Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren Brito, and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann are among those implicated.

The minister for extraordinary causes regarding human rights violations at the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto, sentenced 77 agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) this Monday for their responsibility in the kidnapping of Héctor Garay Hermosilla in 1974.

Garay Hermosilla, a member of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER), was 19 years old when he was detained near his home on July 8, 1974. Days later, his name appeared in the national press on a false list of 119 people killed due to alleged internal disputes within the MIR, in what was termed "Operation Colombo." According to the judge's findings, "the publications that declared the victim Garay Hermosilla dead originated from disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

According to the reconstruction of events carried out by the presiding judge, the DINA agents who captured Garay "forced him into the back of a gray Chevrolet C-10 pickup truck and transported him to the home of a friend of the victim, who was also forced into the aforementioned truck, to be taken to an unknown destination."

"Subsequently, it was established through testimonies that Héctor Marcial Garay Hermosilla passed through the clandestine detention center known as 'Londres 38,' which was guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access," the ruling continues, establishing that to date, there is no further information regarding Garay's whereabouts.

The convicted In the resolution, the presiding judge sentenced the following to 13 years in prison as authors of the crime perpetrated in 1974: César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann.

Meanwhile, the following former agents must serve 10 years in prison, also as authors: Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Sergio Hernán Castillo González, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías, Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, José Enrique Fuentes Torres, José Mario Friz Esparza, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Claudio Orlando Orellana de la Pinta, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas, Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco, Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Leónidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Risiere del Prado Altez España, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle.

As accomplices to the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Garay Hermosilla, the presiding judge sentenced the following to 4 years in prison: Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Camilo Torres Negrier, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Fernando Adrián Roa Montaña, Gerardo Meza Acuña, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, Jorge Laureano Sagardia Monje, José Dorohi Hormazábal Rodríguez, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, José Stalin Muñoz Leal, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Luis René Torres Méndez, Manuel Antonio Montre Méndez, Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Nelson Eduardo Iturriaga Cortés, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Víctor Manuel de la Cruz San Martín Jiménez, Gustavo Humberto Apablaza Meneses, Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Óscar Belarmino la Flor Flores, Rufino Espinoza Espinoza, Héctor Manuel Lira Aravena, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Sergio Iván Díaz Lara, Juan Miguel Troncoso Soto, and Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel.

Meanwhile, Rodolfo Valentino Cocha Rodríguez and Armando Segundo Cofre Correa were acquitted due to a lack of participation in the events.

Source: t13.cl, August 31, 2015

Among the accused, all retired, are eight colonels and 23 army non-commissioned officers, 40 Carabineros officers and non-commissioned officers, two former FACH agents, one former Navy agent, and seven former Investigative Police agents.

The biggest blow to the repression of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship was dealt yesterday by Judge Víctor Montiglio, who indicted 98 former agents from various branches of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and the Investigative Police for 42 victims of Operation Colombo.

This is the largest resolution issued among the nearly 400 human rights violation cases currently being investigated in the country. It even surpassed the 67 former agents indicted by the same Judge Montiglio in 2007 for the crimes of the Lautaro Brigade and its Delfín Group at the Simón Bolívar barracks.

Among those indicted for Colombo are eight Army colonels (retired), six of whom had not been previously indicted in any case. Also declared defendants were 23 Army non-commissioned officers (retired), of whom at least 50 percent appear for the first time in these types of cases.

Among these non-commissioned officers is Juvenal Piña, alias "El Elefante," a former agent of the Lautaro Brigade, who was the one who suffocated the communist leader in hiding (1976), Víctor Díaz, with a plastic bag over his head before injecting him with cyanide.

Furthermore, the magistrate indicted 40 former Carabineros officers and non-commissioned officers, including Ricardo Lawrence, Heriberto Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco, and José Mora, all former members of the same Brigade. Among those processed are also former agents who belonged to the Investigative Police. The only civilian (Army) is Juan Suárez.

Of the total list, at least thirteen are already serving sentences for other cases (see list).

As of the closing of this edition, the accused were still being detained to be interned in various locations, such as the Peñalolén Military Police Battalion.

Among the 42 victims for whom the judge issued his resolution are María Angélica Andreolli, Miguel Acuña Castillo, Juan Carlos Perelmann Ide, Juan Chacón Olivares, Jorge Müller Silva, Luis Guendelmann Wisniak, Mario Calderón Tapia, and Carmen Bueno Cifuentes.

Operation Colombo and the media

The list of the 119 was published in the magazine Lea (Buenos Aires) and the newspaper O Dia (Brazil) in 1975; this information was also false. Both publications were created by DINA agents.

Operation Colombo was part of Operation Condor and consisted of a setup by the dictatorship to make the population believe that 119 detainees who were forcibly disappeared had clandestinely left for Argentina and died there in clashes with police and Army forces during the phase prior to the 1976 military coup in Argentina.

Some of those names appeared as militants "assassinated" in Buenos Aires and its surroundings, with signs on their bodies stating they had been executed by their own comrades as a settling of scores for internal disputes. However, this also turned out to be a setup.

The list of the 119 was published in the magazine Lea (Buenos Aires) and the newspaper O Dia (Brazil) in 1975; this information was also false. Both publications were created by DINA agents abroad and had only one edition.

In Chile, the pro-dictatorship press, such as the newspapers El Mercurio, La Tercera, Las Ultimas Noticias, and La Segunda, reproduced the intelligence services' setup. The headline of the evening paper remains in memory, which reported: "Exterminated like rats: 59 Chilean MIR members fall in military operation in Argentina." They were part of the list of the 119 disappeared of Colombo.

The former fugitive Raúl Iturriaga, who was one of those in charge of the DINA's foreign department, was the one who first shed light on this operation in Buenos Aires.

According to former civilian agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, convicted in Buenos Aires for the crime of General Carlos Prats and his wife, it was Iturriaga who met with him at the beginning of 1975 to ask him to prepare what was necessary because "we have to make some dead people from Operation Colombo appear."

It was a matter of preparing the appearance of the supposed bodies of Jaime Robotham and Luis Guendelmann as part of the setup.

