The accused are military personnel who had not previously been prosecuted for human rights cases.

For the Army, the conscripts are still considered deserters to this day. The Fourth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals unanimously resolved to prosecute military personnel Juan Iván Vidal Ogueta, Sergio Mercado Valenzuela, Luis Guillermo Carrera Bravo, Horacio Hugo Camillieri Soto, Hernán Alejandro de la Fuente Iribarra, Eulogio Carrasco Carrasco, and José Miguel Ortega Blu as perpetrators of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and homicide to the detriment of Amador Pantoja Rivera and Juan Francisco Peña Fuenzalida, both third-year high school students.

In October 1974, both were performing their military service at the Rancagua Regiment in Arica, with a posting in the town of Putre. According to the judicial resolution issued by ministers Dobra Lusic, Manuel Valderrama, and the participating lawyer María Victoria Valencia, on October 3, 1974, both conscripts were illegally deprived of their liberty by military personnel from the Rancagua regiment in Putre, only to be subsequently transferred as prisoners to the regiment's central barracks in Arica, where they were subjected to interrogations and torture.

Later, on an undetermined date, without having regained their freedom and while defenseless at the hands of the perpetrators, both were executed by members of the same institution, who proceeded to bury their bodies in the vicinity of the Lauca park.

According to the Court, the described events are covered by the norms contained in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, ratified by Chile and in force at the date of the crime. Nelson Caucoto, a lawyer for FASIC and a plaintiff in the case, stated that "this resolution comes to deliver justice after so many years in which the conscripts' families are still waiting for their sons to return, who were serving their country, and have never until now received official information regarding the matter." Caucoto added "that if the Army were consulted today about these conscripts, the updated official information would say 'that they deserted,' meaning they escaped from the army, which has been proven to be an immense institutionalized lie that must be corrected. The conscripts are not in a state of desertion; rather, they were murdered by the military personnel who had them under their custody and protection, who, after taking their lives, illegally buried them only to finally exhume them in the same manner to make their remains disappear." Minister Juan Guzmán, who instructed the case before it was taken over by Minister Joaquín Billard, visited the site in Putre where the bodies had been buried, finding only skeletal remains that allowed for the identification of both conscripts after they were removed from that location. The accused are military personnel who had not previously been prosecuted for human rights cases. Minister Joaquín Billard must issue arrest warrants for these military personnel so they may be notified of this resolution.

Source: Fasic.org, October 21, 2008

Minister Vicente Hormazábal prosecutes retired Army members for the aggravated kidnapping of a Uruguayan citizen in Arica

In the resolution, Minister Hormázabal indicted retired Army officials Juan Iván Vidal Ogueta and Luis Guillermo Carrera Bravo as perpetrators of the crime. The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the La Serena Court of Appeals, Vicente Hormazábal, issued an indictment in the investigation he is conducting regarding the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Uruguayan citizen Mónica Benaroyo Penco.

The illicit act was perpetrated starting in late 1973 in the city of Arica. In the resolution (case file 64.428-Arica), Minister Hormázabal indicted retired Army officials Juan Iván Vidal Ogueta and Luis Guillermo Carrera Bravo as perpetrators of the crime.

According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, the visiting minister established that Mónica Benaroyo Penco was detained in Arica by officers of the Investigative Police on September 14, 1973, remaining at the city's police investigation barracks for 6 days, before being placed at the disposal of the Army's Military Prosecutor's Office, which ordered her entry into the city's public jail, granting her release on September 25.

However, the victim did not return to her place of residence; on the contrary, between October and December 1973, "she was seen detained and being tortured in the facilities of the Department or Section II of the Rancagua Regiment." This was the section where Lieutenant Juan Vidal Ogueta and Second Sergeant Luis Carrera Bravo performed operational duties.

On July 16, 2008, skeletal remains of Benaroyo Penco were found in a military facility located in the "Pampa Chaca Oeste" sector of the city. Vidal Ogueta and Carrera Bravo are currently serving sentences as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping in the "Arica Conscripts Episode" case, at the Punta Peuco prison and the Arica Penitentiary Complex, respectively.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, March 6, 2019

Former Army officer convicted for the crime against a Uruguayan citizen in Arica

In 2008, Mónica Benaroyo's body was found decapitated inside a military facility south of the city.

