The resolutions adopted by the Fifth Chamber of the Court of Appeals (Conferencia 1 and 2), composed of judges Dobra Lusic, María Eugenia Campo, and lawyer Bernardo Lara, granted the benefit to 9 of the individuals charged with these crimes.

They are: Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Jorge Pichunmán Curiqueo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Gustavo Guerreo Aguilera, Italia Donatha Viarella Gilio, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa Magna Astudillo, and Joyce Ahumada Despouy.

Meanwhile, the Sixth Chamber of the capital's appellate court, composed of judges Alfredo Pfeiffer, Mario Rojas, and lawyer Enrique Pérez, granted provisional release to 31 former agents of the military regime charged in the Operation Condor case.

That list includes: Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, José Sarmiento Sotelo, Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez, Fernando Adrián Roa Montano, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Orlando Guillermo Inostroza Lagos, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Manuel Rivas Díaz, Hermon Helec Alfaro, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, César Maríquez Bravo, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, Sergio Hernán Castillo González, Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Vergara, Alfonso Humberto Quiroz Quintana, Luis René Torres Méndez, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Luis Rigoberto Videla Insunza, Luis Fernando Espinace Contreras, Miguel Ángel Yáñez Ugalde, Ricardo Zamorano Vergara, Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa, Rufino Espinoza Espinoza, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, Juan Alfredo Villanueva Alvear, José Nelson Fuenzalida Saldías, Leoncio Enrique Velásquez Guala, and José Fernando Morales Bastías. For both cases, the judges decided to grant the benefit to Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Jorge Sagardia Monje, Claudio Orellana De la Pinta, Camilo Torres Negrier, Luis Urrutia Acuña, José Sarmiento Sotelo, Manuel Montre Méndez, and Víctor Álvarez Droguett. Regarding the revoked releases, in the Colombo Case, the 4th Chamber of the Court of Appeals, which reviewed the petition for releases in the Operation Colombo case, revoked the benefit for 22 of the defendants; the remaining individuals either did not request the benefit or are currently being prosecuted for other human rights cases.

Source: mqh.blogia.com, September 12, 2009

The minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto Greisse, issued convictions against 77 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the aggravated kidnapping of Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez, a crime perpetrated starting June 15, 1974, within the framework of the so-called "Operation Colombo." Eduardo Ziede, 27 years old, was a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) in Santiago.

He was characterized by his tall stature (over 1.90 meters) and neat way of dressing, which made him easily recognizable. He was detained by agents of the DINA's Halcón group, which was commanded by Krassnoff and included, among others, Basclay Zapata, "el Troglo," and Osvaldo Romo, "el Guatón Romo"; it was the latter who identified him in the area where Ziede was heading to meet another militant.

In the resolution, Judge Crisosto sentenced the former army officers and leaders of the repressive organization to 13 years in prison: César Raúl Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, as perpetrators of the crime.

Meanwhile, former army officers Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, Sergio Hernán Castillo González, and Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos must serve 10 years in prison, also as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping; the same sentence must be served by former Carabineros officers Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, and Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez.

The same sentence was handed down to agents: 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, Manuel de la Cruz Rivas Díaz, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, and Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte. Likewise, as accomplices, the following agents must serve 4 years in prison, without benefits: 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, Máximo Ramón Aliaga Soto, 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 Martin Jiménez, Gustavo Humberto Apablaza Meneses, Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Óscar Belarmino la Flor Flores, Rufino Espinoza Espinoza, Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Héctor Manuel Lira Aravena, Luis Fernando Espinace Contreras, Juan Miguel Troncoso Soto, and Sergio Iván Díaz Lara. Agents Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez and Armando Segundo Cofré Correa were acquitted due to lack of participation in the events. In this case, a definitive dismissal due to death was issued regarding the defendants: Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Osvaldo Enrique Romo Mena ("Guatón Romo"), Luis Arturo Urrutia Acuña, José Germán Ampuero Ulloa, Orlando Guillermo Inostroza Lagos, Luis Salvador Villarroel Gutiérrez, and the recently deceased "Mamo," Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda. The facts During the investigation stage, Judge Crisosto Greisse managed to prove that: "In the morning hours of June 15, 1974, Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (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 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; during his stay at the Londres 38 barracks, he remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating 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 July 1974, and he remains forcibly disappeared to this day. 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, which reported that Ziede Gómez had died in Argentina, along with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels that arose among those members. The publications that declared the victim dead originated from disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

Source: resumen.cl, August 19, 2015

Pinochet acquitted in human rights violation case due to death

This is the first case of human rights violations in which Pinochet, had he been alive, would have been convicted. According to judicial sources reported today, a definitive dismissal due to death was issued in this case for Pinochet, Osvaldo Romo Mena, Luis Urrutia Acuña, José Ampuero Ulloa, Orlando Inostroza Lagos, Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez, and General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, the latter having died on August 7.

Judge Crisosto sentenced retired generals César Manríquez Bravo and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, brigadiers Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Colonel Marcelo Moren Brito to 13 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping (disappearance).

All of them are already in prison, serving sentences for other cases of human rights violations. Meanwhile, 37 former members of the secret police must serve 10 years in prison, also as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping, and 35 other former agents must serve 4 years in prison as accomplices, without benefits.

Ziede, 27, is considered one of the victims of the so-called Operation Colombo and was detained in 1974 by DINA agents, who transferred him to the clandestine detention center "Londres 38," where he was interrogated under torture to obtain information regarding other members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), to which he belonged.

In July 1975, a list of 119 Chileans who died abroad appeared, in alleged clashes with security forces or due to settling of scores among themselves, according to the press at the time. The reality is that the 119 names included in the list were victims of Operation Colombo, a setup by the dictatorship to cover up their disappearances, which had the collaboration of the military regimes of Argentina and Brazil, where unique editions of two newspapers, "Lea" and "O Novo Día," were published, stating that they died in fighting between internal factions of the MIR.