List of the indicted

Army (all retired)

Víctor Molina Astete (colonel); Sergio Castillo González (col); Eduardo Guerra Guajardo (col); Víctor San Martín Jiménez (col); José Fuentes Torres (col); Manuel Carevic Cubillos (col); Jaime Paris Ramos (col); César Manríquez Bravo (col); Raúl Toro Montes (non-commissioned officer); Eduardo Reyes Lagos (NCO); Orlando Torrejón Gatica (NCO); Osvaldo Tapia Alvarez (NCO; committed suicide); Juvenal Piña Garrido (NCO; "El Elefante"); Juan Suárez Delgado (civilian); Nelson Paz Bustamante (NCO); José Aravena Ruiz (NCO); Luis Torres Méndez (NCO); Raúl Soto Pérez (NCO); Jorge Andrade Gómez (NCO); Juan Escobar Valenzuela (NCO); Rolando Concha Rodríguez (NCO); Gustavo Apablaza Meneses (NCO); Hiro Alvarez Vega (NCO); Víctor Alvarez Droguett (NCO); Jorge Venegas Silva (NCO); Carlos Rinaldi Suazo (NCO); Carlos Letelier Verdugo (NCO); Reinaldo Concha Orellana (NCO); Máximo Aliaga Soto (NCO); Hugo Clavería Leiva (NCO); Samuel Fuenzalida Devia (NCO);

Investigative Police

Juan Urbina Cáceres; Hugo Hernández; Manuel Rivas Díaz; Herman Alfaro; Eugenio Fieldhouse; Osvaldo Castillo;

Carabineros (officers and non-commissioned officers, all retired):

Gerardo Godoy García; Ciro Torres Sáez; Alejandro Molina Cisternas; Camilo Torres Negrier; Héctor Lira Aravena; José Fritz Esparza; Claudio Pacheco Fernández; Jorge Sagardia Monge; Sergio Castro Andrade; Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez; Armando Cofré Gómez; Fernando Roa Montaña; Gerardo Meza Acuña; Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar; Luis Mora Cerda; José Muñoz Leal; Juan Duarte Gallegos; Carlos Miranda Meza; Rufino Jaime Astorga; Luis Urrutia Acuña; Luis Zúñiga Ovalle; Pedro Alfaro Hernández; Orlando Inostroza Lagos; Rosa Ramos Hernández; Gustavo Caruvan Soto; Héctor Valdebenito Araya; Manuel Avendaño González; José Mora Diocares; Guido Jara Brevis; Nelson Ortiz Vignolo; Ruderlindo Urrutia Jorquera; Héctor Flores Vergara; Jerónimo Neira Méndez; Manuel Montré Méndez; Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo; Claudio Orellana de la Pinta; Nelson Iturriaga Cortés; Luis Gutiérrez Uribe; José Ojeda Obando;

Air Force

Delia Gajardo Cortés; Hernán Avalos Muñoz;

Navy

Teresa Navarro Osorio;

Indicted individuals already serving sentences:

Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda; Pedro Espinoza Bravo; Raúl Iturriaga Neumann; Marcelo Moren Brito; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; Ricardo Lawrence Mires; Basclay Zapata Reyes; Conrado Pacheco; Francisco Ferrer Lima; Gerardo Urrich; Orlando Manzo Durán; Rizier Altez España; Fernando Lauriani Maturana;

Source: lanacion.cl, May 27, 2008

Miguel Angel Acuña Castillo: The disappearance of the 19-year-old in Londres 38

He was detained in July 1974 in the commune of Macul. Numerous witnesses saw him at the Londres 38 torture and extermination center. He is one of the victims of "Operation Colombo." The justice system sentenced 78 former DINA agents for this crime against humanity.

The minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto, issued a first-instance sentence for the kidnapping and disappearance of Miguel Angel Acuña Castillo.

The magistrate established that the young man, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained near his home located at Pasaje Talca N° 2033 in the commune of Macul by State agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), among them Osvaldo Romo Mena, alias "el Guatón Romo."

His sister, Rosa Acuña Castillo, declared that her father tried to climb onto the back of the covered pickup truck as they were taking him away, but he was struck in the mouth by one of the subjects and fell to the ground.

A week after the kidnapping, Romo went to their home again and told her that her brother was in good condition along with Héctor Garay Hermosilla, who is also forcibly disappeared. Both were members of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER) at the Liceo 7 in Ñuñoa.

Judge Crisosto determined that the DINA agents "transferred him to the clandestine detention center known as 'Yucatán' or 'Londres 38'."

Acuña Castillo belonged to the secondary student structure of the MIR's Military Political Group 3 (GPM3), an organization that grouped militants from the eastern zone of the capital and was led by Agustín Reyes González, whose trail was lost forever at Londres 38.

There, he "remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents," and the last time he was seen alive "occurred on an undetermined day in the month of July or August 1974, remaining forcibly disappeared to this day," the first-instance ruling states.

Laughing at Londres 38 with Héctor Garay Hermosilla

At the "Yucatán" barracks, he was seen by Erika Hennings, who was detained on July 30, 1974. "I can say that he was very young, I think they called him 'El Pampa'," she asserted during the proceedings.

She heard the roll call for the detainees twice a day. On July 31, 1974, she heard the name Miguel Angel Acuña Castillo, who answered "present." Later, she did not hear him called again. "They took them out of Londres 38, just like other detainees, among whom she remembers María Inés Alvarado," a 21-year-old forcibly disappeared person.

Hugo Chacaltana Silva, detained on May 4, 1974, a former student of the Liceo Manuel de Salas and member of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER), also saw him at Londres 38. He recounted that in the early hours of July 8 to 9, 1974, Miguel Angel Acuña arrived along with Héctor Garay Hermosilla, whom they called "Titín"; he was able to see them through a gap that formed between his nose and cheekbones under the blindfold.

Chacaltana noted that he met Castillo in 1971, when both were secondary students. Both coincided in meetings held at the time between members of the FER, the judicial ruling notes. He remembers "Miguel Ángel as a young man of great leadership capacity and great physical resistance."

He stopped seeing him on September 11, 1973. He met him again at Londres 38. He arrived with Héctor Garay to the same room where he was lying on the floor. "At that moment, I did not address Miguel Ángel"; on the contrary, he pretended to be unaware of his presence. "The next day, when the mattresses on which we detainees lay were removed and replaced by chairs, I sat down, and on one of the sides, I observed that they were still sitting.

It struck him that both were talking and laughing, which made him think that they were unaware of the magnitude of what awaited them. Miguel Ángel approached him at Londres 38, saying, 'I know you'."

His mother learned at the hair salon that her son was at Londres 38

León Gómez, detained on July 15, 1974, and transferred to Londres 38, saw Miguel Angel along with Héctor Garay, whom he knew. Someone commented to him that "Pampino" was among the detainees, which he corroborated upon hearing him "with his typical jokes that he made to the guards, as if giving the impression that what was happening in the place had no importance.

Even Titín and Pampino would drive the guards crazy. They were very irreverent."

David Cuevas Sharon, detained on May 4, 1974, also testified to having seen him. "Despite showing signs of mistreatment, 'El Pampino' appeared to have great presence of mind; he was very strong physically." He shared space with him for at least five days.

When Cuevas was released, Acuña Castillo remained a prisoner. His maternal grandmother had a hair salon in Ñuñoa, and one of her clients was Miguel Angel's mother. In a conversation, "she learned of the problem she had with a disappeared son.

Given this, my grandmother had her come to the hair salon, where she met 'Pampino's' mother and told her what she knew about him, specifically the place where she had been imprisoned with him."

