The "Military Patrol Assault" case refers to a staged extremist attack on October 17, 1974, which was in reality the political execution of eight people and the subsequent disappearance of two of them.

The extraordinary visiting judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda Lillo, issued a conviction against several individuals implicated in the so-called "Military Patrol Assault" case, which occurred in Quillota on January 17, 1974.

The magistrate determined sanctions for the perpetrators of the crimes of kidnapping with grave injury committed against Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares, Pablo Gac Espinoza, Levy Segundo Arraño Sancho, Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, Osvaldo Mario Manzano Cortés, and Arturo Julio Loo Prado.

The sanctions are detailed as follows

• Ángel Custodio Torres Rivera: 6 years, without benefits.
• Sergio Carlos Arredondo González: 6 years, without benefits.
• Francisco Javier Pérez Egert: 5 years. Granted the benefit of supervised release.
• Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos: 5 years. Granted the benefit of supervised release.
• Daniel Javier Walker Ramos: 3 years and one day. Granted the benefit of supervised release.
• Pedro Alberto Durcurdoy Montandón: acquitted due to lack of participation.
• Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez: acquitted due to lack of participation.
• Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya: acquitted due to lack of participation.

Likewise, Judge Miranda Lillo determined to accept the civil claims filed and to order, jointly and severally, the State and the convicted individuals Ángel Custodio Torres Rivera, Sergio Carlos Arredondo González, Francisco Javier Pérez Egert, Daniel Javier Walker Ramos, and Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos to pay the plaintiffs acting on behalf of the nine victims of this investigation the amount of nine hundred million pesos ($900,000,000), corresponding, consequently, to the figure of one hundred million pesos ($100,000,000) for each of the victims.

This is the second conviction issued by Judge Miranda Lillo in human rights violation cases under his jurisdiction. Military Patrol Assault Case The "Military Patrol Assault" case refers to a staged extremist attack on October 17, 1974, which was in reality the political execution of eight people and the subsequent disappearance of two of them.

An official communiqué from the time reported that six prisoners died in a skirmish when extremist elements assaulted the patrol that was transporting them, under the command of then-Captain Francisco Pérez Egart.

The other two prisoners, the former mayor of Quillota, Pablo Gac Espinoza, and the CORA fiscal attorney, Rubén Cabezas Parés, were taken to the Cavalry School. The military command's communiqué reported that both had escaped.

Source: afepchile.cl, October 29, 2008

January 1974 remained in the memory of all well-born Chileans who noted with horror that the bloody dictatorship installed by force of arms four months earlier had come to stay, under the wing of the multi-millionaire oligarchy and the North American empire, and with the adherence of conservative politicians displaced by the will of the people.

Forty-five years ago, on Thursday, January 18, eight leftist militants were murdered in cold blood with machine-gun fire by Army soldiers in Quillota, in the interior of the Fifth Region, in what was initially presented as the application of the “escape law” following a supposed attack on a military patrol.

Six of them lost their lives at the San Isidro level crossing, where they had been taken from their place of detention, the dungeons of the city's regiment, without any charges against them. The patrol that transported and executed them was under the command of Captain Fernando Pérez Egart, seconded by officers Pedro Aldunate Durcodoy and Daniel Walker Ramos, and non-commissioned officer León Arraño Sancho.

The victims were social and neighborhood leaders, employees of state companies, independent workers, and small farmers. Without knowing why they were receiving such hatred, Víctor Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, Manuel Hurtado Martínez, Osvaldo Manzano Cortez, Julio Loo Prado, Ángel Díaz Castro, and Hugo Aranda Bruna died; they had been held in political imprisonment and torture since shortly after the coup d'état.

The other two were prominent members of the Socialist Party: Pablo Gac Espinoza, mayor of the commune, who performed outstandingly in favor of the population affected by the employers' strike of October 1972, and Rubén Cabezas Parés, a fiscal attorney for CORA who frequently argued before the Valparaíso Court of Appeals on behalf of peasants exploited by landowners who resisted the popular government's agrarian reform.

Gac and Cabezas were executed by firing squad in the courtyards of the military barracks, but their bodies were never returned to their families. Their names are on the list of the forcibly disappeared.