Operation Colombo is considered the first episode of Operation Condor, which was a coordination between the military dictatorships of the Southern Cone countries to eliminate opponents. During Pinochet's dictatorship, according to official figures, some 3,200 people died at the hands of state agents, of whom 1,192 are still listed as forcibly disappeared, and more than 33,000 as kidnapped, tortured, and imprisoned for political reasons.

Upon his death in December 2006, Pinochet was being prosecuted in some cases of Operation Colombo and the "Caravan of Death," a military delegation that traveled through Chile in 1973 and murdered nearly a hundred political prisoners who were taken from prisons for that purpose.

He was also being prosecuted for forgery and use of false passports and for tax fraud, in addition to being stripped of his immunity (a step prior to prosecution) for embezzlement of public funds in a trial that investigated the origin of his fortune.

Source: diariohispaniola.com, August 18, 2015

Chilean justice system convicts 77 former agents of Pinochet's secret police for a kidnapping

Judge Hernán Crisosto convicted 77 former DINA agents for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Héctor Garay Hermosilla, a victim of the so-called Operation Colombo carried out during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The resolution sentences César Manríquez, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 13 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime perpetrated starting in 1974.

Also as perpetrators, but sentenced to 10 years in prison, were Gerardo Urrich, Ricardo Lawrence, and 35 other former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the kidnapping of the member of the Revolutionary Student Front, who was last seen at the torture house located at Calle Londres 38, in downtown Santiago.

Meanwhile, Luis Eduardo Mora Cerda, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Camilo Torres Negrier, and 32 other former intelligence agents were sentenced to 4 years in prison as accomplices. Likewise, a definitive dismissal due to death was issued for the defendants Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Osvaldo Romo Mena, Luis Urrutia Acuña, José Ampuero Ulloa, Orlando Inostroza Lagos, Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez, and Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda.

In civil matters, the ruling ordered the State of Chile to pay compensation of $100,000,000 to the victim's spouse and $70,000,000 to the victim's son.

Source: telam.com.ar, September 1, 2015

Justice in drops for the 119 fallen in Operation Colombo

July 24 marks 33 years since the publication of the so-called List of the 119, the psychological warfare maneuver that the DINA baptized as "Operation Colombo," but only in six of the 119 cases of disappearances are the criminals serving a sentence already confirmed by the Supreme Court.

In these processes, justice has only issued final sentences in the cases of kidnapping and disappearance of social worker María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda; former GAP members Manuel Cortez Joo and Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez; the Chillán brothers Hernán and María Elena González Inostroza; philosophy student Jorge Espinosa Méndez (all of them militants of the MIR), and high school student Mario Carrasco Díaz, a socialist.

In the case of Espinosa, the only one sentenced is agent Osvaldo Romo, who died in prison; in the other cited cases, the rulings also implicate the former director of the DINA, General (R) Manuel Contreras, and his general staff.

There are three other cases of Operation Colombo in which the convictions have already been confirmed by the Court of Appeals, and in five of the remaining kidnappings, a first-instance ruling has been issued.

The Supreme Court must rule soon on the case of engineering student Luis Guajardo Zamorano. More than 68 of the prosecutions issued since 2005 are for Manuel Contreras. The dictator himself, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, stripped of his immunity in 2006, was prosecuted for Operation Colombo by resolutions adopted by the presiding judges Alejandro Solís and Victor Montiglio, the same judge who recently prosecuted 98 agents.

But prosecutions do not always culminate in a sentence. Death arrived sooner for the former dictator, frustrating the expectations of justice of the Chileans who fight against impunity. According to sources of retired military personnel ("Crusade for National Reconciliation") cited in the newspaper El Mercurio on June 22 to call for an end to the trials, the total number of final sentences in human rights cases reaches twenty-two.

According to them, in the more than 300 cases affecting uniformed personnel, 1,165 prosecutions have been issued. 269 of these are in the investigation stage; and 6 are in the accusation and evidence phase. 14 defendants have appealed the first-instance ruling, and 16 cases are reportedly in cassation (petition for annulment of sentence).

Amnesty and strategies The judicial strategy of the criminals—who use all the judicial resources available in the old criminal system—combined with the lack of will of the Supreme Court to return exclusivity in the task to the judges who process human rights cases, has functioned in several cases as a guarantee of impunity.

The old criminal system is in force for crimes committed before the enactment of the Criminal Procedure Reform. During 2007, as denounced in the annual report of the Social Assistance Foundation of the Christian Churches (FASIC), the six criminal courts operating in Santiago refused to receive new cases, did not accept the reopening of summaries, nor did they grant the unarchiving of cases, because they had an expiration date as courts (due to the reform) and could not take on new tasks, constituting a denial of justice.

