brothers Carlo and Nelson; Enrique Astudillo Álvarez and his two sons, Omar and Ramón; and the young men Miguel Brant, Iván Ordóñez, José Herrera, and Manuel Navarro, aged between 17 and 51, were found.

The discovery was made through a peasant's confession to a priest. The kilns were two old nine-meter-high chimneys used in their time for the preparation of lime, located inside the El Triunfador agricultural cooperative, about 14 kilometers from the city of Talagante.

The official version to justify the Lonquén crime was that once detained at the Isla de Maipo station, one of the peasants confessed that there were hidden weapons in some kilns at the abandoned Lonquén mine.

That alone was enough for them to transport the prisoners, who, according to the same explanation, attacked the police, resulting in everyone dying in an armed confrontation. Curiously, no Carabinero was injured.

At the beginning of April 1979, the visiting judge Adolfo Bañados declared himself incompetent, and the case process passed to the military justice system. On July 2, the military prosecutor issued an indictment against Captain Lautaro Castro Mendoza and Carabineros Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, Jacinto Torres González, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, and Justo Romo Peralta as authors of the deaths of the 15 Lonquén victims.

However, on August 16, the Amnesty Law was applied to them; they were released, and the case was dismissed. This resolution was confirmed by the Martial Court on October 22, 1979. Forensic examinations of the bone remains continue, so the inauguration of a memorial on October 4 at the Parish Cemetery of Isla de Maipo to remember the 15 peasants will only be a symbolic act.

Operation "Retiro de Televisores" The discovery of the bodies of the 15 peasants at the end of 1978 was an alert for Pinochet, who determined, with an encrypted message decrypted by each regiment, the so-called Operation Retiro de Televisores (Removal of Televisions), as the Army itself internally called it.

The order was clear: exhume the bodies of murdered prisoners and throw them into the sea. The means? Helicopters from the Army Aviation Command and the Chilean Air Force, which collaborated, for example, in the case of the 26 bodies in Calama, victims of the Caravan of Death.

In various proceedings, there are statements from non-commissioned officers, now retired, who acknowledge having held in their hands the cryptogram sent from the Army General Command ordering the reporting of clandestine graves in order to "clean them." The discovery of the Lonquén victims put an end to the concealment of the truth about the forcibly disappeared, which had been a permanent policy of the dictatorship. "This has been etched into us.

The families do not sleep thinking about what they suffered at the hands of their executioners. For me, it has been very hard to know this recently. We talk about it at home, and it has been even more painful.

It reopens our wounds and adds more suffering to what we have already carried for 35 years. At least now we will be able to give them a dignified burial, but this will be etched into us for the rest of our lives," Corina Maureira said to LND through tears.

For Isla de Maipo councilman Emilio Astudillo, what was revealed "surprised us bitterly after knowing how people who wore the Carabinero uniform could be so cruel to our relatives and kill them brutally with beatings.

That is more shocking. It hurts the soul and the heart more to know how they were really murdered." Councilman Astudillo was 16 years old in '73. He had to assume the responsibility of becoming the head of the household and caring for his mother and younger siblings after being left without his father and his other older brothers, Ramón and Omar.

Furthermore, he had to endure the burden of searching for them for five years in concentration camps with the hope of finding them alive. "Only those who live it can realize the psychological damage it causes to a person and their family.

