Supreme Court Upholds Sentencing of Ex-Police and Military for the Murders of 3 MIR Activists in Chillán

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction of four former state agents for their roles in the qualified murders of MIR activists Rolando Gastón Angulo Matamala (26), Bartolomé Ambrosio Salazar Veloz (31), and Ogan Esteban Lagos Marín (21). These crimes against humanity were committed in April 1974 in Chillán.

In a majority decision (case number 15.121-2024), the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court upheld the 15-year and one-day prison sentence for former Carabineros Lieutenant Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana, who was found guilty as the perpetrator of the three murders. Additionally, ex-Carabineros Subofficial Arturo Manuel Alarcón Navarrete received a 10-year and one-day sentence for his involvement in the murder of Lagos Marín.

The ruling also reversed the earlier acquittal and reinstated the original conviction for Army Subofficials Luis Alberto Toledo Espinoza and Humberto Artemio Olmedo Álvarez, sentencing them to four years in prison, with the option of supervised release, as accessories to the murder of Angulo Matamala.

Regarding the latter two (Olmedo Álvarez and Toledo Espinoza), the court stated they were penalized «as accomplices to the crime, which is a level of participation that, according to Article 16 of the Penal Code, applies to individuals who, without meeting the legal requirements to be considered authors, assist in the execution of the act through prior or simultaneous actions; therefore, those who, lacking control of the event, act with intent, even though the author may not be aware of their presence.»

Civilly, the ruling confirmed the decision to mandate the state to pay a total of $700 million in damages for moral harm to the victims’ families.

The three murdered MIR activists in Chillán. Image from Diario El Itihue

The Facts

In the ratified first-instance ruling, extraordinary judge Carlos Aldana, appointed for cases involving human rights violations, established the following facts:

«In terms of context, records show that on September 11, 1973, a coup d’état was executed by the Armed Forces and Carabineros of Chile, who assumed the functions of the Executive and Legislative branches. This situation spread across the nation, imposing a State of Emergency that restricted individual freedoms and leading to the establishment of regional intelligence bodies, comprised of Armed Forces, Carabineros, and Investigative Police, known as SIRE or CIRE, along with the Military Intelligence Directorate (DINE), which trained Army personnel in basic intelligence. Subsequently, a decree on June 14, 1974, led to the creation of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), which pursued and detained leaders of opposition movements, interrogating them under torture and, in some cases, executing them without trial and outside the law, particularly in the Ñuble Region and in the following incidents investigated in this case:

a). On April 19, 1974, a minor arrived at the home of Rolando Gastón Angulo Matamala, a MIR activist living with his spouse Cora Álvarez Massi in Chillán, delivering a message for him to go to a location where someone awaited him. After leaving his home with that intention, he was detained by state agents and taken to various clandestine detention sites, including a house in Pomuyeto, San Carlos, where he was tortured. On April 26, 1974, he was moved to Infantry Regiment No. 9 in Chillán, where he was again tortured by a group of Carabineros known as ‘Los Chicos Malos,’ under the command of Lieutenant Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana. They executed him with multiple gunshots, causing four wounds—one in the skull and three in the torso, one of which remained embedded in his body, resulting in his death from acute anemia.

Afterward, in the early hours of April 27 of that year, his body was abandoned in the Camilo Bravo canal of Fundo Mutupín, located seven kilometers east of San Carlos.

b). On April 17, 1974, around 7 PM, Bartolomé Ambrosio Salazar Veloz, also a MIR activist, briefly met with his spouse Magdalena Müller Muñoz at the Chillán square, informing her he would meet someone for a chore. After waiting for him and seeing no return, she went home. Later that evening, a group of around four people arrived at her house, claiming to be detectives searching for weapons, which they did not find, as there were none; they then covered her with a blanket and took her detained to Regiment No. 9 in Chillán. About 20 minutes later, she was moved to a house in San Carlos and ultimately taken to the War Academy in Santiago, where she remained detained from April 21 until July 9, 1974, when she regained her freedom.

Salazar Veloz, by April 21, 1974, was reported detained in Chillán according to records seized at Colonia Dignidad in Parral, which had been prepared by Gerd Seewald Lefevre, who was in charge of intelligence operations at the German enclave and who informed the Investigative Police that he compiled such information with data provided by Fernando Gómez Segovia (Army captain and head of DINE in the region).

It is also established that Salazar Veloz was detained in various locations in the Chillán region, where he endured torture during interrogations, evidenced by injuries to his body and skin marks on his wrists, indicating he had been bound. By April 27 of the same year, his body was discovered near Quinchamalí, Chillán, by the riverbank, dead from shock and acute anemia due to ballistic perforations, inflicted by third parties with lethal intent, using a weapon with a projectile of less than 10 mm in diameter.

c). In the early hours of March 15, 1974, when Ogan Esteban Lagos Marín, a MIR activist, was sleeping in a house located in Chillán Viejo, around 2:30 AM, he was arrested by a command of approximately eight people, allegedly consisting of Carabineros and Army agents, all in civilian clothing and heavily armed, who raided the home and detained him along with a brother, loading them into a green truck and taking them to the Investigative Headquarters in Chillán. From there, they were blindfolded and transported to Regiment No. 9 in the same city, where they were interrogated. Ogan Esteban Lagos Marín was later moved to Chillán Public Prison on April 3, 1974, from which he was repeatedly taken for torture interrogations at the local regiment.

On April 24, 1974, he was illegally removed from that penitentiary by a team that included, among others, Carabineros known as ‘Los Chicos Malos,’ under Lieutenant Patricio Orlando Marabolí Orellana, where he was subjected to torturous questioning, sustaining various injuries and ultimately executed with four gunshot wounds, one in the skull and abdomen (one of which remained embedded in his body), before his body was abandoned on April 27, 1974, near a house at the La Dehesa property in Tanilvoro, province of Chillán.»

For further details, review the full ruling HERE.

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