The minister on extraordinary duty for the Santiago Court of Appeals for human rights violation cases, Leopoldo Llanos, issued a first-instance conviction against two former sub-commissioners of the Assault Brigade of the Investigations Police of Chile (PDI) for their participation in the crime of simple homicide of English teacher and Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) militant, Arcadia Patricia Flores Pérez, an illicit act perpetrated on August 16, 1981, in the commune of Quinta Normal.

In the resolution, Minister Llanos sentenced Omar Segundo del Carmen Vega Vargas and Luis Orlando González Cuevas to 5 years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree. Both were granted the benefit of supervised release.

According to the background information gathered in the investigation: "At 8:30 hours on August 16, 1981, Guillermo Aurelio Rodríguez Morales was detained by officials of the Assault Investigation Brigade of the Investigations Police.

On September 14, 1973, he had been sentenced by a War Council to 23 years in prison, and through decree 504, his sentence was commuted to banishment, leaving the country for Canada; he entered Chile clandestinely in 1978 and was tasked with developing a resistance militia against the military government, one of whose members was Arcadia Patricia Flores Pérez, 27 years old, single, with journalism studies at the Universidad de Chile.

She was a militant in the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) where she held the position of Sub-chief of the Militia Structure and Chief of Organization, and she became the partner of Rodríguez Morales, renting a room at Calle Santa Petronila N°644 in Quinta Normal.

Under these circumstances, an operation was organized to carry out a raid on the aforementioned property, which was attended by several members of the Assault Investigation Brigade (at least ten), with the provision that the people who were to enter the property would be the officials who held the rank of chief and sub-chief of the Sub-commissioner's office in charge of the operation, due to their greater seniority; once they entered the property, they walked down a hallway that ended in an interior patio, and behind them followed several officials in 'Indian file,' among them Nelson Roberto Cortés Gutiérrez; while Carlos Juvenal Díaz remained outside the property. The chief of the Sub-commissioner's office found two people, Osvaldo del Tránsito Rojas Castillo and Sara del Carmen López Llantén, whom he immediately moved to the back of the property, while the sub-chief entered the room of the house where Arcadia Flores Pérez was located. She, who had a .38 caliber revolver in her possession and was lying on a bed, exchanged shots with the police and received several mortal gunshot wounds, dying at the scene." The ruling continues: "It follows that the described facts constitute the crime of homicide, but in its simple hypothesis described in Art. 391 N° 2 of the Penal Code, and not in the qualified hypothesis described in N° 1 of the first provision. Indeed, it has been proven that a person was killed through the use of firearms, which caused the wounds that were the cause of her death. However, the concurrence of premeditation expressed in the accusation has not been established in this case, as numerous witnesses in the process agree that they went to the home of Arcadia Flores Pérez with the purpose of raiding it and arresting her, and not with the purpose of killing her." It adds: "It should be noted, however, that the perpetrators of the crime reacted or acted in the face of an illegitimate aggression (insofar as it is always unlawful to attempt to prevent a possible arrest by shooting at the apprehenders), without provocation on their part, but—as stated—without the necessary rationality of the means employed to prevent or repel it." Minister Llanos classified the facts as constituting a crime against humanity, in the context of national and international regulations, disagreeing with the report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which estimated that Flores Pérez "died as a victim of the prevailing political violence." In this regard, he points out: "(...) it is a contradiction to state that such deaths, under those conditions, do not constitute an 'inhumane act,' since the state agency, possessing a manifest superiority in men and weaponry, chose to kill her instead of obtaining her surrender in order to be placed at the disposal of the competent judicial authority."

Source: cronicadigital.cl, February 23, 2016

Supreme Court convicts former PDI members for homicide of journalism student: they will not go to prison

Arcadia Flores was 27 years old when a brigade of the Investigations Police raided her home and ended up fatally shooting her. The Supreme Court convicted two former members of the Investigations Police (PDI) for their responsibility in the crime of simple homicide of journalism student Arcadia Patricia Flores Pérez, a crime perpetrated in August 1981 in the Metropolitan Region.

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the highest court confirmed the sentence that condemned Omar Segundo del Carmen Vega Vargas and Luis Orlando González Cuevas to 5-year prison terms, with the benefit of supervised release.

In 1981, Arcadia Flores was 27 years old. She had studied journalism at the Universidad de Chile and was a militant in the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), where she held the position of sub-chief of the Militia Structure and Chief of Organization.

On August 16 of that year, officials from the PDI's Assault Investigation Brigade arrived at the room she was renting in Quinta Normal together with her partner, Guillermo Rodríguez Morales. Twelve years earlier, in September 1973, Guillermo had been sentenced by a War Council to 23 years in prison, but his sentence had been commuted to banishment, and he left the country for Canada.

In 1978, he entered Chile again clandestinely, taking charge of developing a resistance militia against the civic-military dictatorship, one of whose members was Arcadia. It was under these circumstances that an operation was organized by the PDI to carry out a raid on their home, in which at least 10 members of the aforementioned Assault Investigation Brigade participated.

Upon entering the place, the police moved two people they found there to the back of the property, and then entered the room where Arcadia Flores Pérez was. The young woman had a .38 caliber revolver in her possession and was lying on a bed. She was able to exchange shots with the police, but received several gunshot wounds that ended up taking her life at the scene.

Source: elciudadano.com, March 22, 2018