Only with the discovery of the victims in the Lonquén kilns in '78 did we have some peace and closure, because we knew it was them." The memorial The families of the Lonquén victims say they wanted to build a memorial to deposit the remains of their loved ones that have already been identified in the country; but so that what happened with the remains from Patio 29—where bodies were wrongly handed over to their families—does not happen again, both they and the Government opted for samples of the victims' bodies to be sent to a laboratory in Texas, where, within a year, the results will certify if they are indeed their relatives, murdered and thrown into the Lonquén kilns, subsequently exhumed from the mass grave in Isla de Maipo and transferred to the Legal Medical Service in Santiago. In 2006, the families achieved the exhumation and hoped that after two years they could have their relatives' remains to bury them. But reality has placed them in another scenario, and they will have to wait one more year. For this reason, they decided to inaugurate the memorial on October 4 anyway, an act that will be attended by Government authorities and human rights organizations. "We must not forget that the Lonquén victims were the first discovery of forcibly disappeared persons in the country, when the dictatorship denied that they existed. Even at the United Nations, the legal existence of our relatives was denied. The former ambassador to the UN in those years, Sergio Diez, said that our companions had no legal existence or had gone abroad of their own free will. So, the Lonquén discovery marked a before and after regarding the forcibly disappeared in Chile," maintains Emilio Astudillo. The memorial will, however, contain 17 graves, because the families chose to include the names of Juan de Dios Salinas and Guillermo Bustamante Sotelo, killed in September '73 at the Naltagua bridge by the same police officers from the Isla de Maipo station. Nelson Caucoto, plaintiff lawyer: "We will ask for state reparations" Margarita Herreros was the first judge in charge of the case after its reopening upon the filing of the complaint by Isla de Maipo councilman Emilio Astudillo. However, she was there for a short time, as she was appointed as a member of the Supreme Court. Since then, the case has passed through the hands of several judges. Some did not even manage to read the entire file. Today, the process is in the hands of Judge Marta Hantke at the San Miguel Court of Appeals, and without further proceedings, it is awaiting the conclusion of the identification stage with the results of the samples sent to Texas. For the lawyer for the victims' families, Nelson Caucoto, "the most important thing of all is that the definitive dismissal that existed in the case was reversed, which has allowed progress in the stage of accurate identification of the remains. Once that concludes and they are delivered to their families, we will give an impetus to the criminal process and take the corresponding actions to summon the implicated parties to testify for the homicides. In due course, we will also ask for reparations from the Chilean State." Lautaro Castro Mendoza, the lieutenant in charge of the Isla de Maipo Carabinero station in October '73, was notified three weeks ago of a first-instance sentence in another case for the crime of Juan de Dios Salinas and Guillermo Bustamante Sotelo, two social leaders from Isla de Maipo detained in September '73. Castro was sentenced to 20 years in prison, 10 for each victim.

Source: lanacion.cl, September 28, 2008

Judge Solís ordered to prosecute nine former Carabineros for the Lonquén Kilns crimes

The Second Chamber of the San Miguel Court of Appeals revoked the decision of the visiting judge, who had dismissed the indictments due to the statute of limitations on criminal action. The Second Chamber of the San Miguel Court of Appeals ordered visiting judge Héctor Solís to prosecute nine retired Carabineros for their responsibility in the execution and illegal burial of the bodies of the peasants who were found in the Lonquén kilns in 1978.

The appellate court determined to revoke the decision of the magistrate, who had dismissed the indictments due to the statute of limitations on criminal action for the events that occurred on October 7, 1973, and which affected 15 peasants from the area.

The accused are Captain (ret.) Lautaro Espinoza and Carabineros (ret.) Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta.

All of them must be prosecuted in the coming days by Judge Solís. In this regard, plaintiff Nelson Caucoto expressed satisfaction with the judicial decision, as this is one of the "emblematic" human rights cases. "It is extremely important.

It overrides a spurious res judicata by the military courts, and this reflects that we are living in a new judicial time, where the provisions of the dictatorship's courts cannot be accepted," said the lawyer.

Of the 15 bodies found, a Texas laboratory managed to identify 13 of them last year: Enrique Astudillo Álvarez, Omar Astudillo Rojas, Ramón Astudillo Rojas, Miguel Ángel Brant Bustamante, Nelson Hernández Flores, Carlos Hernández Flores, José Herrera Villegas, Iván Ordóñez Lama, Sergio Maureira Lillo, Sergio Maureira Muñoz, José Maureira Muñoz, Segundo Maureira Muñoz, and Rodolfo Maureira Muñoz.