All the executions were carried out by order of the then-Lieutenant Colonel Sergio Arredondo González, director of the Quillota Cavalry School. He had assumed the position after being part of the "Caravan of Death," which, in its incursion through cities in the north and south of the country, murdered more than 70 people.

He was the second-in-command of that macabre caravan, emblematic of the state terrorism led by General Sergio Arellano Stark, who was sent by the dictator with a license to kill. Arredondo became Arellano's chief of staff and became his right-hand man.

Servile to the oligarchy, he thought there were too many Chileans with socialist convictions and, therefore, they had to be exterminated. Professing the harshest anti-Marxism, he had been one of the main instigators of the subversive uprising against the constitutional government from the leadership of the Army War Academy.

Without ever having collaborated with justice, this retired colonel of recognized cruelty always refused to acknowledge his crimes. He only said that "I don't remember well, because so much time has passed." Shamelessly, he stated that "we were living in a state of war, and it is probable that there was one or another execution." The so-called escape law served the coup-plotting military to cover up numerous murders committed in broad daylight, without leaving witnesses.

In that dark time, this was the greatest massacre perpetrated in the interior of the Fifth Region. Pleased to have fulfilled his mission of carrying out the execution of political prisoners outside of any legal process and receiving a juicy pension as a retired member of the Armed Forces, Arredondo died last year in Punta Peuco.

The fallen have been remembered especially in these days by their families, friends, and comrades in Quillota, with emotion and respect.

Source: politika.cl, January 26, 2019

Sentence increased for former military personnel for the death of dictatorship opponents

The Valparaíso Court of Appeals today increased to 10 years in prison the sentences of five retired military personnel for their participation in the death of nine opponents of the military dictatorship in the so-called "Patrol Assault" in January 1974 in the city of Quillota.

According to judicial sources, the second-instance ruling of the port city's appellate court establishes effective imprisonment without benefits for the former uniformed personnel. The so-called "Patrol Assault" dates back to January 18, 1974, when the military invented the escape of nine prisoners who were later executed by gunfire under the San Isidro bridge in Quillota.

The five convicted are the then-military governor of Quillota, Ángel Custodio Torres; the director of the Armored Cavalry School of Quillota, Sergio Arredondo; and retired uniformed personnel Francisco Pérez Egert, Daniel Walker Ramos, and Leonardo Quilodrán.

Ángel Custodio Torres and Sergio Arredondo were already sentenced by a judge in the first instance to six years of effective imprisonment last year, while the three retired uniformed personnel received sentences of five years of suspended imprisonment.

Thus, the Valparaíso Court of Appeals increased the sentences of the military personnel, a ruling that was received with satisfaction by Karina Fernández, a lawyer for the Ministry of the Interior's human rights program. "Given the magnitude of the damage suffered by the victims and their families, raising the sentences to 10 years, it seems to us that, as these are cases of forced disappearance and homicide, we are satisfied, because the sentences for these five convicted individuals have been increased," she specified.

Meanwhile, Eda Hurtado, daughter of Manuel Hurtado, one of those murdered, acknowledged that she expected even higher sentences for those responsible for the executions given "the magnitude of the crime," although she positively valued that the sentences of the five convicted individuals had been equalized.

Source: El Mostrador, August 28, 2009

Gac, Cabezas, and Arraño were thrown into the sea

The then-Army captain Daniel Walker allegedly delivered the "coup de grâce" to a prisoner who remained alive. The bodies of the nine victims had been taken from the site of the massacre to the Engineers Regiment.

According to an officer who provided testimony, when Walker realized that one was still alive, he ordered him to be loaded into a jeep and taken to the place where they had staged the fake "assault on the patrol," and there, on a pile of dirt, he shot him to death.

Afterward, they returned to the Regiment with the corpse. To this day, it is not known which of the victims was so coldly finished off by the uniformed officer.

These and other chilling details are established—thanks to witness statements—in the voluminous file of Case Rol No. 35.738, which is being investigated by the visiting judge Gabriela Corti for kidnapping and qualified homicide, referring to the episode wrongly called the "assault on the patrol," which in the early hours of January 18, 1974, left nine leftist militants dead in Quillota.

