Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya, single, bakery worker, and member of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 27, 1973, at his home in San Antonio by personnel from the Investigations Service and the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), who were traveling in a closed C-10 pickup truck with a canopy.

The group was led by the second-in-command of Investigations, Nelson Patricio Valdés Cornejo, and Army Captain Mario Jara Seguel. Its members included Lieutenant Luis Francisco Carevic Cubillos (who died in April 1979 while attempting to defuse an explosive device) and Corporals surnamed Casas-Cordero and Romero, who belonged to the staff of the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment.

Víctor Fernando was taken to that military facility, whose Commander was the then-Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda.

He was removed by military personnel from the aforementioned facility in the early hours of October 5, 1973, along with Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, Ceferino Santis Quijada, Gustavo Farías Vargas, and Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa, who had been detained at the same time as the victim.

His body—and that of Ojeda Jara—was found the following day, October 6, 1973, in the Rapel River. By judicial order, he was buried in the San Antonio Parish Cemetery on October 17 of that same year as an "NN" (unidentified person).

Identification was carried out on October 23, when the Identification Cabinet informed the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio that, based on fingerprint analysis, the body unequivocally corresponded to Víctor Mesina Araya.

His family learned of these facts years later, in 1989. The remains of Florindo Alex Vidal were also found in the Rapel River (October 17, 1973), and were identified and handed over to his relatives. As for Luis Norambuena and Ceferino Santis, nothing more was heard of them; it was commented among the detainees of the time that they had been thrown into the sea off the coast of San Antonio, wounded and bound.

Nothing more was heard of Gustavo Farías Vargas either.

As of 1992, the remains of Víctor Fernando Mesina had not been exhumed, and the exact location of the burial could not be determined. Throughout these years, his family has undertaken various efforts to determine his whereabouts.

The victim was detained on September 27, 1973—as previously stated—in an operation that included the arrests of Amador Arturo Aguila Maturana, Rolando Farías Farías, Luis Carrasco Zamorano, and Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa.

All of them—as recounted by Amador Arturo Aguila—were taken to the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment, and throughout that night, the same captors interrogated them in groups or individually. During these interrogations, they were subjected to various forms of torture, including the application of electric current to different parts of the body and multiple beatings.

In the early hours of September 28, 1973, the detainees were taken to the Detainee Camp, which was located on the same grounds as the Regiment, under the Maipo River bridge. There, they were assigned a number that they had to wear hanging around their necks, written in chalk on a piece of cardboard or fiberboard.

At first, they had to stay in metal "containers" that had arrived on a German ship. Later, wooden shacks or cabins were built, in which the prisoners were crowded. From this camp, the detainees were transported—in refrigerated trucks—to the basement of the Officers' Club to be subjected to torture.

For her part, Ana Graciela Becerra Arce, who was detained on September 19, 1973, and taken to the Tejas Verdes Regiment, recalls that one night they brought in and isolated Florindo Vidal, Ceferino Santis, Gustavo Farías, Amador Arturo Aguila, and a person she knew as "the Baker" (Víctor Fernando Mesina) in the "containers," and that they were in poor physical condition.

The witness was authorized to go to that area to bring them food, managing to speak with some of those detainees, especially Gustavo Farías. A couple of days later, the victim, Farías, Vidal, and Santis were taken out of the containers and did not return (early October 1973).

Arturo Florencio Farías Vargas—brother of the currently forcibly disappeared Gustavo Farías Vargas—was detained on September 15, 1973, when he appeared at the Military Prosecutor's Office that operated inside the Tejas Verdes Regiment.

In the first days of October 1973, in the early morning, as he was leaving an interrogation (two detainees had to hold him up because he could not stand due to the torture), he saw a group of detainees in the courtyard where vehicles were parked, among whom were Gustavo Farías, Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, Ceferino Santis Quijada, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, and Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa (he does not name the victim), all of whom were never seen again at the Tejas Verdes Regiment.

