The visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vásquez, issued an indictment for the crimes of simple kidnapping and homicide in the cases of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara Martínez and the former director of the prison service, Littré Quiroga Carvajal.

The measure was adopted against former Army members Hernán Chacón Soto and Patricio Vásquez Donoso as perpetrators, and Ramón Melo Silva as an accessory after the fact. The judicial resolution maintains that "from the same evidence indicated in the first numeral, added to the statements themselves of: Hernán Carlos Chacón Soto on page 7464, Patricio Manuel Vásquez Donoso on pages 7486 and 8077, and Ramón Camilo Humberto Melo Silva on pages 2551 and 4099, it can be inferred that the first two were fulfilling command functions inside the premises from the moment the Estadio Chile was enabled, and the third attended to take official statements at said place, ignoring their destination and the autopsy reports that were sent to him in his capacity as Chief Prosecutor of the Second Prosecutor's Office; sufficient presumptions arise to estimate that the first two of these bore participation in the capacity of perpetrators and, the third, participation in the capacity of an accessory after the fact in the events investigated in this case."

Source: t13.cl, September 3, 2014

Nine retired Army members sentenced for the homicide of Víctor Jara

The conviction is also for the homicide of former Gendarmerie director Littré Quiroga.

This afternoon, visiting judge Miguel Vázquez sentenced nine retired Army officials for their responsibility in the homicide of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara on September 15, 1973, and of former Gendarmerie director Littré Quiroga.

The magistrate decided to sentence Hugo Hernán Sánchez Marmonti, Raúl Aníbal Jofré González, Edwin Armando Roger Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Edgardo Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Luis Bethke Wulf, Juan Renán Jara Quintana, Hernán Carlos Chacón Soto, and Patricio Manuel Vásquez Donoso to the penalty of fifteen years and one day of presidio mayor in its maximum degree, as perpetrators of the crimes of qualified homicide of Quiroga and Víctor Jara.

In addition, the aforementioned retired military personnel were given a penalty of three years of presidio menor in its medium degree as perpetrators of the crimes of simple kidnapping against Jara and Quiroga.

On the other hand, in the case of Rolando Melo Silva, a penalty of five years and one day of presidio mayor in its minimum degree was issued as an accessory after the fact to the aforementioned homicide.

To this is added 60 days of imprisonment as an accessory after the fact to the crime of kidnapping. Regarding civil aspects, the magistrate ruled that the Treasury must pay $1.37 billion to the families of the victims of these events.

Source: latercera.cl, July 3, 2018

Santiago Court ratifies sentence and increases sentences for Víctor Jara's murderers

The Santiago Court of Appeals issued a second-instance sentence against seven former Army officers for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping and qualified homicide of singer-songwriter Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez and the then-director of Prisons, Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal; crimes perpetrated in September 1973 in the city of Santiago.

