Vidal Riquelme Ibáñez, a merchant, father of one, and sympathizer of the Unidad Popular, was detained on September 16, 1973, at approximately 10:00 a.m., after he presented himself to the Melozal Sur Carabineros station—the locality where he lived—in compliance with an order issued by the police authority.

He was accompanied during this process by his friend Alonso Camos Morales, who informed the family of what had occurred.

The family members are unaware of the reasons the police had for issuing the order to report to the station, or for keeping him detained. Although Vidal Riquelme was a sympathizer of the Unidad Popular government, he did not participate in any political party of the overthrown government, nor did he engage in union or trade activities.

He was exclusively dedicated to his animal trading activities at the San Javier Fair.

On the same day of his arrest, his wife, Rosa Norambuena Sepúlveda, heard on Radio Centenario of San Javier that several detainees had been killed at the Loncomilla Bridge while attempting to escape from the patrol guarding them. Among those mentioned were Vidal Riquelme, Cesario Soto, and Rubén Acevedo.

Upon learning this tragic news, the victims' families obtained authorization to search the Loncomilla River in order to find the bodies. Despite all the efforts of the families of the three aforementioned individuals, it was only possible to find the remains of Cesario Soto, three days after the events occurred and quite a distance from the Loncomilla Bridge.

However, other lifeless bodies were also found, including those of Rubén Acevedo and Gerardo Encina, who were well-known people in the area and had also been detained.

While this search was being conducted, with divers brought in specifically for the task, an aircraft flew permanently over the area at a low altitude, carrying armed personnel who monitored them with binoculars.

It should be noted that the bodies found had bullet holes in their backs and their chests were destroyed.

Furthermore, both Carabineros and military personnel patrolling the area intimidated the locals and ordered them that if they found any body in the river, they were to sink it again.

Despite all this evidence, the officer in charge of the Carabineros station, Sergeant Mella, informed the family members that Vidal Riquelme had been handed over to the military patrol.

According to the testimony of a detainee from that period, Osvaldo Norambuena, the procedure used with prisoners was first an interrogation under torture inside the police facility, and then they were handed over to the military, who would transport them to the hills and apply the so-called "Escape Law," subsequently throwing them into the Loncomilla River.

Despite all efforts made to find Vidal Riquelme or his remains, he was not found and has remained forcibly disappeared since then.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

The family took steps with local authorities without achieving positive results regarding the fate of the victim. It was not until 1991 that they reported the events to the Courts of Justice, initiating an investigation in the San Javier Court, case file 33.194, which was in the early stages of processing at the time of this report.

Source: Corporation report

Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared and Political Executions valued the symbolism of the work. "The wait in time" was inaugurated on the Alameda of Talca. Under the name "The wait in time," authorities of the Maule Region inaugurated a memorial in honor of the victims of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which was unveiled this Saturday on the Alameda of Talca.

It is a project sponsored by the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared and Political Executions, whose president, Myrna Troncoso, pointed out that this sculpture, in some way, represents an act of reparation.

"Our issue is the constant concern, as I have said, for truth, justice, and memory, and this is also an act of reparation for the victims and for the families," she stated.

"If we forget the past, things repeat themselves. Our struggle is not only for our relatives, but so that no family ever again has to suffer what we suffered," she added.

The work was presented to the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security, which provided financing of thirty million pesos and commissioned the artist Graciela Albridi to sculpt the site.

The initiative aims to recover historical memory as a tribute to those who suffered human rights violations during the dictatorship.

Source: cooperativa.cl 06/28/2014 Date: 06-28-2014

Human Rights: $250 million compensation for victims' families annulled

The Eighth Chamber of the capital's appellate court reduced the sentences against two former uniformed officers convicted in the first instance by the special judge Jorge Zepeda, giving them the possibility of serving them in freedom. Likewise, it nullified the millionaire payment to one of the victims' children that the State Treasury was to assume.