This testimony is corroborated by the statements made in this regard by Amador Arturo Aguila Maturana, who, as previously noted, had been detained in the same operation as Víctor Fernando Mesina. The declarant recalls that one night, in the first days of October 1973, when he was returning from an interrogation session, the military personnel took him to a sort of dining hall, where he saw a group of detainees separated from the rest.

The uniformed men forbade anyone from speaking to them because, as they said, they were going to be released.

The group consisted of Luis Fernando Norambuena Fernandois, Ceferino Santis Quijada, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Florindo Alex Vidal Hinojosa, Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara, and the victim, who was a worker at the "La Española" bakery in San Antonio and whose detention the declarant had witnessed.

The next day, these people were no longer in the Camp. On October 6, 1973, at 9:30 a.m., two Carabineros Corporals found the bodies of two unknown persons on the left bank of the Rapel River, which were sent to the San Antonio Morgue.

During the processing of the case that was opened, and subsequent to their burial, the remains were identified as belonging to Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya and Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara. The respective families would only learn of the fact years later.

Simultaneously with what was happening to the victim, Gloria Valentina Mesina Araya arrived in San Antonio from Punta Arenas, the city where she resided, and began efforts to locate her brother. She was accompanied by her husband, Carlos Walker Trujillo.

Both went to the "La Española" bakery, where Ana Jeria—the victim's girlfriend—informed them that Víctor Fernando had been detained because they had found some bullets hidden in the bakery. At the beginning of October 1973, Carlos Walker, accompanied by two Carabineros, went to Tejas Verdes.

There, they informed him that the victim had indeed been detained there, but that he had already been released.

In 1975, Carlos Walker was informed by a Carabinero, Héctor Trujillo Cofré, who in 1973 was serving in Melipilla, that Víctor Fernando had been executed by firing squad in Bucalemu. Only in 1989 did Gloria Mesina manage to obtain a death certificate for her brother, which stated that he had died on October 5, 1973, in Rapel, due to "asphyxia by immersion."

(For more background information regarding Tejas Verdes, see the cases of Gustavo Farías Vargas and Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara).

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On October 8, 1973, the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio opened case file No. 29.799 for "Deaths of NN," which was initiated by a report from the Carabineros accounting for the discovery of two bodies on the left bank of the Rapel River on October 6, 1973.

According to the testimonies provided by the Carabineros Corporals, no documentation was found on the bodies that would allow for their immediate identification, and both presented a depression in the forehead, "apparently caused by a blunt and hard object."

The autopsy reports, attached to this process and signed by Dr. Julio Berdichesky, list the cause of death for Mesina Araya and Ojeda Jara as "asphyxia by immersion," with injuries of an "accidental nature without the intervention of third parties."

After the burial of the bodies was carried out by judicial order—on October 17, 1973, in the San Antonio Parish Cemetery, under death registry numbers 377 and 378—the San Antonio Identification Cabinet sent an official letter to the Court on October 23 of that year.

In said letter, it was stated that, after investigating the files of the Fingerprint Archive, it had been determined that the bodies corresponded, unequivocally, to Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya and Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara.

The respective identity card numbers, dates of birth, parents' names, and addresses were also provided. The Court then proceeded to summon the parents of the two victims through a writ sent to the Santiago Investigations Prefecture. This action was not carried out, and the families did not learn of the situation until 1989 and 1990, respectively.

After the death certificates and records that were under the heading of "Unknown" were rectified, the summary was closed on March 15, 1974, and the case was temporarily dismissed because "from the merit of the background information, it is not duly justified that the death of Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya and Jorge Luis Ojeda Jara was due to the perpetration of a crime." The resolution was confirmed by the Santiago Court of Appeals on June 26, 1974.

On February 6, 1991, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation sent information to the 1st Criminal Court of San Antonio regarding 21 cases of disappearances and homicides that occurred at the Detainee Camp of the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment, of which Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda was Commander in 1973.

Among the cases presented was that of Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya. Case file No. 51.071-11 was then opened for alleged misfortune and other charges on February 22, 1991.

The process began with the summons to appear for all persons who testified before said Commission. Subsequently, numerous actions were initiated regarding the reported facts. In the particular case of the victim, the process for the discovery of bodies (file No. 29799) was consolidated on [date missing] 1991.