It is appropriate to highlight that 17 of the kidnappings of the so-called "Operation Colombo" do not currently have active proceedings, which ensures absolute impunity for those responsible (cases of student María Inés Alvarado, bricklayer Eduardo Alarcón, fruit seller Víctor Arévalo, mechanic Bladimir Arias, investigative official Sonia Bustos, biology student Luis Fuentes, accountant Néstor Gallardo, student Jorge Herrera, peasant activist Ramón Labrador, student Sergio Lagos H, secretary of the Society of Theatrical Authors Violeta López, merchant Juan Maturana, union leader Agustín Morales, health official Germán Moreno, Technical University student Ramón Núñez, La Bandera neighborhood merchant Gary Olmos, and student Carlos Salcedo). Another mechanism that delays the processing of cases has been the application by a minority of judges of amnesty, "res judicata," due obedience, and/or the statute of limitations. For example, in the cases linked to Operation Colombo, even the first prosecutions had to be confirmed by the Supreme Court. In Chile, not all Court judges respect and know international human rights law, and there have been contradictory resolutions from the highest court that prove this. Only after Pinochet's arrest in London did Chilean courts begin to investigate the cases of the forcibly disappeared. The debt of justice to Chilean society is still far from being settled, and impunity continues to be the rule in the vast majority of human rights violation cases, despite the constant mobilization of human rights organizations. The 119 Collective, which brings together relatives of the fallen, commemorates this year the anniversary of the publication of the list that lied about the final destination of 100 Chilean men and 19 women, with "Video Encounters" that will be held at the former torture house on Calle Londres 38, between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM, on Wednesday, July 23 ("Evidence: media and journalists at the service of repression"), Thursday, July 24 ("Resisting with the truth and the courage of those who do not remain silent"), and Friday, July 25 ("Justice makes its way: ethical and social condemnation of accomplices and cover-ups"). On Sunday the 27th, the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, Founding Line, will hold a pilgrimage in the coastal town of Quintero, where it is believed some of the disappeared were thrown into the sea from helicopters. A memorial will be erected there. Ethics and forgiveness The College of Journalists of Chile apologized this year to the relatives of the fallen in two advertising setups of the dictatorship, Operation Colombo and Rinconada de Maipú. For Colombo, former media directors Fernando Díaz Palma, of Las Últimas Noticias, of the El Mercurio chain; Alberto Guerrero Espinoza, of La Tercera; and journalist Beatriz Undurraga Gómez, of El Mercurio, had already been sanctioned with public censure and temporary suspension of their membership for the serious breaches of ethics and truth committed in 1975. The Ethics Tribunal that conducted the investigation of these events in 2006 considered the directors of El Mercurio, René Silva Espejo, and the evening newspaper La Segunda—also of El Mercurio—Mario Carneyro, not liable due to death. All of them collaborated with the setups devised by the DINA to "inform" in large headlines that 100 Chilean men and 19 women had died abroad, thus covering up their disappearance and sowing a terror that still leaves traces in the collective unconscious of the Chileans who lived through that era of chilling headlines: "Exterminated like rats," was the headline of the newspaper La Segunda on July 24, 1975. According to the journalists, the setup was the work of Álvaro Puga, director of Civil Affairs of the dictatorship and head of Psychological Operations of the DINA. In La Segunda, he signed with the pseudonym "Alexis," but he was not a journalist, so he was not included in the sanctions. His name has not appeared so far in any prosecution of the case. The two lists of the dead reproduced in the Chilean press were taken from the single-edition newspapers "O Dia," of Curitiba, Brazil, and "Lea," of Argentina, which attributed the deaths to clashes with Argentine security forces or internal quarrels. It was the "white march" of Operation Condor, the mutual aid pact between the police of Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil that had already begun. In September 1974, the former commander-in-chief of the Army, Carlos Prats, and his wife Sofía Cuthbert had been murdered in Buenos Aires by DINA agents in complicity with the Argentine police. Judge Alejandro Solís—the magistrate who issued the first sentence against the former director of the DINA, Manuel Contreras, for the aggravated kidnapping of one of the 119, Miguel Angel Sandoval—recently pronounced the ruling that sentences Contreras to life imprisonment for the treacherous crime against the constitutionalist military officer. At the event where the College of Journalists asked for forgiveness from the relatives, they valued the fact, criticizing that the implicated media had not offered public apologies. They also deplored that in democracy, the practice of presenting uniform police setups through the press and television has been resumed to discredit the struggles of students, workers, and the Mapuche people, and to condemn through the media those who have no voice to present their demands and denounce current human rights violations. Subsequently, on the anniversary of the professional association, during a ceremony that took place last Friday, July 18, the guest speaker, government spokesperson Minister Francisco Vidal, was confronted by young protesters who stood up from their seats to demand the freedom of documentarian Elena Varela, who has been the subject of such a setup and remains imprisoned in the Rancagua High Security Prison, tried under the norms of the anti-terrorist legislation of dictatorship times. Dressed in shirts with allusions, after listening to speeches on ethics and freedom of expression, they shouted aloud: "How long will you continue to set up setups to punish those who fight!" Sentences by Judge Solís for the 119 Two sentences imposed by Judge Alejandro Solís in Operation Colombo cases were confirmed this year by the Court of Appeals, but the passage through the Supreme Court still remains. This is the case of the northern mining engineering student Julio Flores Pérez, where the ruling was 15 years for Manuel Contreras, and 10 years and one day for Pedro Espinoza (former head of Villa Grimaldi), Maximiliano Ferrer Lima (DINA's Caupolicán Brigade), Miguel Krassnoff (former head of the Halcón group), and Marcelo Moren Brito (former deputy head of Villa Grimaldi). The other sentence confirmed for the DINA criminals was for the kidnapping of social worker Jacqueline Binfa Contreras. According to the judiciary, this is the seventh conviction at the Court of Appeals level for human rights violation cases, out of a total of 58 sentences at that court level, from June 2003 to date. Also this year, Judge Solís issued two new rulings. One is for engineering graduate Osvaldo Radrigán, sentencing Contreras to 15 years in prison. His henchmen, brigadiers (R) Espinoza and Krassnoff, as well as colonels (R) Moren Brito and Rolf Wenderoth (of the management staff of Villa Grimaldi and DINA), together with sergeant major (R) Basclay Zapata (of the Halcón group), received a sentence of ten years and one day each. Wenderoth was already serving a sentence for Manuel Cortez Joo. The other former officers were also serving sentences for other cases in the Cordillera Prison, called "VIP" by the most informed Chileans, because it was built exclusively for officers and has comforts and perks absent from the rest of the prison facilities. The other ruling prepared by Solís refers to the case of the kidnapping of the electronic technician and member of the MIR's information structure, Marcelo Salinas Eytel, sentencing Manuel Contreras to another 15 years and one day, and the rest of the DINA executives to ten years and one day. Likewise, Solís prosecuted this year for the kidnapping of sociology student Jaime Robotham the entire DINA general staff, Wenderoth, Colonel (R) Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, Krassnoff, and for the first time, detective Valentin Cancino Varas as perpetrators of the crime. There are also first-instance rulings for Jorge D’Orival and Julio Flores Pérez. For the kidnapping of student Claudio Silva, this judge, who is the one who has issued the