In the sentence (docket 4.160-2018), the Eighth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals—composed of Judge Alejandro Rivera Muñoz and Judges Gloria Solís Romero and Ana María Osorio Astorga—sentenced Raúl Aníbal Jofré González, Edwin Armando Roger Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Edgardo Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Luis Bethke Wulf, Juan Renán Jara Quintana, and Hernán Carlos Chacón Soto to 15 years and one day, as perpetrators of two crimes of qualified homicide, in a repeated degree, and to 10 years and one day of imprisonment as perpetrators of two crimes of qualified kidnapping, with serious harm, of the victims Víctor Jara Martínez and Littré Quiroga Carvajal. In the first instance, in a ruling issued in June 2018 by Judge Miguel Vásquez Plaza, these criminals had been sentenced to serve only 3 years of imprisonment for kidnapping classified as simple. Meanwhile, the former officer and lawyer who served as a military prosecutor, Rolando Camilo Humberto Melo Silva, must serve five years and one day of imprisonment as an accessory after the fact to the homicides, and three years and one day of imprisonment as an accessory after the fact to the kidnappings. In the first instance, this individual had received only a 61-day sentence for the kidnapping of both victims. The appellate court increased the sentence for those convicted of the crime of simple kidnapping by reclassifying the conduct to qualified kidnapping, given the gravity of the events of which they were victims and the mistreatment to which they were subjected during their imprisonment at the then-Estadio Chile. Criminals Hugo Hernán Sánchez Marmonti and Patricio Manuel Vásquez Donoso, also convicted in the first-degree ruling, passed away during the course of the proceedings. Meanwhile, regarding the defendant for these crimes, Pedro Pablo Barrientos Núñez, also a former Army officer, the Supreme Court requested his extradition from the United States in January 2013 and August 2016, where the criminal resides; however, said country has yet to respond to the request of the Chilean justice system. Both victims were taken prisoner on the same day of the military coup and led by their captors to the Estadio Chile, near the Estación Central in Santiago, where they were subjected to torture and humiliation by the enraged and deranged uniformed officers. After days of torment, on September 15, the military commanders ordered the transfer of the prisoners who remained confined in this sports facility to the Estadio Nacional, located in the commune of Ñuñoa, but both Víctor Jara and Littré Quiroga were separated from the group of transferees and locked in the locker room area. Subsequently, they were executed with multiple gunshot wounds. The Court's ruling states with precision that: "To the above, it must be added that for a long time the true whereabouts of the two offended parties were ignored, to finally be taken out of the Estadio Chile and thrown onto the public thoroughfare, along with the corpses of other persons of unknown identity—also killed by ballistic projectiles—being found on September 16, 1973, by residents belonging to community and social organizations in the vicinity of the Metropolitan Cemetery, on a vacant lot near the railway line, who cleaned their faces and were able to recognize them, noting that they presented various hematomas and unequivocal signs of having received heavy blows and the multiple gunshot wounds detailed in the respective autopsy reports, being taken in the following hours to the then-Legal Medical Institute, following reports previously made by the Carabineros, a place where, as a result of the direct and fortuitous intervention of third parties, they could be identified, allowing their closest relatives to attend said office and obtain the delivery of their corpses for subsequent burial. Demonstrative of the irrationality and visceral hatred that the two offended parties in the case aroused, despite performing their duties properly and prominently—one in administrative work at the General Directorate of Prisons of which he was Director, and the other as a well-known singer-songwriter of national and international fame, as well as a university professor and researcher—for the sole fact of thinking differently by publicly adhering to the democratically elected and incumbent civil government, and being considered opponents of the violent military regime that was seizing political power, they received mistreatment and humiliation day after day, without pause, despite the evident spiritual deterioration and physical fragility they presented, which did not deter their perpetrators from encouraging and continuing with this inhumane treatment, which culminated in the case of Víctor Jara with the abandonment of his remains in a wasteland, who was counted with a total of 44 bullet entry holes, distributed throughout his body; and, in the same place, Littré Quiroga, who presented at least 22 lesions on his bones that are identified as lesions from ballistic projectiles."

Source: resumen.cl, November 24, 2021

Supreme Court confirms ruling that convicted retired military personnel for qualified kidnapping of an agronomist

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the highest court rejected the appeals for cassation in form and substance filed against the sentence that convicted retired military personnel for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified kidnapping of agronomist Luis Corvalán Castillo, son of the then-secretary general of the Communist Party, Luis Corvalán Lepe.

The crime was committed starting in September 1973 in the Metropolitan Region. The Supreme Court rejected the appeals for cassation in form and substance filed against the sentence that convicted retired military personnel for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified kidnapping of agronomist Luis Corvalán Castillo, son of the then-secretary general of the Communist Party, Luis Corvalán Lepe.