Regarding the torments applied to the detainees at Londres 38, including Miguel Angel, Minister Crisosto incorporated statements from Osvaldo Romo, who stated that among other tortures, detainees were subjected to "the dry submarine, which was covering the detainees' breathing with a plastic bag placed over their heads; their eyes would look like 'fried eggs,' and blood would come out of their noses and eardrums.

After the interrogations and duress, the detainees would be exhausted."

Another former agent, Samuel Fuenzalida Devia, specified in this regard that "the general treatment of the prisoners was to keep them blindfolded, they were not allowed to wash, there were no beds for them to sleep on, food was scarce, and they were subjected to intense interrogations in which electricity was applied, especially to their genitals and breasts.

Another form of torture consisted of keeping the detainees sitting on chairs, tied by their feet and hands, while current was applied to them with magnets, although common electric current was also applied, which burned those people, a procedure in which many people died."

Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez maintains that as an official of the Investigative Police, he was assigned to that repressive agency in mid-June 1974 and indicated that the same DINA agents who intervened in the detention and interrogation of the detainees, once the sought-after information was obtained, were the ones in charge of making them disappear, following an order from DINA superiors.

The name of Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo appeared among the 119 Chileans of Operation Colombo, on a list disseminated in the national press, after it appeared in publications that appeared only once in Brazil and Argentina, "which reported that Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo had died in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels."

The sentences

"The publications that declared the victim Acuña Castillo dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad," determined Judge Crisosto, who sentenced 78 former DINA agents for his disappearance.

The magistrate issued a sentence of 13 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree to Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda; César Manríquez Bravo; Pedro Espinoza; Marcelo Luis Moren Brito; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann.

Likewise, he sentenced to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González; Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García; Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires; Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez; Sergio Hernán Castillo González; Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos; José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías; Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes; José Enrique Fuentes Torres; José Mario Friz Esparza; Julio José Hoyos Zegarra; Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante; Claudio Orlando Orellana de la Pinta; Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar; Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto; Hiro Álvarez Vega; José Alfonso Ojeda Obando; Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez; Olegario Enrique González Moreno; Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica; Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera; Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda; Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza; Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo; Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas; Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco; Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear; Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos; Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza; Leónides Emiliano Méndez Moreno; Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda; Rafael De Jesús Riveros Frost; Víctor Manuel Molina Astete; Manuel Rivas Díaz; Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle; Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres; Risiere del Prado Altez España; Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca; and Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte.

As accomplices to the kidnapping and disappearance of the 19-year-old, he sentenced to 4 years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda; José Jaime Mora Diocares; Camilo Torres Negrier; Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez; Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández; Fernando Adrián Roa Montaña; Gerardo Meza Acuña; Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya; Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos; Jorge Laureano Sagardia Monje; José Dorohi Hormazabal Rodríguez; José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo; José Stalin Muñoz Leal; Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido; Luis René Torres Méndez; Manuel Antonio Montre Méndez; Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto; Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa; Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo; Nelson Eduardo Iturriaga Cortes; Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo; Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana; Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade; Víctor Manuel de la Cruz San Martin Jiménez; Gustavo Humberto Apablaza Meneses; Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas; Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios; Oscar Belarmino La Flor Flores; Rufino Espinoza Espinoza; Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel; Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett; Héctor Manuel Lira Aravena; and Sergio Iván Díaz Lara.

Regarding Víctor Manuel De la Cruz San Martín Jiménez, due to having fallen into dementia, the execution of the sentence is suspended, and he must, in due course, be handed over under custody bail to a family member.

Source: Villa Grimaldi.cl, February 3, 2015

Operation Condor: Minister Carroza issues sentence against 20 former DINA agents

Visiting Minister Mario Carroza issued sentences against 20 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the so-called Operation Condor. Among those sentenced are former Army members Manuel Iturriaga Neumann and Cristoph Willeke, who were sentenced to 17 years in prison—the maximum penalty.

Let us recall that Operation Condor was a coordination between several Latin American dictatorships, mainly the Chilean, Argentine, Brazilian, Paraguayan, Uruguayan, Peruvian, and Bolivian, to eliminate their opponents in the 1970s. The initiative was articulated, precisely, in Santiago by the DINA, led at that time by Manuel Contreras.

The judicial ruling sentenced Raúl Iturriaga Neumann and Christoph Willike Floel to 17 years in prison; Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Juan Morales Salgado, Jorge Escobar Fuentes, Federico Chaigneau Sepúlveda, and Miguel Riveros Valderrama to 15 years in prison; Carlos López Tapia and Gladys Calderón Carreño to 10 years of imprisonment; while Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, and José Ojeda Obando were sentenced to 7 years in prison.

In addition, Gerardo Godoy García, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Ciro Torré Sáez, and Orlando Manzo Durán were sentenced to 5 years and one day; and Jerónimo Neira Méndez, Hermon Alfaro Mundaca, and Juan Urbina Cáceres were sentenced to 301 days of imprisonment for their responsibility as accomplices. Finally, agent Manuel Rivas Días was sentenced to 100 days of imprisonment as an accomplice.

Judge Carroza's ruling details that "the intelligence agents of our country, in these cases, colluding with those of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, not only concerted the detention of the victims but also created the conditions to lock them up and transfer them to our country, with the sinister purpose of confining them in clandestine centers to interrogate them, torture them, and then proceed with extreme cruelty to eliminate them."

The 12 victims considered in this ruling were Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, Julio Valladares Caroca, Juan Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Luis Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, Héctor Velásquez Mardones, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Hernán Soto Gálvez, Matilde Pessa Mois, Ruiter Correa Arce, and Ricardo Ramírez Herrera.

Source: elciudadano.com, September 21, 2018

Operation Colombo: Santiago Court sentences 28 former DINA agents for qualified kidnapping

In a unanimous ruling, the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced 28 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) as perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Teobaldo Antonio Tello Garrido, an illicit act perpetrated starting August 22, 1974, within the framework of the so-called Operation Colombo.

The appellate court sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 13 years of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Hermón Helec Alfaro Mundaca, José Ojeda Obando, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Teresa del Carmen Osorio Navarro, Pedro René Alfaro Fernández, Luis René Torres Méndez, Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Silvio Antonio Concha González, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, Leonidas Emiliano Méndez, Luis Rigoberto Videla Inzunza, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, and Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González must serve 10 years of imprisonment.

In the case of Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett and Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia, they must serve 4 years and 541 days of imprisonment, respectively.

The sentence maintains that the present case originated to investigate the circumstances of the forced disappearance of Teobaldo Antonio Tello Garrido, after having been detained by State agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) on August 22, 1974, and kept in the detention centers 'Ollagüe', 'Villa Grimaldi', and 'Cuatro Álamos', facilities that were guarded by armed guards, where Teobaldo Tello was subjected to torture provoked by agents of that agency, his whereabouts subsequently remaining unknown to this day.