most sentences against human rights violators, prosecuted Pedro Espinoza, Basclay Zapata, and agent Palmira Almuna Guzmán. Unlike some of his peers, this minister bases his resolutions not only on national legislation but on human rights doctrine and current international treaties. He has never applied the statute of limitations or amnesty. Judge Fuentes has issued first-instance sentences in the cases of Félix de la Jara, Ofelia Lazo, and Sergio Montecinos, in which he has invoked the partial statute of limitations. Completing the picture Also this year, visiting judge Víctor Montiglio, who inherited cases initially investigated by former Judge Juan Guzmán, charged Manuel Contreras along with the DINA general staff and prosecuted a total of 98 repressors, most of them retired non-commissioned officers, who participated in the operational groups or in the clandestine detention and torture centers. Among the army officers (R) prosecuted are Raúl Iturriaga Neumann (general, head of the DINA's Foreign Department, who in 2007 fled for 55 days when his conviction for the kidnapping of Dagoberto San Martín was confirmed. Judge Solís recently sentenced him to 15 years for the homicide of General Prats and his wife). Also prosecuted were Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko (head of the Halcón Brigade), Fernando Lauriani Maturana, Marcelo Moren Brito (colonel, head of Villa Grimaldi), Pedro Espinoza Bravo (colonel, former DINA head), César Manríquez Bravo (general, head of the DINA's Metropolitan Brigade and Contreras's second-in-command), Manuel Carevic Cubillos (brigadier, deputy head of the Purén Brigade, implicated in another process for the death of Corporal Rodolfo González); Maximiliano Ferrer Lima (colonel, Caupolicán Brigade), Gerardo Urrich González (major, head of the Purén Brigade, serving a sentence for the kidnapping of Dagoberto San Martín), and officer Sergio Castillo González. The prosecution of Jorge Andrade Gómez (colonel, Grimaldi's Aguila Group and CNI's Blue Brigade, already sentenced to five years and one day for the homicide of Paulina Aguirre) was revoked because his assignment to the DINA was allegedly after 1976. The group of defendants includes Eduardo Guerra Guajardo and Raúl Toro Montes (conscripts and DINA civilian employees), and non-commissioned officers Carlos Bermúdez Méndez, José Fuentes Torres, Jaime Paris Ramos, and Víctor San Martín Jiménez. In addition, seven non-commissioned officers belonging to the Lautaro Brigade are charged: Hiro Alvarez Vega, Víctor Manuel Alvarez Droguett; Alfonso "Elefante" Piña Garrido, Eduardo Reyes Lagos, Carlos Rinaldi Suazo, Orlando Torrejón Gatica, and Jorge Venegas Silva. Also charged were Gustavo Apablaza Meneses (DINA/CNI Foreign Intelligence), Máximo Aliaga Soto, Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo, Reinaldo Concha Orellana, Rodolfo Concha Rodríguez; Hugo Clavería Leiva, Juan Escobar Valenzuela, and Carlos Letelier Verdugo (the last three, conscripts and DINA/CNI civilian employees); Carlos Miranda Meza, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Luis Mora Cerda, Nelson Paz Bustamante, Alfonso Quiroz Quintana (conscript, DINA civilian employee), Raúl Soto Pérez, Juan Suárez Delgado (all non-commissioned officers), Rosa Ramos Hernández (DINA Villa Grimaldi agent); Luis Torres Méndez, and Basclay Zapata. The prosecution of former conscript Samuel Fuenzalida Devia constituted a worrying signal for sectors of the human rights movement, as he is a former guard who deserted early, left the country to save his life, and in Germany provided important information about the functioning of the DINA in the process against Colonia Dignidad to organizations such as Amnesty International and in the respective trial that took place there. Later he returned to Chile and has testified in many cases for the disappeared. The writ of amparo in his favor filed by Lutheran pastor Helmut Frenz was denied. The prosecuted members of the Investigations police, all from the DINA, are Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez (Sub-prefect, Deputy Head of the Villa Grimaldi clandestine detention center), Daniel Cancino Varas (Sub-prefect), Risiere del Prado Altez España and Hugo Hernández (inspectors, the latter operated in the Venda Sexy clandestine detention and torture center), Herman Alfaro Mundaca (Commissioner), Juan Urbina Cáceres (prefect), Manuel Rivas Díaz (sub-commissioner), and Osvaldo Castillo Arellano. The prosecuted Carabineros The following are the officers and non-commissioned officers of the Carabineros (R) prosecuted: Gerardo Godoy García (colonel, head of the Tucán Group), Ciro Torré Sáez (colonel, head of the Domingo Cañas 1367 Torture House), Ricardo Lawrence Mires (colonel, "Cachete," of the Halcón Brigade; Londres 38, already prosecuted for Calle Conferencia), Luis Zúñiga Ovalle (colonel); non-commissioned officer Alejandro Molina Cisternas ("El Choco," already sentenced in the first instance for the kidnapping of Mario Carrasco, one of the 119, later he was a member of the CNI's Green Brigade) and is involved in the murders of Lisandro Sandoval Torres (1981) and of Patricio Sobarzo, Enzo Muñoz Arévalo, Juan Manuel Varas Silva, and Ana Alicia Delgado Tapia (in 1984)); José Aravena Ruiz (sergeant, Caupolicán Brigade); Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Sergio Castro Andrade, José Fritz Esparza, Héctor Lira Aravena, Manuel Montré Méndez, Claudio Orellana de la Pinta, José Ojeda Obando, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Jorge Sagardia Monje, Camilo Torres Negrier, Luis Urrutia Acuña, Héctor Valdebenito Araya (all of them from the Lautaro Brigade); Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Manuel Avendaño González, Armando Cofré Correa, Gustavo Caruman Soto, Juan Duarte Gallegos, Héctor Flores Vergara, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar, Luis Gutiérrez Uribe, Julio Hoyos Zegarra (non-commissioned officers), Guillermo Inostroza Lagos, Nelson Iturriaga Cortés, Eduardo Jaime Astorga, Arnoldo Jara Brevis, Gerardo Meza Acuña, José Mora Diocares, José Muñoz Leal, and Jerónimo Neira Méndez (sergeants), Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Sylvia Oyarce Pinto (non-commissioned officer), Claudio Pacheco Fernández (non-commissioned officer), Fernando Roa Montaña (second sergeant), José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez. And the civilian Luis Eduardo Ortiz Farías. The members of the Air Force prosecuted are Delia Gajardo Cortés and Germán Avalos Muñoz (DINA civilian employees). From the Navy, DINA agent Teresa Navarro Osorio (non-commissioned officer) was charged. For the Gendarmerie, Major (R) Orlando Manzo Durán (former head of the Cuatro Alamos concentration camp) is charged. However, all the defendants—the majority—who were not in prison for previous cases are already on parole (since June), which generated frustration among relatives and human rights defenders. The number of prosecutions by Judge Montiglio broke the communication barrier that normally exists regarding human rights issues. The 119 Collective, which brings together relatives of the fallen in this dictatorship setup, valued this progress at the time, but the organization maintained: "It is appropriate to pursue the responsibility of those civilians who planned the communication setup of the 119 lists or who contributed to its implementation. The hitman cannot be punished and not his associate in the crime. We reclaim the commitment and the project embodied by these 119 companions, our relatives, and by all those who were repressed by the Dictatorship. To refound this country under the principles and the neoliberal model, the Military Dictatorship implemented these brutal repressive methods against our relatives and created structures that today violate the human rights of our people. To restore popular sovereignty and rebuild the hope of another Chile, we will continue seeking more justice in the courts and in the streets." For his part, former judge Juan Guzmán on September 2, 2004, had charged Contreras, the members of the DINA, and agents Basclay Zapata and Osvaldo Romo (who died in prison) for the aggravated kidnapping of 16 fallen in Operation Colombo. He prosecuted Conrado Pacheco, Manuel Carevic; Francisco Ferrer Lima and lieutenants Ricardo Lawrence, and Gerardo Godoy, as well as Gerardo Urrich, brigadier (R) Fernando Lauriani, and general (R) Raúl Iturriaga. The "penguins" of yesterday Many of the 119 were students or teachers or had left their work to dedicate themselves to the tasks of organizing the resistance.

