On November 8, 1973, by sentence of the Consejo de Guerra (War Council) Case No. 1572 73 of Valdivia, the following individuals were executed, accused of assaulting the Gil de Castro Carabineros station in the same city on September 13, 1973:

Cosme Ricardo CHAVEZ OYARZUN, 18 years old, painter;

Víctor Joel GATICA CORONADO, street vendor;

Víctor Enrique ROMERO CORRALES, 22 years old, laborer.

The Commission was only able to obtain a copy of the Consejo de Guerra sentence, despite having requested the other documents of the proceedings from the corresponding military authorities.

Having analyzed the background of the case, the Commission has reached the conviction that Cosme Chávez, Víctor Gatica, and Víctor Romero were executed in violation of their human rights, for which State agents are responsible. This conviction is supported by the general considerations made regarding the Consejos de Guerra and especially the following:

– It has not been possible to verify the existence of an armed attack on the Gil de Castro station, although it is confirmed that no police officer was wounded or killed in that alleged attack;

– The defendants did not have legal assistance that would have allowed for an adequate defense;

– The crime for which the defendants were ultimately convicted is that of Article 248 No. 2 of the Code of Military Justice, which sanctions "anyone who, in case of war and with the purpose of favoring the enemy or harming Chilean troops, commits an action or omission that is not included in the preceding articles nor constitutes another crime expressly punished by law." This crime falls under military jurisdiction only when committed by military personnel, and "in case of war and with the purpose of favoring the enemy or harming Chilean troops," therefore the Tribunal was not competent to judge civilians who are not members of the Armed Forces and who are not in a situation of external war;

– In the sentence, six aggravating circumstances were applied to the defendants: committing the crime with treachery, acting with certainty or betrayal; acting with premeditation; the perpetrator abusing the superiority of their forces or weapons; committing the crime on the occasion of sedition, riot, or popular commotion; executing the crime at night or in an unpopulated area; and executing it in contempt of public authority.

All these aggravating circumstances are subsumed within the nature of this crime, by its very character, and are therefore inapplicable;

– In the sentence, no mitigating circumstances for the defendants were verified or weighed, and the argument presented by the defense that the mitigating circumstance of an irreproachable prior conduct favored the defendants was rejected, with the ruling stating verbatim that "all the accused are habitual criminals recognized as highly dangerous and antisocial elements," without specifying what records were taken into account to conclude as such.