That fact has been classified as a consummated crime of qualified kidnapping, in the person of Teobaldo Tello, perpetrated in this city, starting August 22, 1974.

The resolution adds that there is no doubt that the referred crime constitutes a crime against humanity, since qualified kidnappings—termed by International Human Rights Law as 'forced disappearances'—are part of a generalized and systematic attack against a specific group of the civilian population, composed, in this case, by members and adherents of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), a condition the victim held at that time.

On the other hand, it is a common requirement to conceive the crime as one against humanity that the perpetrators or accomplices be State agents, a status the accused held at that time.

It adds that among the characteristics that distinguish this type of transgression are imprescriptibility, the impossibility of granting amnesty, and the impossibility of establishing exclusions of responsibility that intend to prevent the investigation and sanction of those responsible for such serious violations of essential rights such as torture, summary, extra-legal, or arbitrary executions, and forced disappearances, all of them prohibited by international human rights law.

In the civil aspect, with the dissenting vote of Minister Rojas, the sentence that ordered the State to pay $80,000,000 to the victim's relatives was confirmed.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, September 2, 2019

Operation Colombo: Supreme Court sentences 24 former DINA agents for the kidnapping of Miguel Acuña Castillo

In a split decision, the Supreme Court sentenced 24 former members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo, an illicit act committed starting July 8, 1974, and which is part of the disinformation maneuver known as "Operation Colombo."

Agents César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann were sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, former agents Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Sergio Hernán Castillo González, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, José Enrique Fuentes Torres, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Gustavo Galvarino Carumán Soto, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte must serve 10 years of imprisonment as perpetrators.

In the case, 46 other agents were acquitted.

During the investigation stage of the case, visiting minister Hernán Crisosto managed to establish the following facts:

On the night of July 8, 1974, Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained near his home located at Pasaje Talca N° 2033 in the commune of Macul by State agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who put him in the back of a pickup truck and transferred him to the clandestine detention center known as 'Yucatán' or 'Londres 38', located at that address in the city of Santiago, which was guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access;

That the victim Acuña Castillo, during his stay at the Londres 38 barracks, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents who operated in said barracks with the purpose of obtaining information regarding the members of the MIR, to proceed with the detention of the members of that organization;

That the last time the victim Acuña Castillo was seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in the month of July or August 1974, remaining forcibly disappeared to this day;

That the name of Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the magazine Novo O' Día of Curitiba, Brazil, dated June 25, 1975, which reported that Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo had died in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels that arose among those members;

That the publications that declared the victim Acuña Castillo dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad.

In the civil aspect, the ruling that ordered the State to pay a total compensation of $90,000,000 to the victim's relatives was confirmed.

Decision adopted with the dissenting votes of Minister Dolmestch and lawyer Abuauad, who were in favor of accepting, regarding gradual prescription, extending its effects also to the convicted César Manríquez Bravo; Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann; Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González; Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García; Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires; Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez; Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos; José Enrique Fuentes Torres; Julio José Hoyos Zegarra; Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto; José Alfonso Ojeda Obando; Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez; Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera; Víctor Manuel Molina Astete; Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres; Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca; and Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte and, in this way, annulling the criminal sentence, and in the replacement sentence, applying the alleged partial prescription, reducing the imposed penalty, in consideration of the following: 1° That whatever the grounds for dismissing in the present case the concurrence of the prescription of the criminal action as a cause for the extinction of criminal responsibility, it is certain that gradual prescription constitutes a qualified mitigating factor of criminal responsibility, whose effects affect the determination of the quantum of the corporal sanction, independent of the prescription, with different foundations and consequences. Thus, the former rests on the assumption of the forgetting of the crime, on procedural reasons, and on the need not to repress the conduct, which leads to leaving the criminal act unpunished; on the other hand, the mitigating factor—which is also explained thanks to humanitarian regulations—finds its reason for being in criminal policy motives related to events that occurred a long time ago, but which should not for that reason cease to be irremediably sanctioned, albeit with a lesser penalty. In this way, in cases like the present one, although the passage of time since the commission of the illicit act has been prolonged excessively, it does not cause the complete disappearance of the need for punishment, and nothing seems to oppose in the legal sphere that the courts resort to this mitigation of the penalty based on the time elapsed since the perpetration of the crime. 2° That, in short, gradual prescription forms a highly qualified mitigating factor whose effects affect only the rigor of the punishment and, due to its nature as a rule of public order, its application is mandatory for judges, by virtue of the principle of legality that governs punitive law, within the framework of the powers granted by articles 65 and following of the Penal Code. 3° That no constitutional, legal, or International Convention Law restriction is observed for its application, since those rules are only limited to the extinguishing effect of criminal responsibility that the prescription of the criminal action entails. Therefore, concurring with the assumptions of article 103 of the Punitive Code, no reason is seen that hinders considering the mitigating factor in question.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, July 29, 2019

Operation Colombo: Santiago Court sentences 28 former DINA agents

In a unanimous ruling by the Eighth Chamber of that court, a sentence of 13 years was decided for César Manríquez, Pedro Espinoza, Miguel Krassnoff, and Raúl Iturriaga, while 24 other former agents received sentences ranging between 541 days and 10 years of imprisonment.

Teobaldo Antonio Tello Garrido was detained by State agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) on August 22, 1974. He was transferred first to the 'Ollagüe' detention center, then to 'Villa Grimaldi', and finally to 'Cuatro Álamos', facilities that were guarded by armed guards, and in all of them, Teobaldo Tello was subjected to torture until his disappearance, without his whereabouts being known to this day.

The events are framed within the so-called "Operation Colombo," intended to make national and international public opinion believe that the disappeared had died in clashes with foreign security forces and as victims of internal purges.

That fact has been classified as a consummated crime of qualified kidnapping, and this Monday, the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court, composed of ministers Marisol Rojas, Paola Plaza, and Gloria Solís, unanimously sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 13 years of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Ciro Torré Sáez, Gerardo Godoy García, Nelson Paz Bustamante, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Hermón Alfaro Mundaca, José Ojeda Obando, Rosa Ramos Hernández, José Aravena Ruiz, Teresa Osorio Navarro, Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Luis Torres Méndez, Rodolfo Concha Rodríguez, Juan Urbina Cáceres, Jerónimo Neira Méndez, Silvio Concha González, Palmira Almuna Guzmán, Leonidas Méndez, Luis Videla Inzunza, Julio Hoyos Zegarra, and Gerardo Urrich González must serve 10 years of imprisonment.

Likewise, former agents Víctor Álvarez Droguett and Samuel Fuenzalida Devia must serve 4 years and 541 days of imprisonment, respectively.

According to what the ruling points out, "there is no doubt that the referred crime constitutes a crime against humanity, since qualified kidnappings—termed by International Human Rights Law as 'forced disappearances'—are part of a generalized and systematic attack against a specific group of the civilian population, composed, in this case, by members and adherents of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), a condition the victim held at that time.

