Minister Alejandro Aguilar issues first indictment for child abduction case and requests extradition of defendant from Israel
Justice Aguilar Brevis indicted Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Moisés Espinoza León, Carlos Sigisfredo Vega Segura, Laura Rosa Silva Sánchez, and Sylvia Clara Vilches Rojas for the crimes of criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct. A request was made for the first defendant's extradition to Israel.
The visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, issued the first indictment for child abductions between the 1970s and 1990s, and the Supreme Court sent an extradition request from Israel for one of the defendants.
The judge prosecuted and ordered the pretrial detention of five people for criminal association, child abduction, and willful misconduct in the illegal adoption of two minors from the commune of San Fernando, who were given to foreign couples.
Minister Aguilar Brevis indicted Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Moisés Espinoza León, Carlos Sigisfredo Vega Segura, Laura Rosa Silva Sánchez, and Sylvia Clara Vilches Rojas for the crime of criminal association.
In addition, Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez was charged with two counts of child abduction. Ismael Espinoza León, Carlos Vega Segura, and Laura Silva Sánchez were also charged with child abduction.
Finally, Gutiérrez Pávez, a former judge at the San Fernando Juvenile Court, was prosecuted for the crime of willful prevarication.
The investigation by Minister Alejandro Aguilar Brevis determined that in the 1980s, a network comprised of lawyers, Catholic priests, members of social organizations, health officials, and a judge existed in the city of San Fernando to identify and place minors whose mothers were low-income for adoption to foreign couples in exchange for payments that could reach up to $50,000.
“That, from the merit and analysis of the preceding considerations, especially the multiplicity, connection and concordance of the background information provided, first of all, to CASE 451, Notebook I , it is considered justified that in the month of January 1983, previously agreed upon, and acting by means of fact, Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, Ismael Espinoza León and Laura Silva Sánchez, appropriated the three-year-old girl named Andrea in order to sell her abroad and for this purpose a judicial procedure was also initiated before the court of Judge Gutiérrez, in which the Law Graduate and also part of the organization Carlos Vega Segura, made a presentation to obtain custody of the girl and take her out of the country to be adopted by one (1) woman named GJD, a situation that was not exhausted, but although it was consummated, due to the fact that in the days following the abduction or robbery, the mother along with personnel of Carabineros managed to recover her daughter from a building where there was a customer service counter.
“In relation to criminal summary case 335 of notebook I , the coherence and persistence in time of the story of the offended, coupled with the details of her statement, in conjunction with what was stated by the eyewitnesses and reference previously indicated in the original motivation, with clear mention of the deponents MMDF and ZAD, and other former judicial officials, in addition to the gross and particular procedural pieces of file No. 5,421 of the Juvenile Court of San Fernando, it has been possible to have justified that Judge Ivonne Gutiérrez Pavez, head of the Juvenile Court of San Fernando, authorized the rapid and expeditious departure from the country of the son of the victim mother named AARR, bound for the United States on March 12, 1983, from the A. Merino B. Airport , as reported in Ordinary 271 of page 227, issued by the Border Control Department of the Chilean Investigative Police , since an organization -with defined criminal roles- had been formed in 1982 in the city of San Fernando, whose leader and members maintained permanent connections with the city of Santiago, namely, with a law office and daycare center, located on San Antonio 385 street, commune of the same name, as well as with the Civil Registry offices of the time, located on Moneda 1396 street, commune of Santiago, as clearly inferred from the personal inspection of the court reflected in the audiovisual material of the PDI; criminal group whose objective was to abduct or steal infants for monetary gain (US 50,000) to take them out of the country to different destinations in Europe and the United States.
“In fact, in the opinion of this investigating judge, at this stage of the proceedings and - assessing the background information provided with the standard of justification or reasonableness, they clearly constitute a real concurrence of crimes, mainly considering the multi-offensive nature of the factual substrates established previously, because - as has been said - at this initial stage of the proceedings, more than two crimes are noted independently, one after the other. In other words, they are crimes committed separately, with different actions or omissions, in this regard, the following punishable offenses occur: crime of 1) - two crimes of abduction of minors ; crimes typified and sanctioned in article 142 of the Penal Code; 2) - one crime of illicit association , typified in article 292 and sanctioned in article 293, of the aforementioned body of laws; 3) - abduction to attempt against of civil status ; typified and sanctioned in article 354 paragraph 2 of the substantive criminal legal body and the crime of 4) - prevarication, sanctioned in articles 224 and 225 of the Punitive Code, because given the factual narrative of the present cases sub judice, which arise from the testimonies of the offended parties, duly corroborated, it is clear that in this case, the crime -leitmotiv- of child abduction is fully justified ; because they were stolen or removed, that is, taken away or stripped, that is, the infants were taken from the spheres of protection that legitimize and permanently should remain in maternal company, since the affected mothers RVRR and MLG - child mothers at the time of the events - became passive subjects or offended of the abduction of minors respectively that in the end one of them -Á.- son of Mrs. R., was taken out of the country for adoption purposes in a extremely expeditious judicial processing. In fact, the aforementioned biological mother, Mrs. Gutiérrez, after being duly and legally sworn in, stated in court that " no one gave me any information, and when I went to inquire, they only told me that he had been taken to the United States." She asserted that "she went to the house of the person to whom she gave her son, and it was there that they informed her that her son had gone abroad." She emphatically stated that at no time did she authorize the placement of her son for adoption .
