Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, married, father of 3, a worker at the "El Abanico" Power Plant in Los Angeles for the National Electricity Company (ENDESA), and a former union leader with no known political affiliation, was detained on September 22, 1973, at 01:30 hours, at the home of Mr.

Rafael Sánchez, located in Royenco, Calle Lientur N°612-B, by a Carabineros patrol under the command of Lieutenant Zacarías Hannover García Agüero, from the El Abanico station.

The victim's spouse, Mrs. María Gloria Cifuentes Leiva, has stated that after her husband's detention, she was informed by the Carabineros Lieutenant García Agüero himself that her husband had been sent to the Los Angeles Regiment, a place where his detention was subsequently denied.

It has been determined that the victim remained detained for at least five days at the Los Angeles Regiment alongside Víctor Jeréz Meza, a driver for the National Electricity Company, "El Toro" Power Plant, a union leader and member of the Socialist Party.

Three years later, on January 14, 1977, local press reported that Wilfredo Quiroz had been executed by firing squad along with Víctor Jerez Meza, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, and Mario Olivares Pérez. There is no death certificate; the 4 detainees remain forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On March 25, 1975, his spouse, Mrs. María Gloria Cifuentes Leiva, filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) on behalf of the victim before the Court of Appeals of Concepción, which was registered under N°3378.

The Minister of the Interior at the time, Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that the victim was not being held by order of that ministry. For his part, Brigadier General Nilo Floody Bexton, Chief of the III Army Division, reported that the person in question had not been detained by order of that Command and that he possessed no records regarding the victim.

Based solely on these records, the Court of Appeals of Concepción rejected the writ of amparo filed by Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira on April 9, 1975, ordering the Duty Judge of Los Angeles to initiate the corresponding summary proceedings for the alleged disappearance of the victim.

Thus, on April 18, 1975, case file 46.723 was opened before the First Criminal Court of Los Angeles. The Investigations Prefecture of Concepción reported having interviewed the victim's spouse, who ratified what had already been stated and noted in part of her declaration that "in an interview held with Carabineros Lieutenant Mr.

García, he stated regarding the detention of her spouse 'that he had sent them all to the Los Angeles Regiment'." When interviewed, the Chief of the Abanico station stated: "Regarding Lieutenant Aslo García, he believes it must be Zacarías Hannover García Agüero, Captain and Governor of the Department of Yungay in the province of Ñuble, who was previously in that Unit." The victim's detention did not appear registered in the books of the Abanico station.

On July 29, 1975, Zacarías Hannover García Agüero, a Carabineros Captain residing in Yungay, declared verbatim: "I do not remember having detained Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira on September 22, 1973, nor is it true that I spoke with María Gloria Cifuentes; I am completely unaware of what happened to Quiroz.

Furthermore, on September 22, 1973, I do not remember having gone out on patrol with military personnel."

Without any record of the summary proceedings being closed, the court temporarily dismissed the case on August 29, 1975, on the grounds that "it is not proven in the case files that the alleged misfortune reported is the consequence of a crime..." On October 17, 1975, the Court of Appeals of Concepción approved this resolution upon review.

Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira remains, to this date, a forcibly disappeared person.

Source: Corporation report

"I leave this letter as a memory for my wife and my children, that if I die for this cause, it is because I am conscious of this process and because I feel like a Worker and a Fighter for the well-being of all Chileans.

I think that dying for the cause is, for me, a pride that I will carry to the grave. Do not grieve, for I will watch over you and there will be no lack of someone to protect you, because I believe that not everyone is a beast and I think there are human beings.

To live for the cause is to be Chilean, and to be Chilean is to defend it until the end." (Signature of Wilfredo Quiroz Pereira) Central El Toro = 9-14-73"

Source: WILFREDO QUIROZ PEREIRA - September 14, 1973

Date: 09-14-1973

The minister visiting human rights cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza González, issued an order this Monday for the entry into the corresponding prison of retired Lieutenant Colonel Walther Klug Rivera, sentenced to 10 years in prison for his responsibility as an accomplice in the so-called "Endesa Episode," a series of cases regarding human rights violations.

The entry order was carried out after an Italian court granted the extradition request filed by the visiting minister Mario Carroza—then the instructor of the case—for Klug Rivera to serve the sentence handed down in October 2014, which convicted him for his responsibility in the qualified kidnappings and qualified homicides of victims linked to the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants, who were detained between September and November 1973 by members of the Chilean Army.