On the other hand, it is a common requirement to conceive the crime as one against humanity that the perpetrators or accomplices be State agents, a status the accused held at that time."

In the civil part, the ministers ordered the State to pay compensation of eighty million pesos to the victim's relatives.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, September 2, 2019

The Santiago Court of Appeals convicted members of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of the filmmaker couple Carmen Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Müller Silva, who were detained on November 29, 1974, and whose whereabouts have remained unknown since that time.

In a split decision (case file 632-2016), the First Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Dobra Lusic, Leopoldo Llanos, and acting lawyer Cristián Lepín—confirmed the sentence handed down by the investigating judge Hernán Crisosto, in the part that convicted 31 former agents for their participation in the crime perpetrated within the framework of the disinformation operation known as "Operation Colombo."

In the case, agents César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko were sentenced to 20 years in prison for their responsibility in the aggravated kidnappings.

In the case of Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, Demóstenes Cárdenas Saavedra, Sylvia Oyarce Pinto, Gerardo Godoy García, Manuel Avendaño González, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Silvio Concha González, Pedro Araneda Araneda, Luis Videla Inzunza, Jorge Madariaga Acevedo, Teresa Osorio Navarro, José Aravena Ruiz, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Ciro Torré Sáez, Rosa Ramos Hernández, Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Luis Torres Méndez, Juan Urbina Cáceres, Jerónimo Neira Mendez, Palmira Almuna Guzmán, Hugo Delgado Carrasco, Carlos López Inostroza, Hugo Hernández Valle, Francisco Ferrer Lima, and Fernando Lauriani Maturana, it was ratified that they must serve 12 years in prison.

Meanwhile, the chamber revoked the resolution in the part that convicted the defendants Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Rodolfo Concha Rodríguez, Luis Espinace Contreras, Leonidas Méndez Moreno, and Samuel Fuenzalida Devia as perpetrators of the crimes of kidnapping of Bueno Cifuentes and Müller Silva.

Likewise, the convictions of the agents Raúl Alberto Soto Pérez, José Mora Diocares, Daniel Valentín Cancino Varas, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, José Stalin Muñoz Leal, Juan Carlos Escobar Valenzuela, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Osvaldo Octavio Castillo Arellano, Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Guido Arnoldo Jara Brevis, Hugo Hernán Clavería Leiva, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Miguel Ángel Yáñez Ugalde, Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Víctor Manuel San Martín Jiménez, and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, in the capacity of accomplices, were revoked, decreeing instead that all are acquitted of the charges brought against them.

"Regarding the crimes of aggravated kidnapping investigated in this case, the elements of judgment gathered in the case and expressed in the appealed ruling, weighed in the manner contained in the sentence, have proven sufficient to establish the facts and crimes of kidnapping that are the subject of the appealed decision.

This Court shares the reasons for which it has been resolved in the proposed manner, as well as the character of these crimes as crimes against humanity, their consequent imprescriptibility, and the impossibility of them being amnestied; all of which are matters and reasons that, moreover, are also contained in a large number of sentences issued by this same Court in proceedings whose object has been the adjudication of this type of conduct.

It is appropriate to reiterate what has already been resolved, that is, that these are illicit acts that have the character of crimes against humanity, committed by State agents and civilians acting outside of all legality, against persons whose fundamental rights were violated due to their political thinking, which differed from that sustained by the de facto military government installed in the country in September 1973," the ruling maintains.

The resolution adds: "It is the indicated quality that consequently prevents the application of the rules on prescription and amnesty that have been invoked in this process. It is also appropriate to dismiss the concurrence of the benefit of partial prescription for the same reasons for which the allegation of prescription was rejected in the sentence, since by virtue of being a crime against humanity, international instruments on the matter—extensively set forth in the lower court's ruling—as well as the rules emanating from ius cogens, prevent the application of prescription, total or gradual, regarding 'Crimes Against Humanity,' and consequently, the mere passage of time produces no effect on this type of illicit act."

"(...) on the other hand, this Court also shares the reasons expressed in the sentence under analysis, for which the lower court rejected the request for acquittal raised by the accused, based on the grounds of Amnesty, lack of criminal participation, and the existence of exculpatory circumstances of compliance with orders, contemplated in articles 211 and 214, second paragraph, of the Code of Military Justice, as well as the incomplete exculpatory circumstance of article 11 no. 1 in relation to article 10 no. 10 of the Penal Code, and the mitigating factors alleged by the defendants," it adds.

The decision was reached with the dissenting vote of Minister Llanos, who was in favor of confirming the appealed sentence regarding the defendants Samuel Fuenzalida Devia, Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez, Daniel Cancino Varas, and Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo.

In the civil aspect, the sentence ordering the State of Chile to pay compensation of $50,000,000 (fifty million pesos) to the victims' daughter was confirmed.

Source: adprensa.cl, March 6, 2020

Santiago Court increases sentence for former DINA agents for their responsibility in aggravated kidnappings and homicides of Operation Condor victims

The Eleventh Chamber of the appellate court modified the lower court's sentence and convicted a total of 22 former DINA agents for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated homicide committed in Chile and abroad.

The Santiago Court of Appeals increased the sentences to be served by 22 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate for the aggravated kidnappings of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, Julio Valladares Caroca, Juan Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Luis Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Velásquez Mardones, and the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto González, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

These illicit acts were perpetrated within the framework of the so-called "Operation Condor," a cooperation agreement between the repressive groups of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay in the 1970s.

In the sentence (file 4.545-2019), the Eleventh Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Jessica González, Loreto Gutiérrez, and Jaime Balmaceda—modified the lower court's convictions and increased the criminal sanctions for the former agents involved in the crimes committed both in Chile and abroad.

1) Agents Cristoph Willike Floel and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann must serve a sentence of 20 years in prison as perpetrators of the aggravated kidnappings of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón, Julio Valladares Caroca, Juan Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Luis Muñoz Velásquez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Velásquez Mardones, and a sentence of 20 years as perpetrators of the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto González, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

2) Agent Juan Morales Salgado was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the aggravated kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones, and 20 years in prison for the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, and Matilde Pessa Mois.

3) Meanwhile, agent Pedro Espinoza Bravo must serve a sentence of 20 years in prison for the aggravated kidnappings of Julio Valladares Caroca, Manuel Tamayo Martínez, Alexei Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and a sentence of 20 years in prison for the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto González, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

4) Jorge Escobar Fuentes, Federico Chaigneau Sepúlveda, and Miguel Riveros Valderrama will serve a sentence of 18 years in prison for the kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and a sentence of 18 years in prison for the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto González, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

5) Agent Gladys Calderón Carreño was sanctioned with a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and 15 years and one day in prison for the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto González, and Ruiter Correa Arce.