In a unanimous decision, the Eighth Chamber of the Court of Appeals nullified the millionaire compensation set by a judge who handles cases of human rights violations committed during the military regime, while simultaneously reducing the sentences that had been applied in the first instance.

The appellate court annulled a resolution by special judge Jorge Zepeda, who had ordered the State Treasury to pay reparations to the families of three peasants from the San Javier area, Seventh Region, who were kidnapped and murdered after the 1973 coup d'état.

Thus, the court, composed of judges Sonia Araneda and Raúl Rocha, along with lawyer Ángel Cruchaga, accepted the plea of incompetence argued by the State Defense Council (CDE) against the civil portion of Judge Zepeda's resolution.

"The Criminal judge is disqualified, due to a lack of jurisdiction, from hearing civil indemnity actions arising from facts other than those that caused the criminal classification," the judicial resolution states.

On January 14, Judge Zepeda had ordered the State Treasury to pay 250 million pesos to one of the children of the victims of these crimes, as a way to amend the damage caused by State agents.

Reduction of sentences

The appellate court also reduced the sentences issued by the first-instance magistrate against the Army Colonel (Ret.) and former governor of Linares, Claudio Abdón Lecaros Carrasco, from nine to five years in prison, as the perpetrator of the kidnappings resulting in the homicide of Cesário del Carmen Soto González and Rubén Acevedo Gutiérrez, in addition to the aggravated kidnapping of Vidal del Carmen Riquelme Ibáñez.

Meanwhile, it reduced the sentence against the former Carabineros non-commissioned officer José Basilio Muñoz Pozo, from six to five years in prison, also as the perpetrator of the kidnappings resulting in the homicide of Soto González and Acevedo Gutiérrez, in addition to the aggravated kidnapping of Riquelme Ibáñez.

Additionally, it granted both the possibility of availing themselves of the benefits of Law 18.216, that is, the conditional remission of the sentence. This means that these sentences may be served in freedom by the convicted individuals.

The court confirmed the definitive dismissal of charges against non-commissioned officer (Ret.) Omar Antonio Mella, who was cleared of charges during the plenary stage of the process instructed by Zepeda.

The crimes occurred in the area of the bridge over the Loncomilla River, four days after the military coup. The three peasants and union leaders presented themselves voluntarily to the authorities after being summoned by military decrees due to their recognized sympathy for the Unidad Popular.

Source: elmostrador.cl 11/09/2005 Date: 11-09-2005

Judge rejects applying amnesty and accuses two former uniformed officers

Special judge Jorge Zepeda issued indictments as perpetrators of two kidnappings with disappearance and one kidnapping with homicide against Army officer Claudio Lecaros Carrasco and Carabineros non-commissioned officer José Basilio Muñoz Pozo.

Special judge Jorge Zepeda dismissed the application of the Amnesty Law and the statute of limitations in the process he is substantiating for two kidnappings with disappearance and one kidnapping with homicide recorded on September 16, 1973, in the town of Melozal, inside San Javier, in the Seventh Region.

The magistrate issued indictments as perpetrators of the aforementioned crimes against Army officer Claudio Lecaros Carrasco and Carabineros non-commissioned officer José Basilio Muñoz Pozo.

The cases refer to the aggravated kidnappings of Vidal Riquelme Ibáñez and Cesáreo Soto, who presented themselves voluntarily on September 15, 1973, to the El Melozal Carabineros station, from where they were transported by military personnel from the Linares Artillery School.

On the night of September 16, both were taken to the Loncomilla bridge area, where they were last seen.

Meanwhile, Rubén Antonio Acevedo Gutiérrez, who followed the same path as the other two detainees, was found with three bullet holes and a wound in his leg.

The lawyer for the Foundation for Social Assistance and Christian Churches (Fasic), Nelson Caucoto, described the magistrate's decision as being of "extraordinary importance," since "the non-application of amnesty and the statute of limitations not only derives from the permanent nature of the crime of kidnapping, but there are other foundations derived from International Law, which likewise prevent the application of that regulation of exemption from criminal responsibility."