The background information flows from some thirty pages of the case file, a photocopy of which was provided to this media outlet by the son of one of the massacre's victims.

On that occasion, the military authority carried out a setup to kill the nine leaders and later maintain that the detainees were being transported from the Engineers Regiment to the Cavalry School, and that on the way, the patrol had been assaulted by "extremist elements," leaving six prisoners dead.

The remaining three—the former socialist mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza, the lawyer and socialist leader Rubén Cabezas Parés, and the peasant leader Levi Arraño Sancho, of the MAPU—had allegedly escaped, according to the official statement issued at the time.

Everything was planned

According to the background information gathered during the two years of investigations led by Judge Corti, the order to detain the militants and leftist leaders Manuel Hurtado, Hugo Aranda, Arturo Loo, Eduardo Manzano, Ángel Díaz, and Víctor Fuenzalida (some of whom were already in prison), along with Pablo Gac and Rubén Cabezas, was allegedly given by Colonel Sergio Arredondo González, who had been the operational chief of the "Caravan of Death"—which left a hundred dead throughout Chile—and who at the time was the director of the Cavalry School.

Levi Arraño had allegedly been detained since before that at the same School.

The massacre was allegedly planned in advance, with the participation—even—of civilians, who advised the military and collaborated by supporting the actions.

The nine prisoners were concentrated on the night of January 17, 1974, at the Engineers Regiment, where the officers and non-commissioned officers summoned for those purposes also arrived. The entire operation was allegedly in charge of the then-captain Francisco Pérez Egert.

Some of the participants acknowledge that they were summoned "only to collaborate in the transfer" of the prisoners from one military unit to another.

Grenades and machine-gun bursts

What is established is that at the Regiment itself, the three detainees who would be declared fugitives were separated from the remaining six. Everyone left after midnight in a caravan of four vehicles that headed along Yungay to Freire and from there to the Camino a San Isidro, which leads to the Cavalry School.

But meters from the railway underpass, the caravan stopped and Captain Pérez ordered all the detainees to get out, handcuffed as they were, placing them to the side of the vehicles. On each side of the road, about 80 meters from the site, military personnel were positioned to prevent the passage of vehicles.

Behind the scene of the massacre, a civilian watched from the house on his plot of land, with the mission of notifying the Cavalry School as soon as it had concluded.

At Captain Pérez's order, the explosion of grenades and bursts of machine-gun fire directed at the nine prisoners began. It was a matter of a few seconds; enough to murder the nine leaders and set fire to one of the caravan's jeeps, with which they intended to make the massacre appear as an "extremist assault on the patrol" that was transporting detainees.

Removal of the bodies

Once the shooting ended, Captain Pérez ordered the bodies to be picked up and taken back to the Regiment. There, after realizing that one of the executed men remained alive, the then-captain Daniel Walker ordered him to be loaded into a military vehicle to transport him personally to the place where the setup was carried out.

There, he had him placed on a pile of dirt and allegedly fired the coup de grâce.

Once the corpse was returned to the Engineers Regiment, it was ordered that the bodies of the three who would be declared fugitives be taken to the Cavalry School, from where, before ten o'clock the following morning, they were removed by a Navy helicopter to be thrown into the sea, off the coast of Quintero.

The remains of the other six murdered leaders were sent to the morgue of the Quillota Hospital, where doctors Jorge Abde (now deceased) and Orazio Bruzzone—who testified before the Judge—performed the autopsies. Subsequently, the corpses were handed over to the relatives in closed and sealed coffins by a funeral home chosen by the military themselves.

This entire procedure departed absolutely and arbitrarily from those that correspond judicially, because the military lifted the bodies without waiting for the forensic examinations of the Investigations police, which should have intervened immediately at the crime scene.

Everyone denies their participation

From the pieces of the file to which the victims' relatives and ZonaImpacto.cl had access, it flows that each of those involved and prosecuted in this case continues to systematically deny their participation, apparently respecting the already known "pact of silence." Colonel (ret.) Arredondo, who ordered the entire operation, claims to have arrived just that early morning, unaware of everything that had happened.