6) Agents Jose Ojeda Obando and Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme will serve a sentence of 5 years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnappings of Alexei Jaccard Siegler and Héctor Velásquez Mardones; and a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison for the aggravated homicides of Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bartnik, and Matilde Pessa Mois.

7) Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Gerardo Godoy García will serve 15 years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón.

8) Agent Hermon Alfaro Mundaca was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón. The same sentence and for the same crime were given to José Fuentes Torres, Jorge Andrade Gómez, José Aravena Ruiz, Luis Torres Méndez, María Gabriela Órdenes Montecinos, Osvaldo Pulgar Gallardo, and Rodolfo Concha Rodríguez, who had been acquitted in the first-instance ruling.

9) Finally, Jerónimo Neira Méndez and Manuel Rivas Díaz must serve a sentence of 3 years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Fuentes Alarcón.

The Court shared the first-instance criterion regarding the participation of those convicted in the case, as there were real and proven antecedents regarding their participation in the events, whether as inducing perpetrators or direct perpetrators of the crimes attributed to each one.

"Regarding the convictions and, specifically, in relation to those accused whose participation was qualified as co-authorship, the Court agrees with the conclusion reached by the first-instance judge, in that with the antecedents collected during the investigation, it is possible to construct various judicial presumptions that, by meeting the requirements of being based on real and proven facts, being multiple, serious, precise, direct, and concordant, are sufficient to maintain with conviction that the accused Cristoph Georg Willeke Floel, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Jorge Marcelo Escobar Fuentes, Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Miguel René Riveros Valderrama, Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño, Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Eduardo Alejandro Oyarce Riquelme, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, and Orlando José Manzo Durán had intervention in the capacity of co-authors, in the terms of Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of article 15 of the Penal Code, as specified in each case, of the repeated crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez, Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler, and Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones, and of aggravated homicide of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Correa Arce," the ruling states.

It adds: "Indeed, in the case of those who were part of the Exterior Department of the National Intelligence Directorate—Willeke Floel, Iturriaga Neumann, and Espinoza Bravo—in the 28th, 29th, 31st, 32nd, 34th, and 35th foundations, all the evidentiary antecedents on which the charges are based are set forth one by one, and it is correctly concluded that the form of authorship that applies to each of them is that of No. 1 of article 15 of the Penal Code for the first of those named, having taken part in the execution of the facts in an immediate and direct manner, and of No. 2 in relation to the remaining two, as it was demonstrated that they forced or directly induced others to execute them.

The same occurs in the case of the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate who were part of the so-called Lautaro Brigade, which operated in the barracks located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8.630 in the commune of La Reina, in relation to the aggravated kidnappings of the victims Jaccard Siegler and Velásquez Mardones and the aggravated homicides of the victims Ramírez Herrera, Stoulman Bortnik, and Pessa Mois, that is, the convicted Valdebenito Araya, Morales Salgado, Oyarce Riquelme, and Ojeda Obando; and the sentenced Calderón Carreño, Riveros Valderrama, Chaigneau Sepúlveda, and Escobar Fuentes in these same illicit acts and also in the aggravated homicides of the victims Soto Gálvez and Correa Arce.

The 37th, 39th, 44th, and 54th foundations, regarding the first four, and the 42nd, 47th, 50th, and 52nd motives, in relation to the remaining four, provide a detailed account of the antecedents according to which it is possible to deduce with certainty that at the time of the events, these accused were part, as operational agents, of the brigade of the National Intelligence Directorate that materialized the kidnapping of Communist Party militants, among whose members were the people just named, in such a way that, despite some of them not remembering the specific name of these persons, it is indisputable to conclude, just as the lower court does, that they took part in their illegitimate deprivation of liberty, in some cases, and in their homicide, in others, whether in an immediate and direct manner, or by forcing or directly inducing others to execute these acts, in the form provided for by the cited Nos. 1 and 2 of the cited article 15 and that, for the same reason, they are punishable co-authors of these illicit acts.

In turn, the defendants Godoy García and Krassnoff Martchenko, agents of the National Intelligence Directorate assigned to the so-called Terranova Barracks or Villa Grimaldi and convicted for the aggravated kidnapping of the victim Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, are also authors in the terms of No. 1 of the same article 15, as heads of operational groups—Tucán and Halcón respectively—in charge of the dismantling of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) through the kidnapping and homicide of its members, one of whom was the aforementioned Fuentes Alarcón, who, as stated, was illegitimately deprived of liberty in the town of Enramada in the Republic of Paraguay and transferred first to Cuatro Álamos and then to Villa Grimaldi, the latter being the place where Fuentes remained a prisoner and deprived of liberty for the longest time, received cruel treatment from his captors, was interrogated under torture, and was kept in inhumane conditions, until probably January 17, 1976, when other prisoners saw him for the last time, his whereabouts remaining unknown to this day."

It is worth specifying that according to this rule, in what is of interest, those who take part in the execution of the act in an immediate and direct manner are considered authors; and the truth is that in the case of the crime of kidnapping, the execution of the typical conduct is not exhausted with the act of—to put it one way—the material or physical "apprehension" of the kidnapped person, but continues to be executed, and therefore the crime is in the course of consummation as long as the illegitimate confinement or illegitimate deprivation of liberty lasts.

Consequently, those who perform acts that allow for the perpetuation of that state are strictly executing the conduct described by the type, independent of the prior agreement that may or may not have mediated with other participants.

In other words, their acts are not of simple facilitation of means for the execution or of mere presence without taking direct part in it (in which case the determination of the eventual prior agreement would be relevant to qualify the intervention of authorship or complicity, according to what is provided by articles 15 No. 3 and 16 of the Penal Code), but are executive acts proper to authorship.

For the same reason, the one who forces or induces another to execute any of these acts is evidently a mediate author in the terms of No. 2 of article 15 and his conduct, therefore, is also punishable.

Under such conditions, we agree with the first-instance judge when he concludes that those who were accused as co-author executors of the crime of aggravated kidnapping or as mediate co-authors of the same effectively possess such quality, since the conduct displayed by each of them, as was proven, satisfies the requirements of the type of article 141 of the Penal Code, in relation to the first part of No. 1 of article 15 of the same legal body and of No. 2 of that precept."

Civil reparations

In the civil aspect, the amounts of the indemnifications for some of the victims' relatives were modified, and two new reparatory measures requested by the spouse of Alexei Jaccard Siegler were accepted, which are: ordering the Treasury to allocate the sum of $15,000,000 so that, through the Ministry of Education, books on the subject of Human Rights are acquired, which must be delivered equitably to all public schools in the commune of Chiguayante, and that a plaque be installed in a visible place in the libraries of each of them, informing of the fact that such books exist and that they were delivered in memory of Alexei Jaccard Siegler, a victim of human rights violations during the military dictatorship.