Source: latercera.cl, August 19, 2011

Seven Carabineros convicted for a case of disappeared persons in Chile

The Chilean justice system today convicted seven retired Carabineros for the crimes of kidnapping and homicide of fifteen people in a town near Santiago in October 1973, whom they murdered and whose remains they buried in kilns in the town of Lonquén.

According to judicial sources, the visiting judge (special judge) for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, imposed a 20-year prison sentence on Marcelo Castro Mendoza for his responsibility as the author of qualified kidnapping.

Castro Mendoza, known as Lautaro, was already sentenced in 2008 to ten years in prison for the disappearance of two other residents of Isla de Maipo who, after being detained on September 14, 1973, by the Carabineros, were riddled with bullets and their bodies thrown into the Maipo River.

The judge sentenced David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro to 15 years as authors of qualified kidnapping, while Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 15 terms of 60 days in prison for simple kidnapping.

Among the victims were five members of the same family and four adolescents detained in the town square, two of them apparently for smoking marijuana. The discovery of the bodies was possible thanks to an anonymous tip received at the end of 1978 by the Vicariate of Solidarity, an organization created by the Chilean Catholic Church to defend human rights and victims of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).

The trial was paralyzed for many years in the military justice system, which gave credence to the Carabineros' version that, while they were transporting the prisoners to Santiago by superior order, they suffered an ambush on the road, resulting in the deaths of all the detainees, whose bodies they placed in the Lonquén kilns "out of fear."

Source: lavanguardia.com, September 12, 2016

Lonquén Case: San Miguel Court confirms sentences for 7 former Carabineros

The San Miguel Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence that convicted 7 retired Carabineros officials for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping and simple kidnapping committed against 15 people from the town of Isla de Maipo in October 1973, whose remains were found in 1978 in kilns in the town of Lonquén.

In the resolution, the Second Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Judge Diego Simpértigue and judges María Teresa Díaz and Carolina Vásquez—confirmed the sentence of Judge Marianela Cifuentes, who convicted Marcelo (Lautaro) Iván Castro Mendoza as the author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of 15 people to a sentence of 20 years in prison for his responsibility as the author of qualified kidnapping.

Meanwhile, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro must serve a sentence of 15 years in prison as authors of qualified kidnapping.

Likewise, Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 11 terms of 60 days in prison as the author of simple kidnapping. The ruling establishes that the 15 victims were detained and transferred to the Isla de Maipo station on October 7, 1973, and in the early hours of the 8th, they were tied by their hands, taken out of the police unit in a truck, and taken to the town of Lonquén.

In that place, according to the ruling, "a few meters from some lime kilns, a picket of Carabineros officials from the Isla de Maipo station, under the command of Lieutenant Lautaro Castro Mendoza, shot them, causing their deaths, and then threw their bodies inside the kilns in order to hide them."

Source: fortinmapocho.cl, May 16, 2017

Lonquén Case: Carabineros must serve 15 years in Colina 1

The visiting judge for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, issued an order for entry into Colina 1 for 5 retired Carabineros convicted of the qualified homicide of 15 victims.

In June of this year, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence handed down by Judge Cifuentes, which sentenced David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro, among others, to a sentence of 15 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree as authors of the crimes of qualified homicide.

The Lonquén Case On October 7, 1973, 15 peasants were detained by Carabineros in the town of Isla de Maipo, whom they locked in a barracks, interrogated, and subjected to torture. The next day, the peasants were taken to some old kilns of an abandoned brick factory, near the town of Lonquén, where Carabineros shot them to death, put the bodies in the kilns, and sealed them with cement.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, July 27, 2018

Lonquén Case: Supreme Court convicts 6 retired Carabineros for the kidnapping of 15 victims.

In a split decision, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted 6 retired Carabineros de Chile officials for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping and simple kidnapping committed against 15 people from the town of Isla de Maipo, events that occurred in October 1973 and whose remains were found in 1978 in kilns in the town of Lonquén.

