This is due to the crime of qualified kidnapping of Nicza Báez and the disappearance of her husband in Copiapó. They were blindfolded, interrogated, and tortured, with only the woman managing to regain her freedom.

The Human Rights Brigade of the Investigative Police (PDI) arrested seven retired military and police officers for the detention and torture of a woman, Nicza Báez, and the disappearance of her husband in Copiapó in 1975.

The detainees had active arrest warrants for the crime of qualified kidnapping, issued by the Court of Appeals of La Serena, and three of them have prior police records. The former officials were placed at the disposal of the aforementioned Court and are: Patricio Sergio Román Herrera, retired Army Brigadier; Hernán Ernesto Portillo Aranda, retired Army Sergeant Major; Juan Artemio Valderrama Molina, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel; José del Carmen Quintanilla Fernández, retired Army Sergeant; Felipe Luis Guillermo González Astorga, retired Army Sergeant Major; and Erasmo Francisco Vega Sobarzo, retired Army Sergeant Major. In addition to them is Pedro Eduardo Vivian Guaita, a retired Carabineros Sergeant. The accused detained the victim and her husband in 1975, taking them to the guardroom of a military facility in Copiapó, where they were separated. They were subsequently reunited and taken to the second floor of the 23rd Motorized Infantry Regiment, where they were blindfolded, interrogated, and tortured, with only Báez managing to regain her freedom.

Source: cooperativa.cl, April 15, 2014

Former State agents sentenced for qualified kidnapping of a Copiapó resident during the dictatorship

The Ninth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, composed of ministers Patricio Villarroel, María Soledad Melo, and Ana Cienfuegos, issued a second-instance sentence for the qualified kidnapping of Pedro Acevedo Gallardo, which occurred starting April 28, 1975, in Copiapó.

The court determined a sentence of 5 years in prison, granting the benefit of supervised release to former State agents Patricio Román Herrera, Pedro Vivian Guaita, and Francisco León Jammet. This was due to the consideration of the "half-prescription" figure to reduce the ruling of minister Mario Carroza, who on November 18 had sentenced agents Román Herrera and Vivian Guaita to 6 years in prison and León Jammet to three years and one day in prison.

According to the investigation's findings, on April 28, 1975, officials belonging to the Army and Carabineros de Chile raided the property and detained Pedro Gabriel Acevedo Gallardo, then transferred him to the 23rd Infantry Regiment of the same city, where, after being interrogated, he was detained and placed in a room.

After a few days, his family members were informed that the detainee had escaped from the military facility and that his whereabouts were unknown. However, to this date, Pedro Acevedo Gallardo remains forcibly disappeared.

Source: soycopiapo.cl, July 15, 2014

Order issued for 11 retired military officers to enter Punta Peuco for human rights violations

Former CNI agents were sentenced amid the debate over the facility's overcrowding.

The visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, ordered this Wednesday the entry into the Punta Peuco Penitentiary Center of 11 retired military officers.

The judge confirmed the Supreme Court's sentence of August 4, sentencing former National Intelligence Center (CNI) agents Hernán Vásquez Villegas and Álvaro Corbalán Castilla—who was already in Punta Peuco—to 15 years and one day for the homicide of Enzo Muñoz Arévalo.

Likewise, Carroza ordered the entry into Punta Peuco of Ramsés Álvarez Sgolia, sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison for the homicide of Alonso Lazo. Meanwhile, the following former agents must serve 6 years: Patricio Román Herrera, Pedro Eduardo Vivian Guaita, Juan Valderrama, and Adolfo Lapostol.

For their part, Felipe González Astorga, Hernán Portillo Aranda, José Quintanilla Aranda, and Erasmo Vega Sobarzo must serve sentences of 5 years and one day in prison. Doubts about the penal facility Punta Peuco has been the target of criticism in recent months due to the conditions in which its inmates serve their sentences.

In fact, a report by the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), delivered a few weeks ago to the Ministry of Justice and also to the Gendarmerie, proposes a series of recommendations to modify the facility.

There has even been talk of its closure. Over the weekend, government spokesperson Marcelo Díaz assured that Punta Peuco meets the same conditions as other prisons in the country. However, he confirmed that the government is evaluating a possible closure of the prison and that it will be President Michelle Bachelet who makes that decision.

But one of the biggest current problems of the prison has to do with the number of people it houses, as the facility located in Til-Til would have a capacity for 112 inmates, and in August there were already 101 military officers serving their sentences there.

In any case, the director of the Gendarmerie, Tulio Arce, has already expressed previously that "Punta Peuco will reach its maximum capacity and we must evaluate in the rest of the country's prisons where we take them. We have not defined a particular prison."

Source: t13.cl, September 16, 2015

Punta Peuco inmate who had requested a pardon died at 76

His son Eduardo Vivian said that his father suffered from leukemia, dementia, and an intestinal problem. At 5:15 PM yesterday, and suffering from leukemia, Pedro Vivian Guaita, 76, passed away; he was serving a six-year sentence at the Punta Peuco prison for the qualified kidnapping of communist leader Pedro Acevedo.