Former Army Colonel Juan Iván Vidal Ogueta was sentenced to ten years and one day by Minister Vicente Hormazábal of the La Serena Court of Appeals as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Uruguayan citizen Mónica Cristina Benaroyo Penco, an event that occurred in September 1973 in Arica.

Following the ruling, the Women, Memory and Human Rights Organization of Arica held a symbolic act in honor of Benaroyo Penco, who was kidnapped and murdered by State agents. In 2008, Mónica Benaroyo's body was found decapitated inside a military facility south of Arica.

Thus, Ana Miles—a Uruguayan citizen who has lived in our city for 20 years—arrived at the front of the former Arica public jail, declared a Site of Memory, to pay tribute to Mónica Benaroyo, calling for "never again and never again oblivion." "She was executed in September 1973; her body was found decapitated.

Her body returned to Uruguay two years later, where it is buried, but only today, 50 years after her death, is there a conviction in which there is only one culprit, given that he is alive and the other people who participated are dead... never again to these events, and the other thing is never again to oblivion.

Justice arrived, it arrived late, but I believe that not forgetting is part of the commitment of those of us who are here," Miles noted. Carolina Videla, president of the Women, Memory and Human Rights Organization, while conveying the organization's feelings of solidarity to Mónica Benaroyo's family, called for the implementation of the National Search Plan for Victims of Forced Disappearance. "We want to convey, as an organization, our feelings of solidarity also to all of Mónica Benaroyo's families in Uruguay and, as an organization, regarding what is happening 50 years after the Civil-Military coup d'état, 50 years later, a culprit has been declared and sentenced to 10 years and one day for aggravated kidnapping, and our energetic call to all pertinent and incumbent institutions to immediately set in motion the National Search Plan for Victims of Forced Disappearance announced by President Gabriel Boric. And this is urgent, because there are more than 1,400 people who are in the status of forcibly disappeared," stated Videla.

CONVICTION

Former Army Colonel Juan Iván Vidal Ogueta was sentenced by Minister Vicente Hormazábal of the La Serena Court of Appeals to 10 years and one day of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Uruguayan citizen Mónica Cristina Benaroyo Penco, an event that occurred in September 1973 in Arica.

The other culprits—all military personnel belonging to the Intelligence Service of the "Rancagua" Regiment, agents of Section II of that military unit—are deceased. According to the records of case file 64.428, Mónica Cristina Benaroyo Penco, 48 years old, was living in Arica when she was detained by Investigative Police officers on September 14, 1973, and taken to the now-former public jail and site of memory on September 20.

She was later removed from that prison facility by military personnel belonging to the Intelligence Service of the "Rancagua" Regiment, agents of the so-called Section II of that military unit. The Arica regiment was under the command of then-Colonel Odlanier Mena Salinas, who years later directed the National Intelligence Center (CNI), a repressive entity in which the now-convicted Juan Vidal Ogueta also held hierarchical functions, operating in Santiago as head of the anti-subversive division.

In an Investigative Police report, along with the accounts of witnesses, statements from prison guards, carabineros, and detainees who saw and shared time with Mónica Benaroyo in the prison, it is confirmed that she was entered into the Arica jail on September 20 at 15:20 hours.

It is also confirmed that she was removed from that facility on September 25 at 20:50 hours by military personnel. Statements from other surviving witnesses and former Army officials coincide in having seen her inside the "Rancagua" regiment for at least the following two months as a prisoner in facilities controlled by Section II of that unit.

Mónica Benaroyo's body was found decapitated in July 2008 in the Pampa Chaca sector, an area where the Army habitually conducted military exercises since before 1973. Items discovered next to her mortal remains, such as a cigarette pack, a lighter, etc., place her death at a time close to her detention.

The ruling states: "Even though there are indications, as already established when analyzing the cause of death, that the victim must have been executed by her captors, the truth is that since it has not been scientifically determined in a thorough manner that her death was due to a deliberate act by the kidnappers, it can be pointed out that, as established by the Legal Medical Service, there are indications of criminality, but they are not sufficient to classify them as aggravated homicide, which is the reason to establish that we are in the presence of an aggravated kidnapping."