The list of victims: Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino, Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

Source: elclarin.cl, September 2, 2021

Date: 09-02-2021

Captured by the Federal Police: Chilean repressor Walther Klug Rivera was arrested in CABA

The repressor of the Pinochet dictatorship, Walther Klug Rivera, tried to escape to Europe for the second time to avoid settling his accounts with the Chilean justice system, which sentenced him for the disappearances and murders of 23 workers and is investigating him for the kidnapping of a student from the University of Concepción.

However, this time he had no luck and his wings were clipped in the City of Buenos Aires, where he was arrested by the Federal Fugitive and Extradition Investigation Division of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA).

The Minister of the Interior, Eduardo "Wado" de Pedro, announced that the government had decided on the immediate expulsion of the retired lieutenant colonel who had entered the country illegally.

Klug appeared at Ezeiza airport with his German passport on June 1. The authorities of the National Migration Directorate (DNM) detected that there was an alert loaded to provide information about this person, so they began inquiries.

The Airport Security Police (PSA) detained and checked him, but there was no order to arrest him—probably because no one had warned that Klug had left Chile, where he was supposed to remain and appear before the justice system investigating him.

Due to the delay, Klug ended up missing the flight he had purchased to go to Spain and then continue to Germany, where, due to his dual nationality, he would have ensured he would not be extradited back to Chile.

He went to his house, but everyone quickly noticed that there was something strange about that man with a German passport who had no record of his entry into the country. The PSA's notice triggered an alert in Chile, where the Londres 38 memorial site denounced Klug's flight without the Investigative Police (PDI) having noticed it.

The extraordinary minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza, issued an international arrest warrant, and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) launched a red alert to arrest Klug in what was to be his second escape.

The PSA analyzed the Ezeiza cameras and captured frames that allowed them to obtain current images of the 70-year-old military officer, who will most likely be surprised on August 9—when he turns 71—in Buenos Aires.

The Argentine police managed to track that Klug had an address at a hotel in the Balvanera neighborhood. He was arrested at 12:50 by PFA officers while walking, at a calm pace, along Moreno at 3000, in the Balvanera neighborhood.

Klug had not wasted time after his failed attempt to return to the old continent. He already had a second ticket for June 20, with which he planned to take the same route: Spain-Germany. A trip that will no longer happen.

De Pedro announced Klug's expulsion late Saturday. "With this measure, the Argentine Republic reaffirms its commitment to the full exercise of Human Rights, justice, and the international order," he wrote on Twitter.

It was planned that the Chilean repressor would spend the weekend detained in a PFA facility and that on Monday he would appear at a hearing before Federal Judge Julián Ercolini, who was to carry out the extradition process. From the court, they informed this newspaper that all the information required from Chile to support the international arrest request was already available.

The extradition process is not immediate. However, judicial sources estimated that the trial could be completed by the end of the year, taking into account the gravity of the facts for which Chile requires Klug.

In these processes, there is a single appeal before the Supreme Court. In July 2018, another repressor of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, Sergio Jara Arancibia, was arrested in Mar del Plata. In March 2019, the federal judge of that city, Santiago Inchausti, ordered his extradition to Chile.

Klug Rivera joined the Chilean army in 1966, where he was part of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM). In 1973, he studied at the School of the Americas and, during the Pinochet dictatorship, organized a prison camp in the stables of the 3rd Mountain Infantry Regiment "Los Ángeles." Survivors remember him for his sadism and brutality.

After his retirement, Klug—who is an engineer—managed a company that provided intelligence services.

Since 2005, he has been subject to trials in Chile. After an initial acquittal, in 2013 he was sentenced to ten years and one day for the kidnappings and murders of 23 workers from the El Toro and Abanico hydroelectric plants, in the Biobío region, where Klug was stationed during the first years of the Pinochet regime.

In 2014, the Supreme Court of Chile confirmed the sentence, but Klug fled before being detained at the Punta Peuco prison.

On June 4, 2019, Klug was arrested in Parma, Italy, and in February of last year, he returned to Chile. The problem was that the extradition request only covered one of the two processes that the retired lieutenant colonel faced: that of the disappearance of the University of Concepción student Luis Cornejo Fernández, kidnapped on September 18, 1973—a week after the coup against Salvador Allende.

The extradition said nothing about the already firm conviction for the disappearances and deaths of the hydroelectric plant workers—better known as the Endesa case.

In November of last year, a court acquitted Klug for the disappearance of Cornejo Fernández, but the decision was appealed by the plaintiffs. "It is a trial that still has a long way to go, and that is why we do not understand why the ministers did not coordinate and why there were no more intense precautionary measures because, in the Endesa case, Klug was going to have to serve (his prison sentence) sooner or later," human rights lawyer Francisco Bustos told Página|12.