His son, Eduardo Vivian, confirmed the death of the retired Carabineros sergeant and said that he remained in very poor condition: "He had an intestinal perforation, malnutrition, he could not be operated on (...).

He had dementia syndrome, kidney failure, and urinary infections." Vivian Guaita had requested a presidential pardon, which was not granted. Regarding this, his son Eduardo maintained that "my father's situation has been very traumatic, they closed all doors to us (...).

We waited for Bachelet's pardon and it never arrived." Eduardo Vivian added that his father "had been agonizing for three days and there was never a response to the pardon. We hit a wall of indifference." Vivian Guaita is also the fourth terminally ill patient to die while serving a sentence in Punta Peuco since 2016.

The others are Eugenio Fielhouse, who died of cancer in September 2016 and was serving a sentence of five years and one day for being an accomplice in the disappearance of three people in 1976; Gustavo Muñoz Albornoz, who passed away on February 28 at the Dipreca Hospital and was sentenced to 10 years and one day for kidnapping and torture in 1973 in Osorno; and José Mario Friz Esparza, who died this March 20 at 85 and was sentenced to 10 years for the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicide.

DEATH

Since 2016, four inmates have died while serving sentences in Punta Peuco.

Source: economiaynegocios.cl, March 26, 2017

The human rights-related rulings that could complicate the shortlist for the Supreme Court

In the coming days, President Boric must choose the replacement for minister Rosa Egnem on the Supreme Court of Justice. In accordance with the government's line, it is expected that the president will decide on a woman.

Therefore, the CVs of the three lawyers who make up the list become relevant, especially the rulings that have linked them to human rights cases, as is the case of María Soledad Melo. (*Editor's note at the end of the text).

The list of the five ministers proposed by the Supreme Court to replace the retired magistrate Rosa Egnem, who reached the maximum age to hold the position, is already in the hands of President Gabriel Boric.

The President must propose his choice to the Senate, which is responsible for ratification by two-thirds of its members in office. After hearing the 12 candidate ministers in a special telematic session, the plenary of the highest court proceeded to the required vote.

And the shortlist was formed on May 17 (in order of seniority) as follows: Sergio Mora Vallejos, minister of the Coyhaique Court of Appeals (included by right); Roberto Contreras Olivares, minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals; María Soledad Melo Labra, minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals; Jessica González Troncoso, minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals; and Marcia Undurraga Jensen, minister of the Valdivia Court of Appeals, who was included by lottery after having obtained the same number of votes as minister María Carolina Catepillán Lobos, of the San Miguel Court of Appeals.

In accordance with the government's definitions as feminist and egalitarian, and given the current composition of the Court (21 members: 13 men and 8 women), it is expected that President Boric will lean toward one of the three lawyers.

Among them, the favorite of the Supreme Court members would be María Soledad Melo Labra (who has already been on other shortlists), a member of the Santiago Court of Appeals since 2010, who has participated in high-profile human rights cases.

Among them, the acquittal of 6 retired army officers for their responsibility in the crime of embezzlement of public funds in the so-called Riggs case (June 2017), at the same time that the return of the money and assets confiscated from the family of the late former dictator Augusto Pinochet was ordered.

The above was in a split decision by the Third Chamber of the appellate court, composed of ministers María Soledad Melo—to whom the dissenting vote belongs—Jaime Balmaceda, and Maritza Villadangos. On the other hand, in December 2019, when the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced two former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, to 10 years and one day in prison for their responsibility in the qualified homicide of Fernando Abraham Valenzuela Rivera (November 1974).

The document adds: "It is noted that minister Ms. Melo was in favor of accepting the mitigating factor of half-prescription alleged by the defenses (...)". That is, she was in favor of half-prescription for the murderers.

Another candidate on the shortlist, Jessica González, also participated in this ruling. She was also in favor of half-prescription as part of the Ninth Chamber of the appellate court—also composed of ministers Patricio Villarroel and Ana Cienfuegos—which determined the sentence of 5 years in prison, granting the benefit of supervised release, for former State agents: Patricio Román Herrera, Pedro Vivian Guaita, and Francisco León Jamett.

They were in favor of reducing the ruling issued by minister Mario Carroza, who had sentenced agents Román Herrera and Vivian Guaita to 6-year prison terms, and León Jamett to three years and one day. For her part, Jéssica González stands out for having been in charge of the Karadima case, where she investigated the abuses of the former parish priest of El Bosque.

Minister Marcia Undurraga Jensen began her judicial career as Secretary of the Valdivia Court of Law; subsequently, she was a Rapporteur for the Valdivia Court of Appeals. After other important assignments, she assumed the presidency of the Rancagua Court of Appeals and now serves in the Valdivia Court of Appeals.

Retirement at 70 This election takes place amid the discussion on the transitional rules in the Constitutional Convention, which has proposed the retirement of magistrates upon reaching 70 years of age.