The crime was committed starting in September 1973 in the Metropolitan Region. In a unanimous ruling (case docket 44.144-2020), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of judges Manuel Antonio Valderrama, María Teresa Letelier, Juan Manuel Muñoz, Eliana Quezada, and acting lawyer Pía Tavolari—confirmed the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced Napoleón Bravo Flores, Raúl Jofré González, Hernán Chacón Soto, Patricio Vásquez Donoso, and Francisco López Oyarzún to 5 years and one day of imprisonment, in the capacity of perpetrators of the crime against humanity. Meanwhile, Jaime Rolando Ortiz Jorquera, Luis Humberto Zamorano Soto, Ricardo Sepúlveda Díaz, and Manuel Antonio Amor Lillo must serve 3 years and one day of imprisonment as accomplices to the crime. "That such a way of founding the deduced causes, arguing incompatible facts, reasons, and legal consequences, is not acceptable in the case of an extraordinary and strict-law appeal such as cassation in substance, in which it is necessary to demand, so that this Court can enter into the study and decision of it, that the errors of law observed in the ruling be pointed out and explained with precision and foundation, as well as their substantial influence on its operative part, all in correspondence with the requests made in its petition, characteristics that an appeal lacks which, like the one reviewed, presents alternative and exclusive foundations and requests, defects that constitute an insurmountable obstacle even for its study," the ruling establishes. The resolution adds: "That the jurisprudence in this regard is numerous and sustained, counting on very recent decisions that provide solid support for what is resolved in these cases, which is the rejection of the appeals for reasons that, although formal, cannot be ignored by this chamber, given the function entrusted to it as a court of cassation." "That, given the preceding considerations, representative of serious inaccuracies in the formalization of the appeal, contrary to the nature and purposes of this appeal for nullity, it is appropriate to dismiss the appeal for cassation," it adds. Likewise, the ruling states: "That, regarding the claimed vice of not having applied the gradual prescription contained in Article 103 of the Penal Code, the first-instance sentence established that, in this type of crime—crimes against humanity—in accordance with the imperative principle of International Law that proscribes non-prescriptibility, the figure of partial prescription cannot be applied, considering it a figure separate from prescription and a diminished form of it, citing Resolution No. 2.583 of December 15, 1969, of the United Nations General Assembly, in which the issue of the sanction of those responsible for crimes against humanity is made explicit, since it has qualified it as an important element of prevention and protection of Human Rights, a way of contributing to peace and international security, and the only way to enforce it is with effective and proportional sanctions for the crime committed, in this case of crimes against humanity; the opposite would lead to setting penalties that, although suitable for common crimes, are not for special cases like those of the present case." "Without prejudice to what was pointed out by the ruling, the constant jurisprudence of this Criminal Chamber has used two arguments to dismiss this cause of the appeal, insofar as it is based on Article 103 of the Penal Code," the resolution warns. "On one hand," it continues, "the classification of a crime against humanity given to the illicit act committed forces the consideration of International Human Rights Law regulations, which excludes the application of both total prescription and so-called partial prescription, by understanding such institutes as closely linked in their foundations and, consequently, contrary to the regulations of ius cogens originating from that sphere of International Criminal Law, which reject impunity and the imposition of penalties not proportional to the intrinsic gravity of the crimes, based on the passage of time." "But along with this, it is emphasized that whatever interpretation may be made of the foundation of the legal precept in discussion, it is certain that the norms to which Article 103 of the Penal Code refers grant a mere faculty to the judge and do not impose the obligation to reduce the amount of the penalty even if several mitigating factors concur, so the denounced vice lacks substantial influence on the operative part of the challenged ruling (among others, SCS Nos. 35.788-2017, of March 20, 2018; 39.732-2017, of May 14, 2018; and 36.731-2017, of September 25, 2018) so that, under such conditions, the appeal cannot prosper," it concludes.