From Londres 38, they valued the arrest of Klug by the PFA. "We hope that the Chilean institutions act with the same speed, the one they did not have to avoid this situation," they published on their social networks.

Source: pagina12.com.ar, 06/13/2021

Date: 06-13-2021

Supreme Court confirms sentence for 16 disappearances and 7 murders of workers from the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants

The crimes against humanity were perpetrated between September 11 and November 17, 1973, in the mountain sector of Los Ángeles, Bío Bío Region. The investigation was led by Minister Jorge Zepeda.

The Supreme Court issued a final ruling in the investigation into the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicide of 23 workers from the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants; seven of them were executed and the rest were forcibly disappeared.

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Milton Juica, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and Andrea Muñoz—rejected the cassation appeals filed against the sentence of the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced Patricio Martínez Moena to 20 years in prison, without benefits; Walter Klug Rivera to 10 years and 1 day in prison, without benefits; and Ismael Espinoza Silva to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

In the civil aspect, the Criminal Chamber ratified the sentence that ordered the state to pay compensation of 50 million pesos to each of the nine relatives of the victims who were executed or disappeared in 1973, in the mountain sector of Los Ángeles, Bío Bío Region.

Sentences that they must serve for their responsibility in the homicides of: Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino.

Furthermore, the conviction includes the qualified kidnappings of: Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

According to Minister Zepeda's investigation, it was determined "that in the mountain sector, east of the city of Los Ángeles, are located the El Toro and El Abanico hydroelectric plants, belonging to the National Electricity Company, ENDESA."

"The workers of said hydroelectric plants, as of September 11, 1973, for the most part—according to Minister Zepeda's sentence—resided with their families in small rural towns in said area, forming the towns of 'Los Canelos,' 'Rayenco,' 'Polcura,' 'Antuco,' as well as work camps for the 'El Toro' and 'El Abanico' hydroelectric plants, and further east, behind the Laja lagoon, that of 'Cuatro Juntas,' a sector that was called 'Mallines del Sol,' belonging to the Alto Polcura ravine, patronymic of the 'Polcura' river, which runs through the place, where the workers also spent some periods performing their usual duties."

After September 11, 1973, "upon the violent change of government due to the Coup d'État of September 11, 1973, the aforementioned workers, as well as the rest of the civilian population of said towns, supporters of the previous government that was deposed on that day, in application and knowledge of a policy of the new regime and in a flagrant attack on human dignity and the notion of humanity itself, were persecuted and detained by State agents, under the pretext that the victims intended to attack detention centers to free people deprived of liberty by the military authority and/or attack the hydroelectric plants where many of them worked," states Minister Zepeda's ruling, ratified by the country's highest court.

The final destination of these people was "their confinement or deprivation of liberty in the Regiment located in the city of Los Ángeles or in places dependent on this unit, and ultimately killed and, in other cases, made to disappear to this day," the ruling expresses.

The Supreme Court's sentence was adopted with the dissenting vote—in the criminal aspect—of Minister Lamberto Cisternas, who was in favor of accepting mitigating factors of responsibility in the case of the convicted Klug Rivera; and the dissenting opinion of Minister Muñoz, who was in favor of accepting the statute of limitations for the civil action in the case.

Source: villagrimaldi.cl, 10/24/2014

Date: 10-24-2014

State ordered to pay compensation to relatives of Endesa worker executed in 1973

Víctor Jerez Meza, married, 3 children, a worker at the "El Abanico" plant of the National Electricity Company (Endesa), president of the company's Union and Regional General Secretary of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 22, 1973, at the facilities of the "El Toro" plant Union, by Carabineros and Army personnel, with his whereabouts unknown until 1999, when his body was found buried as a John Doe in a mass grave at the Nacimiento cemetery.

The Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the State of Chile to pay total compensation of $260,000,000 (two hundred and sixty million pesos) to the spouse and children of Víctor Jerez Meza, a worker at the El Abanico hydroelectric plant, of Endesa, who was executed on September 22, 1973.

In a split decision, the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Marisol Rojas, María Luisa Riesco, and the acting lawyer Rodrigo Asenjo—confirmed in all its parts the challenged sentence, issued by the Seventh Civil Court of Santiago, which established the State's responsibility for the actions of its agents in the commission of a crime against humanity, which is imprescriptible in both the criminal and civil aspects.