But it was agreed that as long as the new Magna Carta does not enter into force, the current deadlines in the current Constitution will be respected. That is, it is established that "the cessation of functions at 70 years of age will not be applicable to judges who, on the date of entry into force of this Constitution, are part of the Primary Scale of the Judiciary." Thus leaving behind the possible departure of the Supreme Court ministers.

In this way, the person chosen by the President will be able to remain as a Supreme Court magistrate until the age of 75. It should be noted that the next appointments the current president must make are to replace minister Guillermo Silva this year, while in 2023 he should do the same with Haroldo Brito and Jorge Dahm.

A year later, Juan Eduardo Fuentes, and in 2025 María Teresa Letelier must end her career. *Editor's Note: The original title of this note, "Ghosts of Pinochet and Krassnoff hit favoritism of minister Soledad Melo for the Supreme Court," was modified after its publication since the allusion to Pinochet came from information that was outright wrong and which this media outlet, through this act, corrects and places on record: The deleted title was replaced by the following: "The human rights-related rulings that could complicate the shortlist for the Supreme Court." Editor's Note: The sub-headline and part of the text of this publication were modified after their publication, as they rest on the same error, specifically when it was pointed out that "minister María Soledad Melo is weighed down by rulings favorable to the Pinochet family, in which the seized money and confiscated assets were returned to them." This paragraph is not only wrong but also minister Melo's participation in this ruling was in a minority vote, meaning she was against returning the assets to the Pinochet family and not the other way around, as was maintained in the original note.

Source: elmostrador.cl, June 10, 2022

Convictions confirmed against eight former members of the Army for human rights crimes committed during the dictatorship

The Supreme Court confirmed the convictions that had been issued against eight former military officers for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of university student Nicza Estrella Báez Mondaca, committed between November 1975 and June 1976 in the cities of Copiapó, La Serena, and Santiago.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 33.661-2019), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and the lawyer (i) Ricardo Abuauad—rejected the cassation appeals and ruled out any error of law in the sentence that convicted the former Army officials Patricio Sergio Román Herrera, Juan Artemio Valderrama Molina, Adolfo Nicolás Lapostol Sprovera, Felipe Luis Guillermo González Astorga, Hernán Ernesto Portillo Aranda, José del Carmen Quintanilla Fernández, Erasmo Francisco Vega Sobarzo, and Héctor Florentino Navarrete Jara as perpetrators of the crime. However, in this case, the 5-year prison sentence only has a criminal record and social effect, as the criminals were granted supervised release for the same period. The criminal act of kidnapping and torture was perpetrated in November 1975 in the city of Copiapó by agents of the so-called Regional Intelligence Center (CIRE) of the Third Region, composed of Army and Carabineros personnel, especially by personnel from the second section of the 23rd Motorized Infantry Regiment of Copiapó, under the direction of the Commander of said Regiment, who also served as Regional Intendant, and under the operational command of an Army captain. This repressive body concentrated actions of persecution against left-wing militants and resistance to the dictatorship, as well as the detention and torture of political prisoners. In the case of this lawsuit, the plaintiff, former political prisoner Nicza Báez Mondaca, and her husband Alonso Lazo Rojas, at the date these events occurred, were students at the University of Chile in La Serena, with active participation in the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), for which they were intensely sought by intelligence agents of the "Arica" Regiment of La Serena, who carried out various raids on both their home and that of their relatives; some of them were even captured and interrogated in order to obtain information about their whereabouts. To evade persecution and harassment, the young couple chose to move to the city of Huasco, then they went to Vallenar, and finally they settled in Copiapó, in order to hide and avoid being apprehended. However, they were detained on November 14, 1975, by CIRE agents and taken to the Regiment's facility in that city. There, they were interrogated separately and jointly, being subjected to constant torture. The victim, Nicza Báez Mondaca, after the interrogations, was separated from her husband, and he was finally forcibly disappeared, as there has never been any news of his whereabouts since. For the kidnapping and disappearance of Alonso Lazo Rojas, these same criminals were convicted in August 2015 (Patricio Sergio Román Herrera, Juan Artemio Valderrama Molina, and Adolfo Nicolás Lapostol Sprovera to a 6-year prison sentence, while Felipe Luis Guillermo González Astorga, Hernán Ernesto Portillo Aranda, José del Carmen Quintanilla Fernández, and Erasmo Francisco Vega Sobarzo to a sentence of 5 years and 1 day in prison). After fifteen days of constant anguish due to the confinement and torture received, they decided to transfer the prisoner to Santiago along with other detainees. But on the way, they made a stop at the "Arica" Regiment of La Serena, where agents of the second section of that city's Regiment renewed the interrogations and torture. The victim's transfer finally concluded at the Cuatro Álamos detention facility and then at the Tres Álamos detention center, where she was kept prisoner until June 1976, the date on which she regained her freedom and decided to go into exile.

Source: resumen.cl, July 28, 2022