Therefore, it is resolved that

"1.- The appeal for cassation in form filed in favor of the sentenced Ricardo Sepúlveda Díaz against the sentence of March 9, 2020, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals in case Docket No. 5774-2018, is rejected. 2.- The appeals for cassation in substance filed in favor of the sentenced Hernán Carlos Chacón Soto, Manuel Antonio Amor Lillo, Napoleón Sergio Bravo Flores, Raúl Jofré González, Jaime Rolando Ortiz Jorquera, and Ricardo Winston Sepúlveda Diaz, and likewise the appeal for cassation in substance filed by the Human Rights Program Unit of the Undersecretariat of Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights against the sentence of March 9, 2020, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals in case Docket No. 5774-2018, are rejected." Torture at the Velodrome In the first-instance sentence, the presiding judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Leopoldo Llanos, considered the following facts proven: "a) On the occasion of the Coup d'État of September 11, 1973, thousands of people were detained without a judicial order by the coup forces and deprived of their liberty, both in Santiago and in the provinces, in improvised places such as detention camps. b) In Santiago, the places of mass detention were, first, the 'Estadio Chile', located in the western sector of downtown Santiago, which came to house approximately 4,000 detainees. Second, the Estadio Nacional, located in the commune of Ñuñoa, where around September 14, 1973, a large part of the detainees from the Estadio Chile were transferred—and to which people detained in the following days were also taken, housing approximately 10,000 people deprived of their liberty—and which remained as a detention center until mid-November 1973, when part of the detainees were transferred to the Public Jail, and others to a prisoner camp in the former nitrate plant 'Chacabuco', in the province of Antofagasta; while the rest were released before its closure or concurrently with it. c) The first Army officers to take charge of the Estadio Nacional for the reception of detainees came from the Army's Administrative Support Command, who—together with other officers who later arrived at the Stadium—proceeded to classify the detainees, place them in the facilities of the premises, and create a card index, registering their entry and exit, in addition to other data. d) Units from provincial regiments were transferred to the Estadio Nacional, whether from Antofagasta (Esmeralda Regiment), Punta Arenas (Pudeto Regiment), or other regiments from outside Santiago, who alternated in the internal custody (inside the stadium) of the detainees, remaining for a few days in the aforementioned premises to, when they were relieved by other units, remain for a few days at the Military Stadium located in the Rondizzoni sector, adjacent to the then-Cousiño Park, today O'Higgins. The outer perimeter of the stadium was guarded by personnel from the Carabineros de Chile. e) Approximately on September 15 or 16, 1973, Army Colonel Jorge Espinoza Ulloa (now deceased) was designated as head of the Estadio Nacional detention camp, who in turn depended on a Detainee Coordinating Center, directed by an Air Force general, who in turn had two commanders from the same branch as assistants and who carried out their work in the Ministry of Defense building. The aforementioned Center depended on the National Defense General Staff, whose chief was Admiral Patricio Carvajal, and deputy chief was FACH General Nicanor Díaz Estrada. f) In the National Defense General Staff, on September 11, 1973, a 'Armed Forces Operations Center' (COFFA) began to function, which had an Intelligence Department, composed of officers and officials from different branches of the Armed Forces and Investigations, especially from their intelligence services; that is, from the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), and its counterparts in the Air Force (SIFACH) and the Navy (SIN). Army non-commissioned officers who were students of an intelligence course, which was taught in the Ministry of Defense building on Zenteno Street, were assigned to the DINE. Likewise, several sections depended on the DINE (whose senior officers were Generals Augusto Lutz and Héctor Orozco, in addition to officers Carol Urzúa, Pedro Howard, and Juan Francisco Henríquez (all now deceased, with the exception of Orozco); among them a section or department (the IV), called the Army Intelligence Brigade (BIE) or Work Unit and located in a building on Carrera Street with Sazié, in the vicinity of the old War Academy, located at Alameda with García Reyes. Said Work Unit was directed by two Army officers, with the ranks of major or commander; and was also composed of groups of interrogators, who mobilized