Thus, it rejected a cassation appeal and confirmed the sentence of Judge Marianela Cifuentes, who sentenced David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro to a sentence of 15 years and one day in prison as authors of qualified kidnapping.

Likewise, Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 11 terms of 60 days in prison as the author of simple kidnapping. Judge Cifuentes' investigation established that: 1. That on October 7, 1973, while the young men Miguel Ángel Arturo Brant Bustamante, José Manuel Herrera Villegas, Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, and Iván Gerardo Ordóñez Lama were in the Isla de Maipo square, they were detained without legal cause by Carabineros officials and, subsequently, transferred to the Isla de Maipo station. 2.

That same day, after 10:00 PM, Carabineros officials from the Isla de Maipo station arrived at the house of Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, inside the Naguayán estate, detained him without legal cause, and put him in a pickup truck. 3.

That, moments later, the same Carabineros officials from the Isla de Maipo station went to the property at 12 La Ballica Street, also inside the Naguayán estate, where they detained, without legal cause, Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, Nelson Hernández Flores, Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, and Ignacio del Carmen Vergara Guajardo, whom they put into the aforementioned pickup truck. 4.

That, later, the police officials went to the properties of the brothers Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz and Sergio Miguel Maureira Muñoz and detained them, without legal cause, in the presence of their respective spouses Elicea del Carmen Navarrete Sepúlveda and Hilda María Sepúlveda Garrido, transferring them in the aforementioned vehicle to the Isla de Maipo station. 5.

That, half an hour later, the same police officials returned to the Maureira family home on the Naguayán estate and detained, without legal cause, José Manuel Maureira Muñoz and Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, whom they transferred to the Isla de Maipo station. 6.

That, that same night, Carabineros officials from the Isla de Maipo station detained, without legal cause, Enrique Astudillo Álvarez and his sons Omar Astudillo Rojas and Ramón Astudillo Rojas, at their home, inside the Naguayán estate. 7.

That, once in the police unit, the detainees were kept locked up, interrogated, and subjected to physical duress. 8. That, in the early hours of the morning, Enrique René Astudillo Álvarez, Omar Enrique Astudillo Rojas, Ramón Osvaldo Astudillo Rojas, Miguel Ángel Arturo Brant Bustamante, Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, Nelson Hernández Flores, Oscar Nibaldo Hernández Flores, José Manuel Herrera Villegas, Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, José Manuel Maureira Muñoz, Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz, Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, Sergio Miguel Maureira Muñoz, Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, and Iván Gerardo Ordóñez Lama were tied by their hands, taken out of the police unit in a truck, and taken to the town of Lonquén, a few meters from some lime kilns, where a picket of Carabineros officials from the Isla de Maipo station, under the command of Lieutenant Lautaro Castro Mendoza, shot them, causing their deaths, to then throw their bodies inside the kilns in order to hide them. In the civil aspect, the sentence that ordered the State Treasury to pay total compensation of $2,050,000,000 to the victims' families was confirmed. The decision to reject the cassation appeals in substance filed on behalf of the Human Rights Program Unit of the Undersecretariat of Human Rights and the plaintiff party was agreed upon, with the dissenting vote of Judge Blanco and Judge Muñoz, who were in favor of accepting them and declaring that, in this case, the mitigating circumstance contemplated in Article 11 No. 9 of the Penal Code does not apply to the accused Coliqueo Fuentealba, Romo Peralta, Villegas Navarro, and Torres González; nor does the mitigating circumstance of irreproachable prior conduct apply to the accused Marcelo Castro Mendoza, and thus, with the criminal sentence annulled, in the replacement sentence, it should be considered that regarding Castro Mendoza, no modifications to criminal responsibility apply, and in relation to the remaining accused, only one mitigating circumstance favors them, so it is appropriate to regulate the sentences to be imposed without the modifications to the penal framework that their consideration imposed. It was also agreed to reject the cassation appeal in form filed by the plaintiff party against the civil decision of the sentence, with the dissenting vote of Judge Blanco, who was in favor of accepting it and, having annulled the attacked civil decision, issuing a replacement sentence confirming that of the first instance.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, June 20, 2018

Arrest of former Carabineros ordered for the homicide of 15 people during the dictatorship

The Chilean justice system today ordered the arrest and prosecution of a former officer and seven former Carabineros for the homicide of 15 people during the military dictatorship (1973-1990), whose remains appeared in the Lonquén kilns, near the Chilean capital.