In addition, the Treasury of Chile must deliver $75,000,000 to the University of Concepción so that it institutes the "Alexei Jaccard Siegler" award, which will be granted annually to a regular student of that institution who develops research on the subject of Human Rights, in the context of their studies at the University of Concepción, and which will amount to the equivalent in pesos of 100 Unidades de Fomento, with the University itself having to regulate the demands, requirements, and conditions of the work.

The facts In the investigation stage, Minister Mario Carroza established: -That as a result of the events that occurred in the country on September 11, 1973, the Military Government formally instituted on November 25, 1975, in a meeting held in the city of Santiago, Chile, a plan for the coordination of actions and mutual support between the leaders of the intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile, intended to destabilize opponents of the regimes assumed by the Armed Forces and Order; -That this link generated in a state-based and immediate manner a reality that had already been forged in concrete actions between the alluded countries, that is, surveillance, detentions, interrogations under torture, transfer between countries, disappearance, or execution of persons contrary to the de facto instituted governments; -The previous scenario would have allowed cases such as those indicated below to be consummated: -That on May 17, 1975, Jorge Isaac Fuentes Alarcón, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained in the Republic of Paraguay, in the town of Enramada, and then transferred to the city of Asunción, where he remained deprived of liberty until September 23, 1975, when his transfer to Chile by air in a clandestine manner by DINA agents was defined. Once in the country, they took him to the secret detention and torture centers that this organization maintained, that is, Cuatro Álamos and Villa Grimaldi. It is in this last place where Fuentes remained a prisoner and deprived of liberty for the longest time, received cruel treatment from his captors, was interrogated under torture, and was kept in inhumane conditions, until probably January 17, 1976, when other prisoners saw him for the last time, his whereabouts remaining unknown to this day; -That, in turn, on July 2, 1976, in the city of La Paz, Republic of Bolivia, the Chilean citizen Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, a militant of the Socialist Party, was detained by the Directorate of Political Order, the security agency of that country at that time. In the alluded condition, he remained detained until November 13, 1976, the date on which he was handed over to DINA agents in the border town of Charaña, who transferred him to our country and took him to the "Cuatro Álamos" Prisoner Camp, which was located on Calle Canadá at the height of 3,000 on Vicuña Mackenna, remaining under the custody of its agents, a place in which, according to witnesses, he remained locked up and incommunicado, and where he was seen alive for the last time at the end of November 1976; -That on the other hand, on April 3, 1976, in the city of Mendoza, Republic of Argentina, three Chilean citizens were detained: Juan Humberto Hernández Zazpe, Manuel Jesús Tamayo Martínez, and Luis Gonzalo Muñoz Velásquez, socialist militants, who were transferred in a clandestine manner by land to Chile and placed at the disposal of the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate, who took them to the Villa Grimaldi Barracks, located at Avenida José Arrieta No. 8,200 in Santiago, as has already been said, a political prisoner camp that belonged to the cited intelligence organization. In that place, they were locked up, interrogated, and tortured, and they were seen alive for the last time at the end of April 1976, their whereabouts remaining unknown to date; -That finally, in an episode that occurred in the year 1977, militants of the Communist Party, whose external organic leadership had decided on the need to channel external financial aid to the Party in Chile, asked one of them to travel from Switzerland—Alexei Vladimir Jaccard Siegler—to Chile, with a prior stop in Buenos Aires, to meet with another militant who was to travel from Russia—Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera—and for both to also contact the militant who resided in that city—Héctor Heraldo Velásquez Mardones. This meeting could not take place because the three were detained by the Argentine Federal Police on May 16, 1977, without legal basis, and deprived of liberty to be handed over to the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate, who transferred them to Santiago de Chile, where they locked them up in the Simón Bolívar Barracks, located on the street of the same name, No. 8,630. They were interrogated under torture and on an undetermined date disappeared. The search continues to this day as it has not been possible to find the victims Jaccard and Velásquez, who do not have recorded exits or entries, nor are their deaths proven, but part of the remains of their companion in misfortune, Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, has been found in Chile, in the sector called "Cuesta Barriga," as well as those belonging to the couple formed by Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik and Matilde Pessa Mois, who traveled to Buenos Aires to finalize the dispatch of the money to our country, but were detained beforehand—on May 29, 1977—at Ezeiza Airport, at the moment they were getting off the plane that brought them from Chile, losing all trace of them from that moment on, until the alluded certain evidence of both having been buried in the already cited place; -In this operation, Communist Party militants who were in Chile and served as liaisons in this operation also participated, but when the ruse was discovered, they were executed: Hernán Soto Gálvez on an undetermined date, between June 7 and November 10, 1977, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce, on May 28 of that same year, and -The analysis of the antecedents outlined in the preceding paragraphs makes patent the pointed-out cooperation and coordination of the intelligence services, in concrete cases, where the intelligence agents of our country, in these cases, colluding with those of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, not only concerted the detention of the victims but also created the conditions to lock them up and transfer them to our country, with the sinister purpose of confining them in clandestine centers to interrogate them, torture them, and then proceed with extreme cruelty to eliminate them.

Source: pjud.cl, July 25, 2022

Operation Colombo: Supreme Court convicts 30 former DINA agents for aggravated kidnapping of sociology student.

The highest Court established an error of law in the appealed sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which acquitted 26 accused and confirmed the first-instance ruling that convicted them as perpetrators of the homicide.

The Supreme Court accepted the appeals in substance filed by the plaintiffs and, in a replacement sentence, convicted 30 agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of sociology student Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez, who was detained on June 15, 1974, within the framework of the so-called "Operation Colombo."

The highest court sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 13 years in prison for their responsibility as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, Gerardo Godoy García, Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Julio Hoyos Zegarra, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar, Hiro Álvarez Vega, Olegario González Moreno, Orlando Torrejón Gatica, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Alfredo Moya Tejeda, Carlos Sáez Sanhueza, Fernando Guerra Guajardo, Hernán Valenzuela Salas, Juan Villanueva Alvear, Juan Duarte Gallegos, Lautaro Díaz Espinoza, Leonidas Méndez Moreno, Pedro Araneda Araneda, Rafael Riveros Frost, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Hugo Hernández Valle, Raúl Rodríguez Ponte, and Hermon Alfaro Mundaca must serve 10 years in prison as perpetrators.

Finally, those convicted as perpetrators, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, José Fuentes Torres, Nelson Ojeda Obando, and Nelson Paz Bustamante, must serve 3 years in prison, regarding whom no appeal was filed, so the second-instance ruling was maintained in their regard.