Source: chasquis.cl, November 21, 2023

Minister Vicente Hormazábal convicts retired Army colonel for the aggravated kidnapping of a Uruguayan citizen

In the ruling, the visiting minister also applied to the former officer the legal accessories of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence.

The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the La Serena Court of Appeals, Vicente Hormazábal Abarzúa, convicted, with costs, retired Army Colonel Juan Iván Vidal Ogueta to 10 years and one day of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Uruguayan citizen Mónica Benaroyo Penco.

The illicit act was committed starting in September 1973 in the city of Arica. In the ruling (case file 64.428), the visiting minister also applied to the former officer the legal accessories of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification for professional titles for the duration of the sentence.

Regarding the civil aspect, Minister Hormazábal Abarzúa granted the claim for compensation for damages and ordered the state to pay a total sum of $40,000,000 (forty million pesos) for moral damages to the victim's niece.

In the resolution, Minister Hormazábal Abarzúa established that "(...) starting from September 11, 1973, on the occasion of the Military Coup, Ms. Mónica Benaroyo Penco was deprived of her liberty in the Arica Jail and was taken out of the prison one night, and nothing more was known of her; the declarants referred to Intelligence officials, especially Major Luis Aguayo Benard, head of Section II, and Sergeant Juan Cereceda, who wore civilian clothes and handled the entire matter with the political detainees in the facility, whom they interrogated inside the same prison or took out to testify at any hour of the day or night. That for the same period, it was ordered that a contingent of Carabineros go to reinforce the jail, assisting in the task of guarding detainees. That the above, added to the diverse statements of prison guards, carabineros, and detainees who saw and shared time with Mónica Benaroyo in the prison, evidence provided by the Investigative Police in a police report on page 1576, where Mónica Benaroyo Penco appears entering the Arica Prison on September 20, 1973, at 15:20 hours, and leaving on the 25th of the same month at 20:50 hours, information that, moreover, can be inferred at least formally from what is recorded in the complaint report on page 1 of case file 259/73, and in the Detainee Registry book of the Arica Penitentiary Compliance Center kept on page 213, in which, for the month of September 1973, the entry of Mónica Benaroyo Penco appears on the 20th of said month and her exit on the 25th." The resolution adds: "That the facts described in the preceding motives constitute the crime of aggravated kidnapping, in the consummated degree, provided for in article 141, paragraph 3 of the Penal Code, since from the detention and confinement of the victim Mónica Benaroyo Penco, which was initially carried out by officers of the Arica Investigative Police, being subsequently transferred to the Public Jail of said city by order of the Arica Military Prosecutor's Office, and then to Department II of the 'Rancagua' Regiment, her death resulted, possibly after December 1973, thus resulting in serious damage to the person or interests of the victim. In this regard, it is useful to consider the fact that the victim's mortal remains were found in the Pampa Chaca sector, which, according to deponents Darlio González Lattus, Eduardo Valdés Ormeño, José Bilbao Arancibia, Jorge Valdés Antúnez, Juvenal Soto González, Carlos Jiménez Pino, and Héctor Cerda Olivera, was an area where the Army habitually conducted military exercises since before 1973. Furthermore, certain elements discovered next to her mortal remains, such as the cigarette pack, a lighter, etc., place her death at a time close to her detention. That, even though there are indications, as already established when analyzing the cause of death, that the victim must have been executed by her captors, the truth is that since it has not been scientifically determined in a thorough manner that her death was due to a deliberate act by the kidnappers, it can be pointed out that, as established by the Legal Medical Service, there are indications of criminality, but they are not sufficient to classify them as aggravated homicide, which is the reason to establish that we are in the presence of an aggravated kidnapping, because in addition to the serious damage alluded to in the third paragraph of article 141 of the penal code, it is evident that it lasted much longer than the ninety days that said norm requires." "To regulate the quantum of the penalty that will be specifically imposed on the sentenced person, the nature of the crime—a crime against humanity—and the extent of the harm caused were taken into consideration, all in accordance with the provisions of article 69 of the Penal Code, given that the kidnapped person resulted in death. Likewise, the functions and powers that the accused exercised in the Military Intelligence Service or Department II or Section II of the 'Rancagua' Regiment of Arica and the power of command or decision he held have been considered," it adds.

Source: pjud.cl, November 3, 2023