The then-captain Walker says he had no knowledge of what happened, as does his colleague Pedro Durcodoy, while Captain Pérez Egert also claims to have been passing by the place casually when he was surprised by the explosion of a grenade, which caused his vehicle to go off the road and caused him a traumatic brain injury and serious injuries to an arm.

He lost consciousness—he maintains—and therefore knows nothing of what occurred.

However, Judge Corti has obtained overwhelming evidence that allowed her to establish participation "as authors" of kidnappings and qualified homicides by the seven former military personnel and one former carabineer whom she indicted last July.

They are retired colonels Sergio Arredondo, Francisco Pérez, Pedro Durcodoy, and Daniel Walker; retired major Raúl Muñoz; senior non-commissioned officers Leonardo Quilodrán and Sergio Placencia, all from the Army; and retired senior non-commissioned officer of the Carabineros Laureano Hernández. With the exception of Colonel Arredondo, all those prosecuted obtained release on bail.

Thirty years later

As yesterday marked thirty years since the massacre that shocked—until now—life in the peaceful city of Quillota, the victims' relatives expressed themselves as very distressed after learning the details of what happened, but also somewhat relieved because they perceive that the diligent work of the Visiting Judge is managing to get decisively closer to establishing the whole truth, which will allow those responsible to be sanctioned.

Yesterday, Sunday, the day of the thirtieth anniversary of this cruel slaughter, the relatives and human rights organizations of Quillota remembered the date with an audiovisual exhibition next to the Monument to the Victims of Human Rights Violations, in the Plaza de Armas, and then a "candlelight vigil" in the same place.

Surprising encounter between the son of the murdered former Mayor and two of those prosecuted as authors of crimes

On the morning of last Wednesday, January 14, teacher Pedro Pablo Gac went to a commercial establishment in Quillota to photocopy part of the file on the homicides of his father—former mayor Pablo Gac—and eight other leftist militants, perpetrated on January 18, 1974.

He had promised to deliver said photocopy to this journalist for the writing of reports for this and other media outlets, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the massacre.

During the previous night and early morning, he had read the pages of the summary over and over again, and he was still shocked by the chilling details described therein.

While a clerk at the business was making his photocopies, he noticed with unusual surprise that at another machine, the official in charge was photocopying identical writings and parts of the same file.

After hesitating for a few minutes, he asked the clients who were carrying those documents who they were.

Moments later, still excited by the unusual encounter and in the calm of a café table, he tried to recover from the impression and organize his ideas.

"It was a short subject, with a mustache, about 65 years old, and another taller one, somewhat younger," he told ZonaImpacto.cl. "I asked them who they were and they introduced themselves, shaking my hand: one was the retired Army non-commissioned officer Sergio Placencia and the other, retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Laureano Hernández."

Two of those prosecuted as authors of the qualified kidnapping of his father, whose status as forcibly disappeared still remains. They are also being prosecuted for the kidnapping of Rubén Cabezas and Levi Arraño, along with the homicide of six other leftist militants.

They deny everything, everything...

Pedro Pablo Gac was extremely impressed by the attitude of the two defendants.

• They looked haggard, diminished. Nothing reflects in them the arrogant and overbearing subjects of before, those who detained and tortured, as I understand it.

Did you know them from before?

• Not at all. I had heard about them and seen their names in the indictment. Nothing more.

Did they appear humble?

• I would say so, although they were rather extremely kind to me. They told me about the functions they claim to have performed at the time of the massacre and assured me that they had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes.

What explanation do they have?

• I don't know, I didn't retain much, I was very impressed and I also confess that I didn't believe what they were saying.

Didn't they seem sincere to you?

• In reality, they tried hard to seem so; they told me they were at my disposal, that they would like to talk again... but Judge Corti has investigated meticulously for two years, has been connecting the dots, and prosecuted them as authors. I have no doubts about the Magistrate's work, so I must suspect that they are not telling the truth.

Did they ask you for forgiveness?

• No! If they claim they are innocent! So the only thing they did was justify themselves, argue that they had no participation, and place themselves at the disposal of us, the relatives, to "help us" discover the truth.

But they must know it...

• They maintain that they know nothing of what happened, that it never occurred to them to find out, that they heard nothing, that it was not their job to investigate.