The ruling maintains that, under the conditions described above, it should be taken into consideration that those responsible for the illicit act as authors are not only those who executed the typical action with their own hands (immediate or direct authorship), but also the subjects who exercised power of direction and command within the DINA, an organized apparatus of power whose anti-juridical actions were carried out through others whose will is replaceable (by dominion of the will, with a criterion of fungibility); and those who made a functionally significant contribution to the act (functional dominion), in accordance with the normative hypotheses of authorship and participation provided for in the national legal system, in article 15 of the Penal Code, which provides: 'Authors are considered: 1° Those who take part in the execution of the fact, whether in an immediate and direct manner, or by preventing or trying to prevent it from being avoided. 2° Those who force or directly induce another to execute it. 3° Those who, concerted for its execution, facilitate the means with which the fact is carried out or witness it without taking immediate part in it.'

The resolution adds that, contrary to what was outlined above, the second-instance judges, by constraining the concept of authorship of the crime against humanity that is the object of the trial only to those who performed material acts of detention and confinement against the victim, that is, to the immediate perpetrators of the illicit act, deciding to acquit those who intervened functionally in the act in the capacity of co-authors or through mediate authorship, have incurred in the alleged vice of nullity, provided for in article 546 No. 4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, since that reasoning implies qualifying as lawful conduct that is criminally sanctioned in articles 15 and 141 of the Penal Code, for having participated in it in the terms provided for in article 15 No. 1, 2, or 3 of the Penal Code.

Indeed, it adds, the appealed judges, when addressing the examination of the participation of those who were convicted by the a quo judge as authors of the illicit act, approached the evidence presented and performed its valuation, having as a standard to consider the attributed criminal responsibility configured only those who participated in the detention, torture, or subsequent disappearance of the victim, estimating as insufficient for its configuration that these accused had belonged to the DINA or had been assigned to the clandestine detention center 'Londres 38' in the period in which Mr. Ziede Gómez was held there, and even that they had been the highest-ranking officers of that organization, operational agents, direct guards, or interrogators of the detainees, to the extent that there would be no evidence to prove material and direct participation in the facts, as an author of the crime, so understood.

Thus, the sentence asserts, in motive 25° of the appealed sentence, when discarding the participation of Gerardo Godoy García as an author, it concludes: '... no antecedent exists in the case file that allows for the maintenance that he participated in the detention, torture, or subsequent disappearance of Mr.

Ziede Gómez. That he belonged to the DINA does not make him per se an author of any crime, since he cannot be convicted for 'being from the DINA' but because 'in his capacity as a member of the DINA, he killed 'x' or made 'y' disappear'; to reason in the opposite way is to fall into the regrettable criminal law of the perpetrator and abandon the parameters of liberal criminal law.'

It adds that, 'it is also not proof of anything that he went to Londres 38 before September 1974 (Ziede disappeared in July 1974) nor that he was assigned to the DINA on June 17, 1974; there is simply no proof that he was an author, accomplice, or accessory after the fact in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Mr. Ziede Gómez.'

Likewise, the ruling records that this reasoning is reiterated regarding the sentenced Manuel Cerevic Cubillos, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Enrique Tránsito Gutiérrez Rubilar, Gustavo Galvarino Carumán Soto, Hiro Álvarez Vega, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Alfredo Orlando Moya Tejeda, Carlos Alfonso Sáez Sanhueza, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Hernán Patricio Valenzuela Salas, Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Leonidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Herman Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte in the foundations 28°, 29°, 30°, 31°, 32°, 33°, 34°, 35°, 36°, 37°, 38°, 39°, 40°, 41°, 42°, 43°, 44°, 45°, 46°, 47°, 48°, 49°, 50°, and 51°.'

Then—it continues—in relation to the accused César Manríquez Bravo, the second-instance sentence, in motive 52°, concludes that '... according to his statements and the elements of conviction of the sixth and seventh considerations of the impugned ruling, it can only be inferred that he was in command of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, under whose control was the so-called Caupolicán brigade, whose members participated in the detention of Mr.

Ziede but, certainly, there is no antecedent that demonstrates that Manríquez gave the order for his detention nor that he participated in such an act or in the disappearance of the victim.' In addition, the judiciary, after making reference to the theory of dominion of the act and explaining its doctrinal presuppositions, concludes: 'This Court does not see evidence that allows for the maintenance that Manríquez gave any order in relation to Ziede Gómez, that he participated materially in his detention or in his disappearance, so that he cannot be attributed the dominion of the act and that he could have interrupted or aborted the development of the typical act,' reasons for which it is decided to acquit him of the accusation deduced against him.

Next, it reproduces, in the 53rd foundation of the appealed sentence, when analyzing the participation attributed to Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, that the mere fact that he held a high position in the DINA—second in command of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade—and that in such capacity he directed Villa Grimaldi, does not result in being sufficient to convict him as an author of the crime of aggravated kidnapping committed against the person of Mr.

Ziede Gómez.

And, finally, regarding the sentenced Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, in the 54th foundation, his responsibility in the crime is discarded, for estimating that it is insufficient to prove the participation attributed to him that he was a member of the DINA and organized the 'Purén' Brigade that operated in 'Londres 38', because even if it had been considered proven that he did have duties in that clandestine center, nothing proves his participation as an author in the kidnapping of Mr.

Ziede Gómez.

For the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court, as is evident from the reasoning outlined above, to refute the participation of the accused as authors, which is the object of the appeals, the second-instance sentence allowed itself to make reference to the 'Theory of Dominion of the Act', refraining from mentioning that, together with the dominion of the action that founds direct authorship, that doctrinal construction also makes reference to the dominion of the will, which founds mediate authorship, and to functional dominion, on which co-authorship is based, as was referred to in the preceding foundations, without making any allusion to the matter, limiting itself to discarding the participation of thirty-seven accused in the capacity of author, for not having participated directly in the detention and confinement of Mr. Ziede.

In the first-instance ruling, Minister Hernán Crisosto established the following facts:

In the morning hours of June 15, 1974, Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained on the public thoroughfare at the intersection of Avenida Portugal and Porvenir in Santiago, by State agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who transferred him to the clandestine detention center called 'Yucatán' or 'Londres 38', located at that address in the city of Santiago, which was guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access.

The offended party, Ziede Gómez, during his stay at the Londres 38 barracks, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents who operated in said barracks, with the purpose of obtaining information regarding other members of the MIR, to proceed with the detention of the members of that organization.

The last time the victim Ziede Gómez was seen by other detainees in said DINA facility occurred on an undetermined day in the month of July 1974, and he has remained disappeared to this date.

The name of Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press, after it appeared on a list published in the Argentine magazine LEA, dated July 15, 1975, in which it was reported that Ziede Gómez had died in Argentina, together with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels that arose between those members.

The publications that declared the victim Ziede Gómez dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad.

In the civil aspect, the sentence ordering the Treasury to pay compensation of $170,000,000 for moral damages to the victim's relatives was confirmed.

Decision reached with the dissenting votes of ministers Valderrama and Dahm, who were in favor of accepting the appeal in substance ex officio, regarding the convicted Krassnoff Martchenko, Fuentes Torres, Ojeda Obando, and Paz Bustamante.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, June 14, 2023