to the different detention centers, such as the Estadio Chile, the Estadio Nacional, and the Tacna Regiment. g) Colonel Jorge Espinoza Ulloa, as head of the Estadio Nacional detention center, had an Army major as an assistant, and furthermore, several 'departments' were under his dependency, among others, one for Logistics directed by Army Lieutenant Sergio Guarategua Peña (deceased); for Foreigners, commanded by Army Major Carlos Meirelles Muller (deceased) and subsequently by officers Mario Lavanderos Lataste (deceased) and Sergio Fernández Carranza; and for Operations, directed by Army Lieutenant Colonel Julio Fuenzalida Arancibia (deceased); from this in turn depended a Security department, made up of several Army officers. Likewise, Army non-commissioned officers who as of September 11, 1973, were students of a general assistantship course at the Telecommunications School, and who were transferred to the Estadio Nacional approximately two days after that date, performed administrative and detainee custody functions. Finally, a field hospital operated in the Stadium premises, where doctors and personnel from the Army Health staff worked. h) In the Estadio Nacional, interrogation under torment or torture of detainees was frequent (without prejudice to the fact that dozens of them were also put to death); one of the most characteristic places where said procedures were practiced being the Stadium Velodrome, a facility located within the premises of the latter, but outside the main construction, where detainees were taken after being called by loudspeakers to present themselves at a place known as the 'black disc', located on the cinder track, to take them with their heads covered with blankets to the aforementioned velodrome, a place where they were made to wait in its stands until being called to some facilities called 'snails' (caracoles), where they were subjected to duress consisting of beatings and electric shocks. i) The interrogations and torture described above were carried out by the groups of interrogators mentioned above, and also integrated (apart from Army personnel) by members of the intelligence services of the different branches of the Armed Forces, the Carabineros, and also the Investigative Police; as well as some civilians who performed that work, generally reserve officers reintegrated into the Armed Forces after the Coup d'État. Likewise, some members of the Armed Forces of foreign countries, especially from Brazil and Uruguay, participated in the torture. j) Luis Alberto Corvalán Castillo, 27 years old, agronomist, militant of the Communist Party and son of the secretary general of the same party, Luis Corvalán Lepe, was illegally detained in a mass raid carried out by the Army on September 14, 1973, in the Torres de San Borja sector, where he had his home, and transferred to the Estadio Nacional. k) Numerous witnesses narrate that Corvalán Castillo, from the very moment of his arrival at the Stadium, as well as subsequently, was harshly tortured for the sole fact of being the son of Luis Corvalán Lepe. The most intense torture was practiced on him in mid-October 1973 in the aforementioned Stadium Velodrome, leaving him in extremely serious physical condition, to the point that he had to be transferred from the place of torture back to the main building of the Stadium helped by four other detainees, who improvised a kind of stretcher with a blanket; being left for a long period on the cinder track, semi-unconscious, until by order of an officer he was taken to a locker room, where he was hidden so that he would not be tortured again the next day. This fact was witnessed by several witnesses who were in the Stadium stands. l) At the closure of the Estadio Nacional as a detention facility, Corvalán Castillo was transferred, along with numerous other detainees, to the prisoner camp of the former nitrate plant 'Chacabuco', in the north of Chile. m) Finally, he was released on July 30, 1974, but expelled from the country, moving first to Mexico (where he reunited with his spouse Ruth Vuskovic, who had also been detained at the Estadio Nacional), to later settle in Bulgaria, where he was examined by doctors from that country who confirmed the aftereffects of his torture; he was advised not to perform too many activities due to being in a delicate state of health. n) Luis Alberto Corvalán Castillo passed away on October 26, 1975, in Bulgaria. According to the autopsy report, the cause of death was a heart disease that led to acute vascular insufficiency, but taking into account his young age—it is said in the report—'to reach these fatal conditions, the great physical and psychic exhaustion, as a result of the torture and repression that he experienced in recent years, have particularly influenced'."

Source: Judiciary, April 8, 2024