Search for desaparecidos in Curacaví

Former DINA agent Roberto Emilio Lailhacar Chavez

Based upon testimony by a former DINA agent and psychiatrist Roberto Emilio Lailhacar Chavez, the Chilean police section investigating human rights violations (PDI) and Servicio Medico Legal (SML) are searching for the remains of at least six victims of the dictatorship. According to  Lailhacar's testimony, the bodies were thrown into wells built on his property at Curacaví. The atrocity is estimated to have occurred between 1973 and 1975.

In his role as psychiatrist, Lailhacar assisted torturers through conducting psychiatric analysis of detainees in various torture centres, including Clinica Santa Lucia which fell under the administration of Werner Zanghellini Martinez, who was accused by Villa Grimaldi survivors of allegedly administering an injection containing the rabies virus to dictatorship victim and desaparecido, Jorge Fuentes Alarcon.

The investigation has been ordered by Judge Sylvia Pizarro from the Court of Appeals in San Miguel. In his testimony, Lailhacar stated he is unaware of the identities of the desaparecidos disposed of in his property - "they could be from Santiago, Curacaví, or any nearby area". The excavation is expected to pose several difficulties as it involves an investigation of various wells on the property which have since been blocked with cement. The same property had also been utilised to host functions and social gatherings for DINA's top command.

Following the dissolution of DINA and later collapse of Pinochet's dictatorship, Lailhacar occupied the role of president of the 'Sociedad Chilena de Sexologia y Educacion Sexual' in Providencia until 2001.

Further information about the case and the dynamics of DINA, which originated from the Tejas Verdes contingent, will be divulged in Javier Rebolledo's forthcoming book published by Ceibo Ediciones, 'El despertar de los Cuervos: Tejas Verdes, el origne de extermino en Chile'.