The jurist explained that cases of forcibly disappeared persons remain outside the scope of amnesty and the statute of limitations. "Also excluded are those executed or crimes of homicide, when these are inserted within the framework of a brutal and systematic political repression, such as the one that occurred in Chile, since in that context, all those crimes acquire the quality of Crimes against International Law, whether they are war crimes or crimes against humanity," he affirmed.

The jurist maintained that "it is an advance that the appropriate terminology is used as Judge Zepeda does, calling these crimes Crimes Against Humanity. Likewise, it is significant that for him, there are no proper or improper amnesties, and that he refuses to configure them as homicides when the bodies have not been found."

In the opinion of the plaintiff lawyer, "this resolution is one more sign that our judges are beginning to move directly through International Law as other countries do, resorting to that law that the world community has given itself to resolve this type of crime."

"We are facing a resolution that places us in full modernity and that incorporates the legal baggage used in all countries on earth, of which Chile cannot be an exception," he pointed out.

Once the investigation was concluded, the magistrate issued an indictment against the former military personnel and dismissed the request of the defense of the accused, who had raised an exception of prior and special pronouncement consisting of the request for the application of amnesty and the statute of limitations.

Judge's arguments

1.- Regarding the aggravated kidnappings of Vidal Riquelme and Cesáreo Soto, these are permanent crimes, so as long as it is not known what ultimately happened to them, it is not possible to apply the amnesty of Decree Law 2191. 2.- It is not possible to accept, as the defense of the accused assert, that despite the bodies of the victims not having been found, their homicides can be presumed; because it has not been proven that the alleged deaths actually occurred, and even less that they were caused by the action of the accused, which could only be determined after their remains have been found, their identification supported, and the causes of death established through sufficient technical reports. 3.- Based on the same reasoning, the exceptions of amnesty and the statute of limitations are rejected. The commission of those aggravated kidnapping crimes has not yet ceased, and to this day the victims are disappeared, which prevents, given the continuity of the crimes, determining if they fall within the amnesty period, as well as starting the corresponding count from when they ceased to be committed, to determine the statute of limitations of the action. 4.- Regarding the aggravated homicide of Rubén Antonio Acevedo Gutiérrez and the aggravated kidnapping of Cesáreo Soto and Vidal Riquelme, it is verified that normatively, these cases are in the presence of what the human legal conscience has come to call crimes against humanity. 5.- Indeed, there are presumptions in all those crimes of the responsibility of State agents, who acted moved by reasons of political persecution, forming part of a generalized and systematic attack against the civilian population, of which the victims were a part. The realization of incriminating types for harmful conduct against humanity is generated from subsection c) of Article 6 of the "Statute of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal," which defines Crimes against humanity, namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions for political, racial, or religious motives in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the tribunal, whether or not in violation of the national legislation where they were perpetrated. 6.- That in addition, the dogmatic heritage inherited from Nuremberg in this matter leads to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on humanitarian law, ratified by Chile in 1951 and which constitute law of the Republic. 7.- That the creation of a conventional obligation for the member states of the United Nations to adopt legal measures to abolish the statute of limitations for this type of crime is provided by the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, adopted in 1968. 8.- Crimes against humanity committed in both times of war and peace are imprescriptible. 9.- That imprescriptibility of Crimes Against Humanity currently emerges as a category of General International Law (Ius Cogens). 10.- Regarding the mandatory nature of the "Ius Cogens" norm regarding the aforementioned imprescriptibility, in our legal system, it is the Constitution that recognizes it in Article 5, second paragraph, and allows for the possibility of incorporating it. 11.- Consequently, there is a prevalence of the international norm of General International Law that determines that amnesty and statute of limitations laws invoked as an exception of prior and special pronouncement in this case are incompatible with it, because this is determined by international law validly incorporated into the national legal system.

Source: November 25, 2004 El Mostrador Date: 11-25-2004