But before their detention, they had been (or were) teachers, such as Arturo Barría, who taught at the Liceo Darío Salas, where Sepúlveda now studies Music—the student who cleaned the face of the Chilean Minister of Education with pure water, demanding that young people be heard.

María Elena González had been the principal of a rural school. Six of those who fell in 1974 were former students of the Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas—María Inés Alvarado, Martín Elgueta, Luis Fuentes, Jaime Robotham, Jaime Buzio, and Edwin van Yurick—and there was one student from the Instituto Nacional (Mauricio Jorquera) and one former student from the Liceo 7 (Bárbara Uribe).

Four of the 119 were detained while they were still high school students, two of them at the Instituto Comercial Nº 2 (Alejandro Espejo and Mario Carrasco) and Jorge Antonio Herrera at the Liceo 6 in San Miguel, which during the time of President Salvador Allende was called the Liceo Che Guevara.

There were two tailors, Miguel Angel Sandoval and Pedro Merino, and two concert musicians: Patricia Peña (piano) and Luis Jaime Palominos (French horn). Others were mechanics, veterinarians, engineers, topographers, and bricklayers.

Eugenia Martínez was a textile worker and lived in La Legua. Several were journalists, mechanics, secretaries, sales clerks, public employees, architects, agricultural technicians, or gardeners. The list included a former detective, Teobaldo Tello, a Civil Registry employee, Mónica Llanca, and one from the Investigative Police, Sonia Bustos, who worked in the resistance network providing information and materials to create identity cards in clandestine workshops.

In the group, 102 detainees were between 18 and 30 years old, and 13 of them were between 30 and 40. The majority were members of the MIR, but there were also socialists, Mapucistas, and independents. Together, they had 84 children at the time of their detention, and another 13 children were on the way. Many had been student, union, or community leaders before 1973.

Forty-three of them were students/teachers or graduates of the Universidad de Chile, among them Francisco Aedo, a prominent socialist/MIR architect and academic at that institution, who was already retired.

Ten were graduates of the current Universidad de Santiago, which was previously called the Universidad Técnica del Estado, and nine were from Concepción. Only three were from the Universidad Católica, among them the actress Carmen Bueno ("A la Sombra del Sol" and "La Tierra Prometida"), who studied at the School of Art and Communication and was the partner of Jorge Müller, a cameraman for La Batalla de Chile, who was forcibly disappeared like her.

Mario Calderón, a journalist, was from Valparaíso. Violeta López performed in the Railway Theater group and after the coup worked at Cecinas Loewer as a laborer. Jacqueline Drouilly was pregnant, and it was never known what happened to her child.

Several were from Santiago, from neighborhoods located in Ñuñoa/Peñalolén, in Villa Francia, and in the José María Caro district. But others had arrived in the capital to evade repression from Temuco, Valdivia, or Concepción. Some were from the north, like the Andrónicos Antequera brothers, in whose home the first experiments in manufacturing a clandestine radio station were carried out.

Two of the forcibly disappeared—Miguel Angel Pizarro Meniconi and Rodrigo Ugas—had posthumous twin children. The children of Manuel Cortez Joo, Luis Guajardo, and Washington Cid were born in prison. Their mothers survived.

