The minister in extraordinary visit for cases of human rights violations of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso, Max Cancino Cancino, sentenced three retired non-commissioned officers from the Navy, for their responsibility in the consummated crime of kidnapping with serious damage of Juan Arancibia jerias. Illicit perpetrated in January 1974, in the area of Cerro Los Placeres.
In the ruling, Minister Cancino Cancino sentenced Valentín Evaristo Riquelme Villalobos, Juan de Dios Reyes Basaur and Héctor Vicente Santibáñez Obreque as perpetrators of the crime to 5 years and one day in prison, legal accessories of perpetual absolute disqualification for charges and public offices and political rights and the absolute disqualification for titular professions while the sentences last.
The visiting minister of the Buenos Aires court of appeals took it as proven that: “(…) there was a hierarchical and disciplined military intelligence group called the Intelligence Service of the Internal Security Jurisdictional Area Command, known as SICAJSI, which actively operated as of September 11, 1973, made up of agents belonging to the various departments of national defense, particularly by officials of the Chilean Navy, whose main objective was the repression of people opposed to the military regime, for which they proceeded to their search and detention, who were then deprived of liberty to obtain information through physical and psychological torture.”
In this context, on an unspecified day in January 1974, “Juan Arancibia Jerias was ordered to arrest by the authorities of the Intelligence Service of the Jurisdictional Area Command for Internal Security (SICAJSI), in attention to his political militancy in the Socialist Party , which took place at his home located (…) Cerro Los Placeres, Valparaíso, where he lived with his parents, being taken by military officials to the Silva Palma Barracks, where a group of interrogators organized and coordinated, also by military commanders , in order to provide information about other militants of the named political party, they proceeded to keep him locked up without a court order justifying him, blindfold him, interrogate him and torture him using various techniques, including the application of current to his body, ‘the telephone’ (hitting both ears with open hands) and other blows to his body, and was subsequently taken to the detention facilities called Isla Riesco and Melinka, and finally to the Valparaíso Public Prison, being released from that place in August 1974, noting that in the military case, in a copy at sight, it appears that the victim was only made available to the Prosecutor’s Office on May 24, 1974.”
The judgment orders the effective enforcement of the sentence imposed “(…) in the corresponding prison, not allowing the request of the defense in order for compliance to be made effective at their home, given that this modality is not contemplated In the law”.