In the sentence (cause role 3,023-2019), the Sixth Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago –made up of the ministers María Rosa Kittsteiner, María Paula Merino and Paula Rodríguez– ratified the sentence that sentenced Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Juan Morales Salgado and Ricardo Lawrence Mires to 10 years in prison as perpetrators of crime.
Meanwhile, as co-authors, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Teresa Navarro Navarro, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera and Jorge Arriagada Mora must serve 7 years in prison.
According to the ruling, in the case of José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Segundo Pichunmán Curiqueo, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Bertha Yolanda del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza and Joyce Ana Ahumada Despouy must serve sentences of 4 years as accomplices.
The higher court endorsed the background that allowed visiting minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza to establish the responsibility and participation of the then-convicted state agents in the kidnapping and disappearance of the medical technologist.
“That, in this course, the reasoning in the sentence that is being reviewed is shared, in order to establish the participation of the convicts, because the background evidence outlined in the sentence on appeal, in reasons fourteen against Espinoza Bravo , seventeen against Morales Salgado, twenty against Lawrence Mires, twenty-nine against Calderón Carreño, thirty-two against Piña Garrido, forty-one against Valdebenito Araya, forty-four against Escalona Acuña, forty and seven against Manríquez Manterola, sixty-five against Saavedra Vásquez, sixty-eight against Magna Astudillo, seventy-one against Oyarce Riquelme, seventy-four against Acevedo, seventy-seven against Pacheco Fernández, eighty against Troncoso Vivallos, eighty-six against Navarro Navarro, ninety-five against Sarmiento Sotelo, one hundred and seven against Guerrero Aguilera and one hundred and twenty-two against of Arriagada Mora, constitute a set of judicial presumptions, which, given their multiplicity, seriousness, precision and concordance and by meeting the legal requirements set forth in article 488 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, allow accrediting the participation that as co-authors, in the terms provided for in article 15 No. 1 of the Penal Code, they are attributed, in accordance with the reasoning in reasons fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one, thirty, thirty-three, forty-two, forty-five, forty-eight, sixty-one six, sixty-nine against Magna Astudillo, seventy-two, seventy-five, seventy-seven, eighty-one, eighty-seven, ninety-five, one hundred and seven and one hundred and twenty-three, respectively, and which is complemented by what is reasoned in the fundamentals one hundred and seventy-three, one hundred and seventy-eight, one hundred and eighty-two, one hundred and eighty-six, one hundred and eighty-nine, one hundred and ninety-five, one hundred and ninety-seven, two hundred and three, two hundred and six, and two hundred cough ten ”, it is detailed.
The resolution adds that: “At this point it should be specified that the participation as co-author attributed to Juan Morales Salgado, is fully framed in the provisions of article 15 No. 1 Penal Code, since he acted under the direct orders of Manuel Contreras and he was in charge of the Simón Bolívar barracks at the time of the events, corresponding to him in that capacity to coordinate the operational work of the brigades that acted under his command, especially in relation to the dismantling of the Communist Party, assigning personnel to his charge for it , direct the investigative work and receive the corresponding reports, ordering the entry and retention of the detainees in the unit, as well as the interrogations and torture to which they were subjected and, where appropriate, their death and disappearance, establishing that he was present during the interrogation and torture of the victim of these records, which determines that he intervened immediately and directly in the events os, so that his behavior implies a functional contribution to the global result, maintaining, together with the other actors, the codomain of the fact ”.
“For its part, the attribution of responsibility as co-author, in the terms provided in article 15 No. 1 of the Criminal Code, which is attributed to the defendant María Angélica Guerrero Soto, is established by virtue of her confession in accordance with what provided for in article 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which is corroborated with the merit of the background indicated in the fifty-seventh reasoning of the appealed judgment, to which is added the reasoning in the one hundred and ninety-threeth motivation, ”he adds. failure.
“That, in the same sense – he continues –, he adheres to what is indicated in the judgment under study, since the indications indicated in reasons thirty-five against Ojeda Obando, fifty against Meza Serrano, fifty-three in against Lagos Yáñez, fifty-nine against Díaz Radulovich, sixty-two against Pichunmán Curiqueo, eighty-three against Castro Andrade, ninety-eight against Miranda Mesa, one hundred and one against Álvarez Droguett, one hundred four against Altamirano Sanhueza, one hundred and thirteen against Díaz Ramírez, one hundred and twenty-five against Jiménez Escobar, one hundred and thirty-four against López Inostroza and one hundred and forty-three against Ahumada Despouy, gather the necessary force to configure presumptions judicial proceedings, which, given their multiplicity, seriousness, precision and concordance, allow proof of the participation attributed to them as accomplices, in accordance with the provisions of article 16 of the C Criminal Code, according to what is reasoned in bases thirty-six, fifty-one, fifty-four, sixty, sixty-three, eighty-four, ninety-nine, one hundred two, one hundred five, one hundred fourteen, one hundred twenty-six, one hundred thirty-five and one hundred and forty-four, respectively, to which are added the reasonings one hundred and seventy-one, one hundred and seventy-nine, one hundred and eighty-seven, one hundred and ninety-eight, two hundred, two hundred four and two hundred eight of the ruling”.
For the appellate court, in the species: “(…) as indicated, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that all the accused were part of an organized structure under subordination and dependency, in which those who exercised management tasks and operative personnel coexisted, dedicated both to the investigation and to the detention, custody, interrogation, torture and, where appropriate, death and disappearance of the detainees, in which one observes, on the one hand, the division of roles typical of co-authorship, since all they made a functional contribution to the execution of the crime, having each of them co-domain of the act and, on the other, a facilitation of the means with which the crime is committed, thus cooperating in the act of others, by previous or simultaneous acts, which is what characterizes complicity”.
“In this understanding, contrary to what the defense attorneys point out in support of their appeals, it should be specified that those convicted are not punished merely for belonging to the institution, but for the conduct displayed by each one in relation to the facts that concern the victim of these proceedings, Ms. Reinalda Pereira Plaza, which also leads to ruling out the intervention of those accused in whose respect, despite having established that they were part of the same institution and performed functions in the building located in Simón Bolívar N 8,800 of La Reina, their punishable participation in any of the forms provided for in the law has not been proven. She concludes her.