Previously, on June 20, 1991, the family had filed a criminal complaint for the crimes of kidnapping with qualified homicide, application of torture and unnecessary rigor, and arbitrary detention committed against the person of Víctor Fernando Mesina.

The filing recounted the circumstances of the victim's detention and disappearance. Among other actions, the appearance of witnesses to the victim's imprisonment, Carabinero Héctor Trujillo Cofré, and Ana Jeria was requested, in addition to various official requests.

Indeed, on October 17, 1991, Héctor Trujillo testified before the Court, stating that he had belonged to the Carabineros until 1984, that he knew Carlos Walker, but that he never told him that his brother-in-law had been executed by firing squad in Bucalemu.

As Walker insisted that Héctor Trujillo told him that Víctor Fernando had been executed, the plaintiff requested a confrontation between the two, an action that, as of December 1991, was still pending. Francisco del Moral—administrator of the "La Española" bakery from 1973 until 1982—also appeared to provide testimony, stating that he remembered Víctor Mesina but had not known of his detention.

In its general aspect, during the processing of this case—and directly related to the victim's detention—Nelson Patricio Valdés Cornejo testified before the Court on November 17, 1991. He stated that, in 1973, he had been Chief of the San Antonio Investigations Service and that he did not participate in torture or detentions.

He claimed to have gone to the Tejas Verdes Regiment only to verify if there were any habitual criminals among the political prisoners and that he was easily recognizable because he had been president of a sports club in Cartagena.

The submission of the summary that had been carried out at the Medical Association against Dr. Vittorio Orvieto, recognized by numerous witnesses as a torturer at Tejas Verdes, was also requested. Likewise, the summons of Roberto Araya Silva, an announcer for Radio Sargento Aldea in San Antonio who was seen in a military uniform accompanying the former DINA Chief, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, was requested.

A series of actions were also carried out for the different cases under investigation, and in 1992, the case was still in progress with pending actions. The body of Víctor Fernando Mesina Araya had not been exhumed from the San Antonio Parish Cemetery because the exact location of the burial could not be determined.

Source: Corporation report

For the crimes of illicit association, qualified kidnapping, and the application of torture to prisoners at the Tejas Verdes camp, which occurred in 1973, the special judge for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, prosecuted a dozen former repressors, including the former head of the DINA, General Manuel Contreras, and the retired colonel and former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé.

Among those indicted—more than 40 years after committing these crimes—are Army officers, Carabineros officials, and members of the Investigations Police, who were identified as Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Klaudio Kosiel Horning, Pablo Quintana Salazar, Vittorio Orvietto Tiplitzky, Ramón Carriel Espinoza, Rodolfo Vargas Contreras, Nelson Valdés Cornejo, Carlos Silva Salinas, and Bernardo Purto Yarch.

The Tejas Verdes camp, consisting of three facilities, was commanded by the then-Colonel Contreras. In October-November 1973, the training center for the nascent National Intelligence Directorate was installed there, where, under the command of Contreras and with instructors like Labbé, an estimated 500 repressors were trained.

Another of the facilities was intended for the detention of male and female prisoners, both from the areas surrounding San Antonio and those who were transferred from Santiago, mainly from Londres 38, as happened with Nelsa Gadea Galán, who has been disappeared since December 1974.

The third location was the basement of the officers' club at the Tejas Verdes regiment, where interrogations were carried out and the detained men and women were used in the training of new agents.

The prosecution ordered by Judge Cifuentes includes a small number of the victims who were murdered, disappeared, and tortured at the site. The former repressors are indicted for the victims identified as Óscar Gómez Farías, Ceferino Santis Quijada, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Jorge Cornejo Carvajal, Jorge Ojeda Jara, Víctor Mesina Araya, Florindo Vidal Hinojosa, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Aquiles Jara Álvarez, Jenaro Mendoza Villavicencio, Carlos Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Galaz Vera, and Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander.

Retired Colonel Labbé, who was also a DINA agent and a member of the personal security detail of the late General Augusto Pinochet, has been accused of being a member of the illicit association organized to commit these crimes.