Don't they even acknowledge having had collateral participation?

• Former carabineer Hernández says he only acted as a driver in several detentions, but he doesn't know who the detainees were and doesn't remember the name of the captors.

What feeling are you left with after this experience?

• That they are cowardly people who do not want to assume their responsibilities and are not willing to pay with prison for their participation in the very serious crimes in which they participated. I think they were convinced that the hand of justice would never fall upon them and I fear that thirty years ago someone—or more than someone—must have guaranteed them total and eternal impunity. It gives the impression that now they feel bewildered, fearful, and abandoned. I was left with the feeling that they are afraid... very afraid.

Process established participation of civilians in the planning of the homicides

An indeterminate number of civilians participated in the planning and execution of the homicides perpetrated by the military on January 18, 1974.

The file records interrogations of several of them, both in Chile and abroad; the former carried out directly by the investigating Judge and the others by personnel of the Fifth Department of Investigations.

The pieces of the summary known to ZonaImpacto.cl demonstrate not only the meticulous and tireless work carried out by Magistrate Gabriela Corti but also by the civil police officers, who did not leave any diligence unfulfilled.

Civilians

An Army non-commissioned officer, in his testimony, mentions the agricultural businessman Claudio Monreal Navarro, maintaining that "this person was an 'aide' to the Army, who witnessed these events; furthermore, he himself commented to me that he was aware in advance of the planning of how the 'assault on the patrol' was going to happen; they prepared him for this and it was his job to make the phone call to the Cavalry School to inform them of what happened, just as he facilitated vehicles and even coordinated with the funeral home that transported the deceased.

This is an elderly person and he has indicated to me that he is willing to collaborate, but he is scared."

Apparently, he had to overcome his fear, because he finally testified as a witness, just like Osvaldo "Guatón" Romo and Ismael Villavicencio Carrasco.

The same non-commissioned officer says he gathered a series of background information on this episode, "finding out that it was not an assault but a 'show' carried out by military comrades of that time to eliminate a series of political people opposed to the military government, simulating a confrontation between a military patrol that was transporting political detainees and subversive elements."

He also mentions names of other military personnel who participated: Eladio Lara Valenzuela, René Olivares Faúndez, Carlos Retamal Salazar, René Gutiérrez Herrera. Also a carabineer: Orlando Tapia Tapia.

General Juan Arenas Franco, meanwhile, mentions a certain "Pepe" as another of the military's aides: "The only thing I remember from that night (the night of the massacre) is that I went on patrol accompanied by a civilian named Pepe, who was the owner of a plot of land located in front of the Cavalry School, who facilitated his pickup truck for this type of duty."

Did the dinner of informers exist?

Upon learning these details, along with the demonstration that the slaughter of Quillota leaders was coldly planned, the denunciation made some years ago by Pablo Cabezas Salamanca, son of the lawyer Rubén Cabezas, gains strength.

Pablo Cabezas claimed to have knowledge of a "social" dinner that took place days before this episode, shortly after the arrival of the then-lieutenant colonel as Director of the Cavalry School.

The new military chief had allegedly selected a group of civilians who were businessmen—especially farmers—and right-wing political leaders or wealthy people who had harbored hatred toward the people of the overthrown Popular Unity.

On that occasion, the attendees had allegedly drawn up for Arredondo a fateful list of the "most dangerous" leftist political leaders in the area.

That would have been the death sentence for nine prominent social leaders of the city.

There are many names circulating about the attendees of this "social" meeting, but the versions highlight that of a farmer who was a high executive of a state company during the Pinochet regime.

Other forcibly disappeared

In all the interrogations of military personnel, Magistrate Corti did not fail to ask them if they knew the fate of two forcibly disappeared persons whose final whereabouts she wishes to establish.

Invariably, all those interrogated claim to have no idea nor to have heard those names before.

They are Jorge Eduardo Villarroel Vilches, from Limache, then a leader of MOPARE (an organization affiliated with the government of Salvador Allende), who was detained on April 19, 1974, when he appeared at the San Pedro Carabineros Station, where he had been summoned.

