The Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced eight former officers and two former non-commissioned officers of the Army for their responsibility in the qualified homicide of 15 victims during the passage of the so-called "Caravan of Death" through the city of La Serena in 1973.

The group of criminals consists of a former general and commander-in-chief of that institution, two former brigadiers, five former lieutenant colonels, and the two non-commissioned officers.

In this episode, the uniformed delegation perpetrated the murders of Oscar Gastón Aedo Herrera, Marcos Enrique Barrantes Alcayaga, Mario Alberto Ramírez Sepúlveda, Hipólito Pedro Cortés Álvarez, Jorge Abel Contreras Godoy, Roberto Guzmán Santa Cruz, Jorge Mario Jordán Domic, Gabriel Gonzalo Vergara Muñoz, Carlos Enrique Alcayaga Varela, Jorge Ovidio Osorio Zamora, José Eduardo Araya González, Oscar Armando Cortés Cortés, Manuel Jachadur Marcarian Jamett, Víctor Fernando Escobar Astudillo, and Jorge Washington Peña Hen on October 16 of that year.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 4.599-2019), the Sixth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Justice Antonio Ulloa and Justices Gloria Solís and Verónica Sabaj—modified the first-instance sentence issued by Justice Mario Carroza in November 2018 last Friday, October 28.

Regarding the participation of former Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo and Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton in the events, they must now serve 10 years and one day in prison as co-perpetrators of the crimes, instead of the 5 years as accomplices as previously classified by Justice Carroza.

Another former officer and primary defendant, Ariosto Alberto Lapostol Orrego, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison, passed away during the proceedings, resulting in the dismissal of his case.

Furthermore, the court confirmed the criminal ruling regarding the sentencing of former officers Jaime Manuel Ojeda Torrent and Emilio Robert de la Mahotiere González and former non-commissioned officer Víctor Hugo Alegre Rodríguez to 5 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the crimes; and former officers Hernán Emilio Valdebenito Bugmann, Guillermo Oscar Raby Arancibia, Juan Emilio del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Cheyre Espinoza, Mario Hernando Vargas Miguieles, and former non-commissioned officer Luis Segundo Araos Flores to 3 years and one day, with the benefit of supervised release, as accessories after the fact.

The helicopter of death

The judicial investigation established that on October 16, 1973, the delegation led by former General Sergio Arellano Stark (deceased) arrived in the city of La Serena in an Army 'Puma' helicopter, with a group of military personnel including officers Sergio Carlos Arredondo González, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Emilio Robert de la Mahotiere González, Luis Felipe Polanco Gallardo, Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton, Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito (deceased), and Hugo Héctor Leiva González.

After disembarking from the aircraft, the aforementioned Arellano Stark held a meeting with the then-Commander of the N°2 Artillery Regiment, "Arica" of La Serena, Ariosto Lapostol Orrego, and informed him of his mission entrusted by the tyrant Pinochet, which consisted of the execution of selected individuals of the left who remained detained by the coup-plotting uniformed personnel in various locations and different cities of the country.

Subsequently, Arellano Stark selected the detainees who were to be executed. By his order, 14 of the chosen victims were removed from the Public Jail of La Serena and transferred to the Regiment, where they remained at the disposal of the aforementioned military authority.

In parallel, another detainee was removed from the cells of the same Regiment and joined with the other prisoners, leading them to the shooting range of that military facility. Once at the range, the detainees were executed by gunfire carried out by Army personnel.

After the murders were committed, the Regiment's personnel proceeded to register the deaths of the victims without having performed the respective autopsies, nor any identification by their relatives. Immediately thereafter, military personnel proceeded to transport the bodies of the executed to the local cemetery and buried them in a common grave, in a clandestine manner, for which the Regiment's authorities had previously made the pertinent arrangements with the administration of the Municipal Cemetery.

Once the stage of disappearing the victims' bodies was concluded, the Regiment's authorities, particularly the Zone Headquarters exercised by Lapostol Orrego, published a Military Proclamation in the media informing the citizenry of the execution of fifteen extremists in compliance with what was resolved by Military Tribunals in Times of War, a matter that never occurred, as the execution took place without a prior trial, based solely on the circumstance of their ideology.

In 1998, the Legal Medical Service found human remains in the Municipal Cemetery of La Serena, and conducted forensic examinations and identification procedures, managing to identify the 15 victims executed by firing squad on October 16, 1973, verifying that all of them presented multiple projectile impacts in different parts of their bodies.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, November 4, 2022