The former UDI mayor of Providencia was held at the Army Telecommunications Command in the Peñalolén commune; that same day he also changed his lawyer and appointed the former head of Patria y Libertad, Pablo Rodríguez Grez. From his position as mayor of the Santiago commune, Labbé organized a tribute to former DINA officer Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko in November 2011.

Meanwhile, the director of the Human Rights Program, Francisco Ugás, announced that he would request the expansion of the accusations against Labbé, who is indicted only for illicit association. Ugás explained that there are testimonies from victims and former military personnel that place Labbé as a participant in torture sessions, supervising interrogations of prisoners, in addition to having instructed the repressors. "We requested his prosecution not only for that crime but also for other crimes that we believe should be imputed to him, such as his criminal participation as a co-author in 8 simple kidnappings, his participation as a co-author of 5 crimes of qualified kidnapping, his participation as a co-author of 13 crimes of application of torture, and likewise for his participation as a co-author of 8 crimes of qualified homicide," said the lawyer.

Source: londres38.cl 10/21/2014 Date: 10-21-2014

Labbé confirms his candidacy for Providencia despite judicial process and announces he will attend tribute to Pinochet

Although he is being prosecuted for illicit association in a human rights case and the UDI candidacy of Evelyn Matthei for Providencia—offered by the UDI itself—was confirmed, the retired Colonel, former DINA member, and former mayor of Providencia for 4 consecutive terms, Cristián Labbé, indicated that he maintains his intention to run for mayor of the Providencia commune and would go to primaries with Matthei, who recently made her candidacy official.

The previous UDI candidate for the commune was former Piñera Minister Gabriel Ruiz Tagle, who decided to drop his candidacy due to the link between one of his companies and the "Comfort Cartel." Labbé indicated that the prosecution for Tejas Verdes would not prevent him from running because justice will act in his favor:

"There is a political issue involved here. I am being prosecuted for illicit association, and I want them to explain to me what it means to have been part of or promoted an illicit association at 23 years old.

That means saying that the Army is an illicit association. In that case, I am very clear and very calm that justice will operate in the right way; I have the greatest confidence in justice. I believe that, in the end, everything will be favorable to me, and that is why I have the conviction and the strength to maintain my candidacy to the finish."

On the other hand, the former DINA member has announced his participation on November 25 in the tribute to the Dictator for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of his birth, organized by the Pinochet Foundation at the Los Boldos estate in Santo Domingo.

Labbé regularly participates in these types of tributes; however, it takes on a different character as part of the strategy for his candidacy, which seeks to target right-wing sectors linked to the military world and their role in what they call the "refounding of Chile."

Retired Colonel Cristián Labbé, a member of the National Intelligence Directorate during the Military Dictatorship, is being prosecuted for human rights violations in an investigation that seeks to determine his participation as an author of "Criminal Illicit Association" in the case of the kidnapping and qualified homicide of 13 people who were held at the Tejas Verdes Regiment concentration camp.

This concerns the formation of a hierarchical group starting on September 11, 1973, composed of officials from the Armed Forces, Carabineros, Investigations Police, and civilians at the Tejas Verdes Regiment, where people opposed to the regime were kept deprived of liberty and were tortured and executed.

The victims are

Ceferino Santis Quijada, Jorge Ojeda Jara, Jenaro Mendoza Villavicencio, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Óscar Gómez Farías, Jorge Cornejo Carvajal, Miguel Ángel Moyano Santander, Florindo Vidal Hinojosa, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Aquiles Jara Álvarez, Carlos Carrasco Cáceres, Carlos Galaz Vera, and Víctor Mesina Araya.

Prior to that, Labbé's lawyer had filed an amparo appeal arguing that he only participated as a "physical education teacher," which contrasts with the versions provided by several of the victims who point to him as an instructor and supervisor of torture.

The appeal was rejected by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. In October of this year, his prosecution was ratified by the Supreme Court, and this November 12, it was confirmed by the San Miguel Court of Appeals.

Source: Elciudadano.com 2016