The second disappeared person is Bernardino Rodríguez Cortez, a saddler who lived in Cerro Mayaca, a militant of the Communist Party, detained on March 6, 1974, inside a leather shop on O'Higgins Street in Quillota. The detention was carried out by Investigations officials from Quillota, among whom were sub-inspector Omar Mercado and detectives Juan González and Hugo Olivari.

Former military governor

It has drawn attention that the then-Governor, Military Chief of Quillota and commander of the Engineers Regiment, Ángel Custodio Torres, has not testified nor was he prosecuted. The authority may not have participated directly, but at the very least he would be an accessory, since he signed the official statement deceiving the community with the version of the extremist assault.

The parts of the file known to this media outlet do not shed full light on the detail, but sources close to the process assured us that the former governor is affected by total dementia. In the file, there is a medical certificate that accuses partial memory loss due to his pronounced alcoholism.

Placencia's confusions

A curiosity of the process is the initial affirmation of senior non-commissioned officer (ret.) Sergio Placencia in the sense that former captain Daniel Walker gave the "coup de grâce" to one of the victims who did not die instantly.

But when both were confronted, doubt enters Placencia: "I maintain what was previously declared regarding the wounded man in the assault on the patrol who was subsequently finished off by an officer on the International Road.

But now, seeing my Major Walker, I cannot specify with certainty that this was said officer, maintaining regarding this the doubts that I expressed previously; that is, if it was him or if it was Jaime Bachler..."

But then, faced with this latter officer, he again becomes "confused": "I maintain my previous declarations. Now that I have Officer Bachler in front of me, I cannot say that this was the officer who finished off the wounded man. I insist the doubt persists if it was him or Major Walker and to clear up said doubt I refer to the confrontation that was carried out with the latter."

Source: Zonaimpacto.cl, January 21, 2004

Chilling details of the 1974 massacre in Quillota

One of the six executed in the setup staged by Army personnel on January 18, 1974, did not die immediately at the site of the massacre but was transported along with the five corpses of his companions to the Engineers Regiment, where he arrived dead.

The bodies were handed over to their relatives in coffins tied with barbed wire and they were forced to bury them in consecutive niches in the El Mayaca Cemetery, where they remained guarded by armed soldiers, who for some time prevented the mourners from approaching even to leave them flowers...

These are some of the chilling details contained in the Resolution issued by Judge Gabriela Corti when indicting eight retired uniformed officers as authors of the crimes of qualified homicide of six leftist militants and the qualified and repeated kidnapping of three political leaders: former mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza (PS), lawyer and socialist leader Rubén Cabezas Parés, and peasant leader, MAPU militant, Levi Arraño Sánchez.

Judge Corti went to the Second Criminal Court of Quillota to notify the plaintiff lawyers about the indictments issued last Saturday against eight former uniformed officers implicated in the slaughter. Originally, there was talk of ten prosecuted, because the judge only notified them one by one, sending them detained to Army and Carabineros units, but the names and charges were not released.

Visiting Judge

The judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Gabriela Corti, no longer has the status of a Special Judge for this case, because since the former dictator and former senator-for-life Augusto Pinochet was definitively dismissed, there is no defendant or accused with special immunity (in this case, parliamentary).

In such circumstances and as a Visiting Judge, Judge Corti set the Second Criminal Court of Quillota as the seat for her work, where the first complaints and lawsuits regarding this case were made effective.

On this occasion, Judge Gabriela Corti met with all the lawyers sponsoring the various lawsuits accumulated in her investigation: Héctor Salazar, Hugo Gutiérrez, Nelson Caucoto, Julia Urquieta, and Hiram Villagra. They were joined yesterday by Quillota lawyer Elmita Puebla, who sponsored the first lawsuits immediately after the events occurred, and the CODEPU prosecutor, Federico Aguirre.

The prosecuted

The indictment, of only six pages—a document of at least 15 was expected—does not abound in details about the facts established by the magistrate, limiting itself to a brief summary that, however, allows confirming many of the suspicions and background information handled by both the victims' relatives and this journalist.

