Minister Carroza issues conviction for homicide perpetrated at the General Cemetery.

The Minister for extraordinary cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, issued a first-instance sentence in the investigation he is conducting into the qualified homicide of Raúl Antonio Muñoz Muñoz, executed on October 7, 1973, whose remains were illegally interred in "Patio 29" of the General Cemetery.

In the case, Magistrate Carroza sentenced former State agents Juan de Dios Mansilla, Luis Hernández Gutiérrez, and Pedro Hormazábal Fuentes to 5 years and one day of imprisonment as perpetrators of the crime.

Likewise, he sentenced José Torres Riquelme and Andrés Riquelme Hernández to 3 years and one day of imprisonment as accomplices, granting them the benefit of intensive supervised release. Furthermore, he decreed the acquittal of Iván González Jorquera and Carlos Moreira Donoso.

By virtue of the evidence gathered in the investigation, it was established that "On the afternoon of September 29, 1973, following a verbal and physical altercation between Raúl Antonio Muñoz Muñoz and his neighbors Hortensia del Carmen and Guacolda Francisca Leppe Flores, the wife of a Carabineros officer assigned to special services in the población Einstein of Recoleta, where both women sustained injuries—one of a less serious nature and the other minor, respectively—an armed patrol from the Buin Regiment, under the command of Andrés Humberto Riquelme Hernández, appeared later that day at the home of Raúl Muñoz. After entering the premises without authorization, they proceeded to arrest him without presenting any judicial warrant and then transported him in a jeep to the military unit. In said regiment, Raúl Antonio Muñoz Muñoz was held as a detainee until, without any resolution, it was decided to transfer him in a Carabineros bus to the special services prefecture, a task carried out by Carabineros officers Pedro Muñoz Escobar and José Andrés Torres Riquelme, and their driver Carlos José Moreira Donoso, who placed him at the disposal of the police station guard." The resolution further adds that "He remained in said guardroom for a prolonged period without being interrogated and remaining ignorant of what his fate would be, until the moment instructions were received from an officer to remove him from the unit and transfer him presumably to the Estadio Nacional, a detention center for political prisoners at the time. This mission was assigned to Lieutenant Juan de Dios Mansilla Díaz and Carabineros officers Pedro Muñoz Escobar, Pedro Pablo Hormazábal Fuentes, and Luis Alfonso Hernández Gutiérrez, an action for which there was never any record of having been carried out, except for what was stated by the defendants themselves, and which resulted in the disappearance of the victim until 1991, when his remains were found in the General Cemetery, Patio 29, with a date of death of October 7, 1973, and cause of death being craniofacial, thoracic, and upper extremity trauma inflicted by homicidal-type bullets." In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay compensation of $100,000,000 (one hundred million pesos) to each of the victim's four children.

Source: pjud.cl, December 4, 2014

Supreme Court confirms ruling convicting four retired army members for homicide at the Buin Regiment

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals for cassation on the merits filed against the sentence that convicted four retired members of the Army for their responsibility in the qualified homicide of Raúl Muñoz Muñoz, a crime perpetrated between September and October 1973 in the Metropolitan Region.

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the high court—composed of ministers Milton Juica, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and Carlos Cerda—confirmed the challenged resolution that sentenced Juan de Dios Mansilla Díaz, Pedro Hormazábal Fuentes, and Luis Alfonso Hernández to 10 years and one day of imprisonment as perpetrators of the qualified homicide, and José Torres Riquelme to 5 years and one day of imprisonment as an accomplice.

In the first instance, the investigation conducted by the Minister for extraordinary cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, managed to establish the following facts: "On the afternoon of September 29, 1973, following a verbal and physical altercation between Raúl Antonio Muñoz Muñoz and his neighbors Hortensia del Carmen and Guacolda Francisca Leppe Flores, the wife of a Carabineros officer assigned to special services in the población Einstein of Recoleta, where both women sustained injuries—one of a less serious nature and the other minor, respectively—an armed patrol from the Buin Regiment, under the command of Andrés Humberto Riquelme Hernández, appeared later that day at the home of Raúl Muñoz. After entering the premises without authorization, they proceeded to arrest him without presenting any judicial warrant and then transported him in a jeep to the military unit. In said regiment, Raúl Antonio Muñoz Muñoz was held as a detainee until, without any resolution, it was decided to transfer him in a Carabineros bus to the special services prefecture, a task carried out by Carabineros officers Pedro Muñoz Escobar and José Andrés Torres Riquelme, and their driver Carlos José Moreira Donoso, who placed him at the disposal of the police station guard; He remained in said guardroom for a prolonged period without being interrogated and remaining ignorant of what his fate would be, until the moment instructions were received from an officer to remove him from the unit and transfer him presumably to the Estadio Nacional, a detention center for political prisoners at the time. This mission was assigned to Lieutenant Juan de Dios Mansilla Díaz and Carabineros officers Pedro Muñoz Escobar, Pedro Pablo Hormazábal Fuentes, and Luis Alfonso Hernández Gutiérrez, an action for which there was never any record of having been carried out, except for what was stated by the defendants themselves, and which resulted in the disappearance of the victim until 1991, when his remains were found in the General Cemetery, Patio 29, with a date of death of October 7, 1973, and cause of death being craniofacial, thoracic, and upper extremity trauma inflicted by homicidal-type bullets." In the civil aspect, the conviction ordering the State of Chile to pay compensation of $100,000,000 (one hundred million pesos) to each of the victim's four children was confirmed.

Source: elclarin.cl, May 21, 2016