After forty years of impunity, charges have been filed against former soldiers Sergio Eugenio Benavides Villareal, Roberto Antonio Ampuero Alarcón, Arturo Alberto Contador Rosales, Sergio Eduardo Figueroa López, Gabriel Alonso Guerrero Reeve, Manuel del Carmen Vega y Miguel Aguirre Alvarez for their participation in the execution and disappearance of prisoners at Pisagua. The crimes occurred between September 29, 1973 and October 11, 1973. Investigations have been ordered by Judge Mario Carroza to establish a detailed chronology of events.
According to preliminary investigations, Juan Calderón Villalobos, Marcelo Guzmán Fuentes and Luis Lizardi Lizardi were executed on September 29, 1973. The same date also corresponds to the disappearance of Michel Nasch Sáez, Nolberto Cañas Cañas and Juan Jiménez Vidal.
Calderon, Guzman and Lizardi were escorted out of their cells by officials, on the pretext of being assigned to do voluntary work. The prisoners were executed in the outskirts of the Pisagua cemetery and their remains buried on the north side of the cemetery. The bodies were discovered seventeen years later almost intact, with red targets marked upon the prisoners' shirts. The Chilean military attempted to justify the murders by insisting the prisoners had attempted an escape. The military had also insisted that the three other prisoners, Nasch, Cañas and Jiménez has also been buried in the same location; however their remains were never discovered.
On October 11, 1973 Julio Cabezas Gacitúa, Mario Morris Barrios, Juan Valencia Hinojosa, Humberto Lizardi Flores y Julio Córdova Croxato were interrogated by military prosecutor Mario Acuna Riquelme and executed that same morning, upon allegations of treason to the homeland, espionage and violation of the state's security law. Their remains were buried in the same mass grave, discovered in exactly the same conditions as the prisoners executed previously.
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