After the detail of the statements, confrontations, reports, and documents viewed, she indicts Sergio Carlos Arredondo González (lieutenant colonel and director of the Cavalry School in 1974; he had arrived at the end of 1973 after having participated as an operational officer in the Caravan of Death), Francisco Javier Pérez Egert (then captain, personally directed the "operations" to murder the nine victims), Pedro Alberto Durcudoy Montandón, Daniel Javier Walker Ramos (both officers of the Cavalry School, with direct participation in the murders), Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos (non-commissioned officer, one of the cruelest repressors the area knew), Sergio Placencia Sepúlveda (non-commissioned officer, specialized in "intelligence," participated in the planning and detentions), Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez (Army non-commissioned officer, participated actively), and Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya (Carabineros non-commissioned officer, also characterized by the cruelty of his repressive actions).

The document details that the aforementioned former uniformed officers are charged "as authors of the crime of qualified homicide in a repeated nature, of Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Julio Arturo Loo Pardo, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Eduardo Manzano Cortés, Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, and Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, provided for and sanctioned in Art. 391 of the Penal Code, and as authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping, in a repeated nature, of Pablo Gac Espinoza, Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Parés, and Levi Segundo Arraño Sancho, provided for and sanctioned in Art. 141 Inc. 4 of the same Code."

In a first reading, the paragraphs described above make it clear that the six crimes perpetrated at the San Isidro railway underpass and the three executions committed inside the Cavalry School, from where the remains were made to disappear, were consummated by the same uniformed officers.

Interrogations and confrontations

During her almost two years of inquiries, Judge Corti interrogated more than thirty witnesses, defendants, suspects, accused, and relatives of the victims, many of whom are named in the indictment.

Great responsibility for the success of the inquiries rests with the Investigations detectives, both from the Fifth Department and Interpol. While the former were in charge of a huge number of procedures in the country, the latter located and interrogated witnesses in various cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

The participation of some of those prosecuted was until now unknown to the victims' relatives, such as officers Pedro Durcudoy and Daniel Walker and non-commissioned officer Raúl Muñoz.

Also, several of the people who provided statements both in the country and abroad are unknown to the relatives. Such are the cases of retired Army officer Mario René del Carmen Díaz Pérez, interrogated by Interpol in the United States, and Ángel Rafael Muñoz Pavez, interrogated in Amsterdam, Holland, whose statement remained protected in a separate volume of the main file.

Also unknown is the relationship of Marcelino Bugeño Bugueño, Segundo Aladino Jofré Morales, Ismael Enrique Villavicencio Carrasco, and José Arnoldo Escobar Ojeda, all declarants in the process, some of whom were military personnel. Like Carlos Varas Frederick, who was an officer at the Cavalry School, where he stood out as an equestrian.

On page 572, the statement of the civilian Osvaldo Romo Mena is recorded, a former leftist militant who became one of the cruelest torturers in the operations and detention centers in Santiago, but whose relationship with the events in Quillota was unknown until now.

Succinct account of the facts

The account of the facts established by the judicial investigation is succinct in the document that prosecutes the eight former uniformed officers. For the same reason, the plaintiff lawyers requested the Visiting Judge to have access to the summary, which they will be able to do only from this Friday; that is, one day after the deadline for the prosecuted to appeal or file any legal recourse expires.

However, omitting some background information, it reveals chilling details about what happened in the early hours of January 18, 1974.

The document specifies that based on the background information, interrogations, confrontations, and reports accumulated, "it can be established" that on January 17, 1974, "military personnel took six people out of the Quillota Public Jail, union leaders, all militants or leftist sympathizers, who were led by them to the Engineers Regiment No. 2 'Aconcagua' of said city, where they remained detained; a place to which that same day three others also presented themselves voluntarily, also leftist militants, following a summons that had been made to them at their homes and workplaces by military personnel, this time dressed in civilian clothes, also remaining detained, the latter being the Mayor of the city, the Prosecutor of the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA) based in the city of Quillota, and the president of the Peasant Committee of the San Isidro sector." The latter are Pablo Gac, Rubén Cabezas, and Levi Arraño, respectively.

"It could be called an ambush"

The account of the established facts continues by pointing out that in the last hours of the day on the 17th or the first of the 18th of January 1974, all the detainees were loaded into vehicles that, "in the number of four and heavily guarded by a military contingent, would transport them to the Armored Cavalry School of Quillota, which said military column did not reach."