"That, now, regarding the exception of the statute of limitations for the compensation action, and it being essential to elucidate whether or not it corresponds to affirm a statute of full imprescriptibility applicable not only in the field of criminal responsibility, but also in the civil field of compensation in matters of crimes against humanity or, if on the contrary, it is incumbent to restrict imprescriptibility only to criminal actions, and consequently, the statute of limitations as regulated by private law must be applied to civil actions, it must be pointed out that, in this case, it is not an action of a merely patrimonial nature but a reparatory action in the field of human rights violations in crimes against humanity that is governed by precepts of international law that establish imprescriptibility," maintains the first-instance ruling.

The resolution adds that "by a principle of legal coherence, imprescriptibility must govern both in the civil sphere and in the criminal sphere. The source of the State's obligation to make reparations is based not only on the Political Constitution of the Republic, but also on the general principles of humanitarian law and international treaties, which must prevail over civilist codifications."

"On the other hand, the application of the statute of limitations of private law in this case would injure fundamental values, from a legal and moral point of view, since the aforementioned institution constitutes a protection for the state entity and, therefore, its application in the field of public law would mean ignoring the State's duty to fulfill its own ends, leaving people helpless, which implies a denial of their fundamental rights to life and physical integrity, by the one who is constitutionally obligated to safeguard them," the ruling concludes.

The victim: Víctor Jerez Meza (in the photo), married, 3 children, a worker at the "El Abanico" plant of the National Electricity Company (Endesa), president of the company's Union and Regional General Secretary of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 22, 1973, at the facilities of the "El Toro" plant Union, by Carabineros and Army personnel, with his whereabouts unknown from that moment on.

The victim's spouse stated in a sworn declaration that Carabineros Lieutenant Zacarías Hannover García Agüero, of the Abanico station, participated in the detention, and that on that day, September 22, she went to the "El Toro" plant to request information about her spouse, who after the coup d'état had to be absent from the family home for security reasons, as the house was raided on repeated occasions by the military.

"When I was coming down the street of the union, I saw the military throwing an individual into the van, and I asked some men who were there who they were putting into the military vehicle, and they replied that they were taking the president of the union detained. From that day on, the raids on our home ceased," the woman's declaration states.

Víctor Jerez Meza's spouse went in search of him to the Antuco and Abanico stations, and also to the Los Angeles Regiment, all without positive results in order to find his whereabouts.

For its part, the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation indicates that the victim was held along with other Endesa workers—Plutarco Coussy, Mario Olivares, and Wilfredo Muñoz—who to this day are forcibly disappeared.

The information given by police authorities to the relatives was that they had been transferred to the Los Angeles Regiment. And as in other cases, the local press on October 6 reported that the victim was missing, after having been released on parole while proceedings were completed, adding that he had not appeared before a new summons and that he should "abide by the consequences."

The report of said Commission also adds that on January 14, 1977, four years after the detention, information appeared in the local press indicating that Víctor Jerez Meza, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Mario Olivares Pérez, and Wilfredo Quiroz Pereira had been executed by firing squad. No circumstances are explained, there is no death certificate, nor an official explanation of the death.

Finally, in 1999, Jerez Meza's remains were identified among the bodies exhumed—buried as John Does in a mass grave—at the Nacimiento cemetery, after a proceeding ordered by the then-special judge Juan Guzmán.

For the crime of Víctor Jerez, and of 22 other workers of the El Toro and El Abanico plants, the Supreme Court sentenced in 2014 Patricio Martínez Moena, a retired Army general, to 20 years in prison, without benefits; Walter Klug Rivera, a retired colonel, to 10 years and 1 day in prison, without benefits; and the officer Ismael Espinoza Silva to 5 years in prison, with the benefit of supervised release.

According to the highest court, they were the culprits of the homicides of Juan Miguel Yañez Franco, César Augusto Flores Baeza, Víctor Jerez Meza, Mario Belmar Soto, Mario Samuel Olivares Pérez, Juan Eladio Ulloa Pino, and Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino; in addition to the qualified kidnappings of Abraham López Pinto, José Abel Coronado Astudillo, Abel José Carrasco Vargas, Alamiro Segundo Santana Figueroa, Luis Leopoldo Sepúlveda Núñez, Plutarco Coussy Benavides, Wilfredo Hernán Quiroz Pereira, Exequiel del Carmen Verdejo Verdejo, Domingo Norambuena Inostroza, Luis Eduardo Vergara Corso, Benjamín Antonio Orrego Lillo, José Óscar Badilla García, Manuel Antonio Aguilera Aguilera, Manuel Sepúlveda Cerda, Bernardo Samuel Meza Rubilar, and Manuel Jesús Arias Zúñiga.

Source: elciudadano.cl, August 4, 2018