The indictments by Judge Montiglio refer to the kidnappings of Francisco Aedo Carrasco, the brothers Jorge and Juan Carlos Andrónicos Antequera, Jaime Buzio Lorca, Cecilia Castro Salvadores, Alejandro Espejo Gómez, Agustín Fioraso Chau, Gregorio Gaete Farías, Mauricio Jorquera Encina, Mario Calderón Tapia, Isidro Pizarro Meniconi, Marcos Quiñones Lembach, Sergio Reyes Navarrete, Gilberto Urbina Chamorro, Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo, María Angélica Andreoli Bravo, Rubén Arroyo Padilla, Arturo Barría Araneda, Francisco Bravo Núñez, Carmen Bueno Cifuentes, Juan Chacón Olivares, Darío Chávez Lobos, Washington Cid Urrutia, Bernardo de Castro López, Luis Durán Rivas, Héctor Garay Hermosilla, María Cristina López Stewart, Zacarías Machuca Muñoz, Jorge Olivares Graindorge, Vicente Palominos Benítez, Juan Carlos Perelman Ide, Carlos Pérez Vargas, Asrael Retamales Briceño, Ariel Salinas Argomedo, Teobaldo Tello Garrido, Enrique Toro Romero, Rodrigo Ugas Morales, Eduardo Ziede Gómez, and Héctor Cayetano Zúñiga Tapia.

The voice of a daughter

In April 2008, at a tribute event held at the Faculty of Philosophy of the U de Chile, Natalia, daughter of Alfonso Chanfreau, expressed (in edited paragraphs of her speech): "to this day we must face a society that functions as if this had not happened.

The places identified as sites of memory can be counted on the fingers of one hand. How many torture houses have been officially handed over, perhaps simply with a little plaque that says: torture happened here? where not only the horror is made visible but also its victims, in all their dimensions....

One manages to move through the world with a certain normality until the real weight of the disappearance falls again upon our bodies and tears us to pieces, and we ask ourselves again how to handle so much pain, how to handle so much daily impunity.

But finally, we manage to surface again... I can tell you that my dad was lovely... with a particular voice, tall, a studious militant, a pampered son, a comrade... All of Chile has been and will continue to be marked by what the dictatorship was and these years of impunity, in the lives of my children and in that of all those who will grow up in this country.

The trial we are waiting for in France is a tremendous wake-up call regarding what is happening here in Chile. It cannot be that the sentences are so low, that the trials drag on for years and years without significant progress for the majority; it cannot be that this country plays deaf and blind to this.

This is a wake-up call to each one of us not to lower our guard, not to forget. Truth and Justice now, not halfway, not in parts, but all of it, nothing more and nothing less!"

Source: rebelion.org, July 24, 2008

Chile: the biggest blow to the genocidaires

Judge Víctor Montiglio dealt the biggest blow to the repression of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship by indicting and detaining 98 former agents from different branches of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and Investigative Police for 42 victims of Operation Colombo.

This is the largest resolution issued among the nearly 400 cases of human rights violations 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 Brigada Lautaro and its Grupo Delfín at the Simón Bolívar barracks.

Among those indicted for Operation Colombo are eight Army colonels (ret.), six of whom had not been indicted before in any case. Also declared defendants were 23 Army non-commissioned officers (ret.), 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 Brigada Lautaro, 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.

In addition, the magistrate indicted 40 former official and non-commissioned agents of the Carabineros, among whom are Ricardo Lawrence, Heriberto Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco, and José Mora, all former members of the same Brigade. Among those indicted 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 indicted were still being detained to be interned in different locations, such as the Military Police Battalion of Peñalolén.

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

"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, information that 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 that reported "Exterminated like rats: 59 Chilean MIR members fall in military operation in Argentina" remains in memory.

They were part of the list of the 119 forcibly 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 gave clues in Buenos Aires about this operation.

According to the 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 bodies appear for Operation Colombo."

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

LIST OF INDICTED AND DETAINED

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 Orerllana 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 who are already serving sentences, all currently imprisoned – 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: revistazoom.com.ar, May 30, 2008

The advantages of being dead: Pinochet, "Mamo," and "guatón" Romo are acquitted in a case of aggravated kidnapping during the Dictatorship

The case is related to the aggravated kidnapping of Eduardo Ziede, who was detained and forcibly disappeared in 1974. This person is one of the victims of the so-called Operation Colombo and was detained by DINA agents, who transferred him to the legendary torture center "Londres 38."

Augusto Pinochet was acquitted in a case related to human rights violations that occurred at the beginning of the Dictatorship, reports the EFE agency. The detail did not go unnoticed, which is why it was picked up abroad, among other media, by the site economiahoy.mx.

According to EFE, along with the tyrant, 6 other former agents of the repression of his de facto government were acquitted. On the other hand, 77 members of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), an organization led by the recently deceased Manuel "Mamo" Contreras, were convicted.

The case is related to the aggravated kidnapping of Eduardo Ziede, who was detained and forcibly disappeared in 1974. According to judicial sources, in this case, a definitive dismissal due to death was issued for Pinochet, Osvaldo "guatón" Romo Mena, Luis Urrutia Acuña, José Ampuero Ulloa, Orlando Inostroza Lagos, Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez, and General Manuel "Mamo" Contreras Sepúlveda, who passed away on August 7.

Judge Hernán Crisosto Crisosto sentenced former generals César Manríquez Bravo and Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, brigadiers Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Colonel Marcelo Moren Brito to 13 years in prison as authors of the crime of aggravated kidnapping.

It should be remembered that Ziede is considered one of the victims of the so-called Operation Colombo and was detained in 1974 by DINA agents, who transferred him to the legendary torture center "Londres 38," where he was interrogated about the MIR.

EFE brings up that upon dying, in December 2006, Pinochet was indicted in some cases of Operation Colombo and the "Caravan of Death," the bloodthirsty military entourage that in 1973 traveled through Chile and murdered political prisoners left and right.

Source: theclinic.cl, August 18, 2015

Wave of indictments in human rights cases

A total of nine further indictments were issued for human rights violations, in a context where expectations are growing regarding how the right wing, regardless of improving compensation for victims' families, will address a legislative proposal that would attempt to end trials against military personnel 30 years after the military coup.

In a resolution issued by Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, the following former DINA members were indicted yesterday as perpetrators of the 1976 kidnapping of nine communist militants: Colonel (Ret.) Carlos López Tapia, Brigadier (Ret.) Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Colonel (Ret.) Germán Barriga Muñoz, Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Ricardo Lawrence Mires, and the physician Osvaldo Pincetti.