Judicial sources stated today that the resolution emanated from the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which revoked the refusal of visiting judge Héctor Solís, who had refused to prosecute the former uniformed officers.

According to the digital page of Radio Bío-Bío, these are former Captain Lautaro Castro Mendoza and former Carabineros Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta.

All of them are accused as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of the fifteen people detained on October 7, 1973, whose ages ranged between 17 and 51 years. The ruling establishes that "the facts must be interpreted as crimes against humanity, and under such conditions, and given the current state of the investigation, it is not appropriate to apply the statute of limitations or amnesty." The fifteen victims of the military dictatorship were locals detained in Isla de Maipo and subsequently executed by State agents and illegally buried in the Lonquén kilns, a small town located 14 kilometers from the town of Talagante, neighboring Santiago. Among them were a peasant and his four sons, agricultural workers, and even an adolescent detained for smoking marijuana in a square.

Source: lainformacion.com, May 15, 2020

Lonquén: The Carabineros massacre of 15 peasants

On October 7, 1973, at 9:45 PM, a group of eleven peasants from the town of Isla de Maipo was detained by Carabineros officials. The police did not carry arrest or search warrants for the homes of those people.

Numerous witnesses saw how they were beaten and loaded into a white pickup truck owned by the owner of the Naguayán Estate—where the houses of the three families were located—tied up, and laid face down on the floor of the vehicle.

They were the agricultural workers: Enrique Astudillo Álvarez (51 years old), Omar Astudillo Rojas (20), Ramón Astudillo Rojas (27), Carlos Hernández Flores (39), Nelson Hernández Flores (32), Oscar Hernández Flores (30), Sergio Maureira Lillo (46), José Maureira Muñoz (26), Rodolfo Maureira Muñoz (22), Segundo Maureira Muñoz (24), and Sergio Maureira Muñoz (27).

Carabineros officials stood on their backs. They paraded through the streets of the town to intimidate the entire population. Finally, they were taken to the station. The same fate befell four young men who had been detained that same day in the town square: Miguel Brant Bustamante (22 years old), Manuel Navarro Salinas (20), Iván Ordóñez Lama (17), and José Herrera Villegas (17).

The families were deceived by government authorities. They were informed that the detainees had been transferred to the National Stadium in the capital. The relatives filed a writ of amparo in 1974. When the local authorities were questioned by the courts, they merely stated that "everyone had been transferred on October 8, 1973, to the National Stadium." Which was completely false.