The trajectory was interrupted, according to the document, "due to the fact that as it crossed the railway underpass called San Isidro, in what could be called an ambush because 'grenade explosions' and 'machine-gun bursts' occurred from both sides of the underpass, which reached the vehicles that composed it," it was verified later that one of the jeeps had caught fire.

Likewise, it was verified that "of the military contingent, only one resulted with an injury whose nature was not accredited."

Indeed, we remember that Captain Pérez Egert appeared with a bandaged hand and it was reported that he was the only soldier wounded in the "extremist assault" and "intense skirmish with terrorists."

One detainee did not die immediately

The account contained in the judicial Resolution adds that after the explosion of grenades and machine-gun bursts, however, among the detainees, "one of them was wounded and five were deceased as a consequence of the multiple injuries caused to their bodies by projectiles" (the words in bold have been highlighted as such in the judicial document).

In Quillota, it was learned days later that the autopsy protocols—performed by doctors Oracio Bruzzone and Jorge Abde—established that all presented dozens of bullet impacts made from the back.

The Indictment Resolution details that after the attack with heavy fire by the military against the unarmed and handcuffed civilians, the bodies of the five murdered and the wounded man "were taken back in the same vehicles toward the Regiment from which they had left moments before, a place from which all were transported by military personnel toward the local morgue, because the detainee who remained wounded had also died."

It is not detailed in what circumstances the sixth victim died, who could have been finished off with a coup de grâce or have died on the way from bleeding out or the effects of the projectiles.

It is pointed out below that all these victims were handed over by the Military Governor (Colonel Ángel Torres) to their relatives "in closed coffins tied with barbed wire, leaving the face of each of them exposed for their recognition, which were then buried in contiguous niches in the local Cemetery, said niches remaining open for a space of two or three days, always guarded by military personnel, for the purpose that the relatives could obtain authorization from the Governorate for their burial in family vaults."

All of the above, according to the Magistrate, "configures the crime of qualified homicide, in a repeated nature" of the six leftist militants already enumerated.

Three forcibly disappeared

Regarding the forcibly disappeared, the document expresses that "the other three detainees Pablo Gac Espinoza, Rubén Cabezas Parés, and Levi Arraño Sancho, were seen there—San Isidro railway underpass—for the last time, a situation that persists until today, so that, their current whereabouts being unknown, it is established that their detention has been prolonged for more than fifteen days, thus configuring the crime of qualified kidnapping, in a repeated nature."

Source: Zonaimpacto.cl, July 18, 2003

Five former officers convicted in "Assault on the patrol" case

Five retired Army officers were sentenced to prison terms of 3 to 6 years, as authors of the crime of kidnapping with serious damage committed against 9 political prisoners, in the case known as "Assault on the Patrol," an event that occurred on January 18, 1974, in Quillota.

The first-instance ruling issued by the visiting judge, Julio Miranda Lillo, sentenced the accused Ángel Custodio Torres Rivera, former governor of Quillota, and Sergio Carlos Arredondo González, former director of the Armored Cavalry School, to a sentence of six years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, as authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping with serious damage against the nine victims.

Also sentenced to five years in prison were Francisco Javier Pérez Egert, commander of the military patrol, and Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos. Meanwhile, the accused Daniel Javier Walker Ramos was sentenced to three years and one day.

Pedro Alberto Durcudoy Montandon, Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez, and Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya were acquitted, as their participation in this process was not sufficiently accredited.

The victims were Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares (lawyer for Cora), Pablo Gac Espinoza (mayor of Quillota), Levy Segundo Arraño Sancho (peasant leader), whose bodies have not been found, in addition to the executions of Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, Osvaldo Mario Manzano Cortés, and Arturo Julio Loo Prado.

Edda Hurtado, daughter of treasury employee Manuel Hurtado, said that justice has acted with fear and that she does not rule out going to international courts. "It seems to me an indecent, improper result and I did not expect more. I am thinking of taking my father's case to the Inter-American Court," said Hurtado.

Source: mercuriovalpo.cl, October 30, 2008