The indictments were issued for the disappearance of former deputy Bernardo Araya and his wife, María Olga Flores, and members of the PC's clandestine leadership, all of whom remain forcibly disappeared to this day: Mario Zamorano, Jorge Muñoz (husband of the current president of the PC, Gladys Marín), Elisa Escobar, Uldarico Donaire, Jaime Donato, Lenín Díaz, and Víctor Díaz.

The latter was the father of the former president of the AFDD, Viviana Díaz. The disappearance of the first clandestine leadership of the PC is known as the "Calle Conferencia case," because the DINA set up a "mousetrap" in a house on that street, in Santiago Poniente, to capture the PC leadership.

These victims are included in the first lawsuit against Augusto Pinochet and other military personnel (Ret.), which was filed by Gladys Marín on January 12, 1998.

The plaintiff's lawyer, Eduardo Contreras, highlighted that "this shows that we can continue to achieve truth and justice, unlike what the UDI wants." Contreras also underscored "the courage and ethical standing of Judge Guzmán, who, without recusing himself from the case, indicted a relative of his so directly."

Indeed, Carlos López Tapia, a cousin of Judge Guzmán, was the head of the Villa Grimaldi clandestine center in 1976, the place where the PC detainees were taken and subsequently disappeared. López was also a member of the Caravan of Death during its first tour through the south and, according to his own statements in the proceedings, attended the extrajudicial execution of the MIR leader in the foothills of what is now the Tenth Region, José Liendo Vera, better known as "Comandante Pepe," on the night of October 3, 1973, in Valdivia.

Yesterday, Guzmán admitted that the measure "was difficult, because we judges are human beings."

Four Others

Meanwhile, Judge Jorge Zepeda indicted Army officer (Ret.) Claudio Lecaros Canales, non-commissioned officer (Ret.) José Muñoz Pozo, and Carabineros non-commissioned officer (Ret.) Omar Mella Lillo. The indictment was issued for their roles as perpetrators of the homicide of Rubén Acevedo Gutiérrez and the kidnapping of Vidal Riquelme Ibáñez and Cesáreo Soto.

The three victims presented themselves on September 15, 1973, at the El Melosal police station in San Javier, in what is now the Seventh Region, from where they were removed by soldiers from the Linares Artillery School, taken to the Loncomilla bridge, and executed. Only Acevedo's body was recovered.

In turn, Judge Daniel Calvo indicted FACH Colonel (Ret.) Guillermo Gómez Aguilar as the perpetrator of the kidnapping of Gabriel Marfull González. He was detained on September 13, 1973, and taken to the El Bosque Air Base. He was executed there, and his body was transported to Cuesta Barriga, where it was abandoned.

In both cases, Fasic lawyer Nelson Caucoto acts as plaintiff representing the families; he praised the investigation conducted thus far by the two magistrates yesterday.

THE FALL OF THE PC

On Calle Conferencia, located in the western zone of the Santiago commune, the DINA set up a "mousetrap" in May 1976: agents of the repressive agency waited for several days for the arrival of the PC leadership, who were working on the party's rearticulation, and captured them one by one to later forcibly disappear them.

In December of the same year, the DINA struck again, and this time its agents detained members of a new PC leadership in what is known as the "case of the thirteen." In this second wave of repression, Waldo Pizarro, husband of Sola Sierra and father of the current president of the AFDD, Lorena Pizarro, was captured.

DINA "Lautaro" Brigade

The DINA Lautaro Brigade was the extermination unit set up by Manuel Contreras and led by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado.

This brigade operated from the unknown barracks at Calle Simón Bolívar 8630.

The actions of this group of DINA agents known to date include the capture of the Communist Party leadership in 1976.

The brigade operated with a contingent of more than 70 members, whose operational members carried out the gathering of information, detentions, interrogations/torture, execution, and the disappearance of the detainees' bodies.

For these purposes, they had access to a large infrastructure; apart from the barracks itself, they had a varied number of vehicles at their disposal, in addition to access to the Puma helicopters of the Army Aviation Command (CAE) that operated from Peldehue.

The members of the Lautaro Brigade came from the four branches of the Armed Forces, in addition to having some civilian agents attached to the various branches. Its composition was mostly non-commissioned officers.

The fact that there were at least seven agents from the Navy in this brigade makes it clear that the institution lied when it declared that the Navy withdrew all its personnel from the DINA in 1975.

Another characteristic of the Lautaro Brigade is that it had a large number of women, who, as has been discovered, were characterized by their coldness and cruelty in the face of the crimes. Several of them, due to their knowledge of medicine and nursing, cooperated in the experiments carried out in the chemical laboratory at Michael Townley's house in Lo Curro.

Townley constantly attended the Calle Simón Bolívar barracks to experiment on detainees with the gas manufactured by the chemist Eugenio Berrios.

The information that has been recovered as of August 2007 appears after the investigation into the "Calle Conferencia" case carried out by Judge Víctor Montiglio, who has managed to establish the fate of a number of detainees from the Communist Party leadership, including the general secretary of the PC in the underground, Víctor Manuel Díaz López, as well as Bernardo Araya Zuleta, María Olga Flores Barraza, Mario Zamorano Donoso, Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortés, Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, Elisa Escobar Cepeda, Lenín Adán Díaz Silva, Eliana Espinoza Fernández, and Marta Lidia Ugarte Román.

To date, it has been established that Víctor Manuel Díaz López was detained in the early hours of May 12, 1976, at the house located at Calle Bello Horizonte No. 979, in the Las Condes commune, days after the detention of several PC leaders detained in the operation known as the "Mousetrap" at Calle Conferencia No. 1587.

Víctor Díaz was taken to the Villa Grimaldi torture center and subsequently transferred to "Casa de Piedra," another DINA torture center located in the Cajón del Maipo, a place where it is known that Augusto Pinochet visited Víctor Díaz and other PC leaders detained there.