The SENDET (National Service for Detainees) contradictorily indicated that it "did not have, and had never had, information about them." Sergio Diez—now a National Renewal senator—and at that time a delegate of the Augusto Pinochet Ugarte dictatorship to the OAS, lied in 1975 before the whole world, saying that: "these people had no legal existence," while other "Lonquén detainees had been admitted to the Legal Medical Institute in October 1973." On November 29, 1978, an informant gave the Catholic Church the exact location where the ill-fated remains of the peasants and young men were: some lime kilns in the town of Lonquén, 14 kilometers from the town of Talagante. The Vicar of Solidarity, Cristián Precht, and the Bishop of Santiago, Enrique Alvear, decided to verify the information by going to the place together with journalists—Jaime Martínez (Qué Pasa) and Abraham Santibáñez (Revista Hoy)—and the lawyers Máximo Pacheco (PDC) and Alejandro González. The press reported: "In an old stone construction, about twelve meters high, attached to the slope of a hill, inside which there are two silos of two and a half meters, were the bodies (...) In the other, covered with stones from above and with an exit in its lower part, also walled up, were human remains, a skull, destroyed clothes (...)". It was a precise and painful blow to the conscience of thousands of Chileans. An open wound until today, unspeakable. An image of pain and human misery, of horror without limit and brutality that the history of humanity will remember forever. Nothing could Pinochet and his lackeys do to hide the horrendous crime. The bishop informed Israel Bórquez, president of the Supreme Court and collaborator of the regime, who sent the background information to the Talagante Court. Judge Juana Godoy was appointed to initiate the investigation. In December 1978, the remains were sent to the Legal Medical Institute. The full Supreme Court appointed Judge Adolfo Bañados as visiting judge, who ordered autopsies and ballistic examinations and gathered the cases in which the disappearance of people or alleged misfortune had been reported. He interrogated the families of the "disappeared" peasants. The police officers involved: Lautaro Castro Mendoza—head of the Isla de Maipo station—and Carabineros Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta, gave the version before the courts that they had "taken the detainees, who were highly dangerous, to the Lonquén kilns, in order to unearth the weaponry they had hidden, and that later—at the site—they had suffered an armed attack by unknown persons, with the peasants being killed by the gunfire. Fearing reprisals, they had decided to hide the bodies in the abandoned kilns." In April 1979, Judge Bañados had to declare himself incompetent due to the prevailing legislation that grants immunity to uniformed personnel and hands over criminal cases in which they are involved to the Military Justice system. However, before leaving the case, he established the responsibility of these police officers for the events. His resolution states: "The version (...) to try to explain the death of their prisoners, not only contradicts the merits of the case in multiple aspects and details, in particular, of course, regarding the number of victims, but is also intrinsically implausible (...) in none of the remains were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of traces that could be related to projectiles from firearms impacting a living organism found, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes." The process then passed into the hands of the "Second Military Court," which indicted the Carabineros officials as "authors of the crime of unnecessary violence causing death." After a short procedure, the case was definitively dismissed by means of the Amnesty Law issued by Pinochet, legislation to which the eight Carabineros had requested to be subject. Subsequently, the "Martial Court" confirmed that resolution. The murderer Lautaro Castro was promoted to the rank of Captain. One year after the bodies of the peasants and young men were found, the remains were handed over to their families. The bodies were transported by officials of the Legal Medical Institute to Isla de Maipo and buried immediately—except for Sergio Maureira Lillo—to avoid the presence of their families, depositing them in a mass grave. The relatives, aggrieved once again by the military authorities, filed a complaint with the Martial Court—which was forced to accept it—against military prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Sweet for "fault and abuse committed by not complying with the order to deliver the bodies." He was given a written censure. In January 1980, the Supreme Court decided to set it aside, considering that the prosecutor "did not commit any fault. It was the judges themselves who imposed it on him who indicated the procedure he used." A complaint was filed again with the justice system for the death of the Isla de Maipo peasants. This case was handled by visiting judge Héctor Solís, who could not continue his investigation. The judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, continued the investigation, finishing it on September 12, 2016, when she issued a first-instance sentence. The judge convicted the 7 Carabineros who detained the fifteen peasants; the former Carabineros were convicted for the crime of qualified kidnapping: Lautaro Castro Mendoza, head of the patrol, to a sentence of 20 years in prison for his responsibility as the author. David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 900 days in prison. The case went to the second instance, the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which on May 16, 2017, confirmed the sentence. On June 16, 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted 6 former Carabineros, given that the head of the Carabineros, Lautaro Castro, died before the conviction. On February 18, 2010, the acting visiting judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Héctor Solís, announced the identification of 13 of the 15 bodies, whose remains were found in 1978, finally allowing the burial to take place, with the removal of the remains from the Legal Medical Service on March 26. On March 27, a public wake was held in the Civic Patio of the Isla de Maipo Municipality, and on Sunday the 28th, the solemn burial of the victims in the Isla de Maipo Parish Cemetery took place. The Lonquén Kilns were demolished to erase all traces and footprints of memory, to impose oblivion definitively. By Arnaldo Pérez Guerra

Source: prensaopal.cl, October 7, 2020