At the beginning of 1977, Manuel Contreras gave the order to Juan Morales Salgado to eliminate Víctor Díaz, and in compliance with that order, agents Sergio Escalona Acuña and Bernardo Daza Navarro took Díaz out of a cell and tied a plastic bag over his head, suffocating him, while Army Lieutenant (nurse) Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño injected him with cyanide.

Subsequently, they proceeded to put the body into plastic bags, tie it up, attach a piece of rail to it, and put it into potato sacks, then tie it with wire to ensure the knots would not open.

The body was transported in vehicles to the Army regiment in Peldehue, where they had other executed victims brought from Villa Grimaldi and tied in the same way as Víctor Díaz. They loaded the bodies onto the Army Aviation Command's Puma helicopter and set off toward the coast of the Fifth Region to throw the bodies into the sea.

This mode of operation by the Lautaro Brigade agents demonstrates the brutality and dehumanization of all its members.

List of some of the Lautaro Brigade agents:

1 Acevedo Acevedo, Heriberto del Carmen Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 2 Ahumada Despouy, Joyce Ana Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 3 Altamirano Sanhueza, Orlando del Tránsito Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 4 Alvarez Droguett, Victor Manuel Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 5 Alvarez Vega, Hiro Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 6 Arriagada Mora, Jorge Hugo FACH Civilian employee (Ret.) 7 Aspe Rojas, Celinda Angélica Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 8 Benavides Escobar, César Raúl Army General (Ret.) 9 Bermúdez Méndez, Carlos Justo Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 10 Bitterlich Jaramillo, Pedro Segundo Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 11 Cabezas Mardones, Eduardo Patricio FACH Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 12 Calderón Carreño, Gladys de las Mercedes Army Officer (Ret.) and nurse 13 Castro Andrade, Sergio Hernán Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 14 Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Federico Humberto Army Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) 15 Daza Navarro, Bernardo del Rosario Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 16 Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Iván FACH Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 17 Díaz Ramírez, Guillermo Eduardo FACH Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 18 Escalona Acuña, Sergio Orlando Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 19 Escobar Fuentes, Jorge Marcelo Army Brigadier (Ret.) 20 Ferrán Martínez, Guillermo Jesús Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 21 Garea Guzmán, Eduardo Army Civilian employee (Ret.) 22 Guerrero Aguilera, Gustavo Enrique Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 23 Guerrero Soto, María Angélica Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 24 Gutiérrez Valdés, Pedro Antonio Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 25 Jaime Astorga, Rufino Eduardo Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 26 Jímenez Escobar, Berta Yolanda Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 27 Krassnoff Martchenko, Miguel Army Brigadier (Ret.) 28 Lagos Yañez, Luis Alberto FACH Civilian employee (Ret.) 29 Lawrence Mires, Ricardo Víctor Carabineros Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) 30 López Tapia, Carlos José Army Colonel (Ret.) and Army Prof. 31 Magna Astudillo, Elisa del Carmen Army Officer (Ret.) 32 Manríquez Manterola, Jorge Lientur Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 33 Marcos Muñoz, Carlos Segundo Civilian attached to the Army 34 Meza Serrano, José Miguel Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 35 Montre Méndez, Manuel Antonio Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 36 Morales Salgado, Juan Hernán Army Colonel (Ret.) and Army Prof. 37 Navarro Navarro, Teresa del Carmen Navy Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 38 Obreque Henríquez, Manuel Jesús Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 39 Ojeda Obando, José Alfonso Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 40 Orellana de la Pinta, Claudio Orlando Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 41 Oyarce Riquelme, Eduardo Alejandro Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 42 Pacheco Fernández, Claudio Enrique Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 43 Pichunmán Curiqueo, Jorge Segundo Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 44 Piña Garrido, Juvenal Alfonso Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 45 Reyes Lagos, Eduardo Antonio Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 46 Rinaldi Suárez, Carlos Ramón Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 47 Rivas González, Adriana Elcira FACH Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 48 Riveros Valderrama, René Miguel Army Officer (Ret.) 49 Saavedra Vásquez, Orfa Yolanda Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 50 Sagardía Monje, Jorge Laureano Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 51 Sarmiento Sotelo, José Manuel Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 52 Silva Vergara, Marilin Melahani Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 53 Sovino Maturana, Hernán Luis Army Captain (Ret.) 54 Torrejón Gatica, Orlando Jesús Army Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 55 Troncoso Vivallos, Emilio Hernán Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 56 Urrutia Acuña, Luis Arturo Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 57 Vacarella Gilio, Italia Donata Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 58 Valdebenito Araya, Héctor Manuel Carabineros Non-commissioned officer (Ret.) 59 Vilches Muñoz, Ana del Carmen FACH Civilian employee (Ret.)

Source: lanacion.cl, June 3, 2003

Judge Montiglio indicted 98 former agents for victims of Operation Colombo – The biggest blow to repression

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

The biggest blow to the repression of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship was dealt yesterday by Judge Víctor Montiglio, who indicted 98 former agents from different 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 (Ret.), six of whom had not been indicted before in any case. Also declared defendants were 23 Army non-commissioned officers (Ret.), of whom at least 50 percent appear for the first time in such 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 clandestine communist leader (1976) Víctor Díaz with a plastic bag over his head, prior to him being injected with cyanide.

In addition, the magistrate indicted 40 former officers and non-commissioned officers of the Carabineros, including Ricardo Lawrence, Heriberto Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco, and José Mora, all former members of the same Brigade. Among those indicted 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 continued to be detained to be interned in various places, 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; these reports were 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 missing 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 that they had been executed by their own comrades in a settling of scores due to 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; these reports were 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 that reported "Exterminated like rats: 59 Chilean MIR members fall in military operation in Argentina" remains in memory. 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 gave clues in Buenos Aires about this operation.

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 about 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 (crl); Eduardo Guerra Guajardo (crl); Víctor San Martín Jiménez (crl); José Fuentes Torres (crl); Manuel Carevic Cubillos (crl); Jaime Paris Ramos (crl); César Manríquez Bravo (crl); 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