“Furthermore, in the opinion of this investigating judge, the fact that in the aforementioned file Rol 8,326, of the Juvenile Court of San Fernando, the signature made on behalf of RVRR is recorded, where she would appear to “renounce her status as mother” by voluntarily handing over her son, is not an obstacle to the previous conclusion, since this assertion does not correspond, in any way, with her testimony, as well as with the dynamics of the events that were considered fully justified , without prejudice to the fact that the witnesses and former judicial officials of the court where the accused Gutiérrez Pavez exercised “ jurisdictional” functions , expressed in court that the judge herself was the one who recorded with her own hand the lying assertions of an alleged decline that assists child mothers, of their inalienable, natural and non-expropriable rights by the State as a parent, in addition to the fact that the tenor of her statement in the aforementioned judicial file ROL N°8.326, of the Juvenile Court of San Fernando, corresponds to a technical language, which the offended party, given her socio-cultural condition and minority age, could hardly have expressed.
"In turn, an identical anomalous situation or outright procedural fraud, with respect to file ROL 5465 of the Juvenile Court, custody case dated January 27, 1983, of Case 451, which did not achieve its criminal purpose, with baby A., since - as stated - the affected mother managed through " scandal ", and with anguished desperation to recover her precious daughter.
“Finally, it is important to clarify that the “jurisdictional ” body where the crimes were committed was legally responsible for protecting the rights of children and adolescents, intervening in cases of abuse, violation of rights and protection measures, as well as in cases of custody when the parents are not in a position to take care of them, determining who will have custody and who will have personal guardianship of the minors, including the establishment of visits and the obligation to provide support, and especially fulfilling the duties and obligations of the judicial function, acting with fairness, objectivity and transparency, seeking the improvement and fulfillment of the rights of children and adolescents,” the resolution states.
Crime against humanity
Likewise, the judge dismissed the statute of limitations on the crimes, establishing that they are crimes against humanity committed under a military regime and that they must be punished in accordance with the American Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
" However, the facts that emerge from the background, the basis of the crimes that are considered, at this stage of the proceedings, in accordance with article 274 No. 1, fully and unequivocally justified, have their date of perpetration and consummation in the year 1983 , which would mean that criminal liability would have prescribed, as established in articles 93, number 6, 94, 96 and even taking into account article 100, all provisions of the Penal Code, it is necessary to irrefutably specify the following:
“I.- In 1983 and for a decade before that, the Military Government, headed by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, maintained total control of the country, implementing operational measures, along with full intervention and direction by the authorities, both military and civil and administrative of the time, i.e., Intendants, mayors, governors, heads of services, etc.
“II. - Consequently, as the deponents point out, especially Mr. DTM, Mrs. ZA and Mrs. MDF, it can be considered that the events investigated occurred during the military dictatorship that governed the country between 1973 and 1989, during which – as stated – serious human rights violations were perpetrated and the military dictatorship maintained, through its agents and collaborating individuals, the direction and control over all of the Nation’s Administrative Institutions.
“III.- As is known, the provisions of prescription and exclusion of criminal liability in general that seek to prevent the investigation and punishment of those responsible for serious violations of human rights are inadmissible in light of the general obligations enshrined in Article 1.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which provides: "Obligation to Respect Rights. The States Parties to this Convention undertake to respect the rights and freedoms recognized herein and to guarantee their free and full exercise to all persons subject to their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind for reasons of race, color, sex, language, or religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, economic position, birth, or any other social condition. And 2 of the same Convention that teaches: Duty to Adopt” “Provisions of Domestic Law. If the exercise of the rights and freedoms mentioned in article 1 is not already guaranteed by legislative or other provisions, States Parties undertake to adopt, in accordance with their constitutional processes and the provisions of this Convention, the legislative or other measures that may be necessary to give effect to those rights and freedoms.
“IV.- Indeed, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (judgment of March 14, 2001) has emphasized that provisions of amnesty, prescription and any other form of action that seek to prevent the investigation and punishment of the guilty parties are prohibited, and that “(… )” the States Parties have the duty to take all necessary measures of every kind to ensure that no one may be deprived of judicial protection (… )”, emphasizing that (…) the right to the truth is subsumed in the right of the victim or his or her next of kin to obtain from the competent organs of the State the clarification of the facts violated and the corresponding responsibilities, through the investigation and judgment provided for in articles 8 and 25 of the Convention ”
“V.- In light of what is indicated in numbers I, II, III and IV , previously explained, it is clear and/or unobjectionable, in accordance with the conduct for crimes against humanity that are punishable, unequivocally, in this case, we are in the presence of crimes of that nature and therefore imprescriptible, because, although the superiors or bosses do not direct their will towards the production of the crime against the victims directly, they do allow the act to follow its course and in this way allow its realization, that is, that the material author, the judge, was a public official, and therefore, a state agent, together with the other material defendants, - who motivated by a desire for monetary gain - "( ) would look for vulnerable people and those people would later come to court to complain when the child had already been taken away from them" in addition to the fact that " the political context of the events that occurred during the dictatorship was terrible, one worked with a lot of fear in San Fernando, which is why that context gave us fear of knowing more information about the children.”() whose mothers “ who went to consult the court about their children were very humble, since they were toothless mothers and it was obvious that they were people with no schooling, this was evident in the way they expressed themselves ”, in accordance “ with the fact that the mothers only signed, but we were not authorized to read the document to them, and they did not ask anything either ”, in addition “ the mothers of the resignations were seen to have a very low profile and were silent.” and on one occasion she added something that was outside the standard document and she, referring to the judge, challenged her for it – declaring – that “the mothers were people with little or no schooling .” , in addition " that organization had a way of operating with Japanese vans, they went around towns looking for minors in houses with dirt floors and the officials of that organization spoke with the mothers telling them that through the court they would enter a protection for the care of the children, as something temporary, so those mothers would later look for their children." The secretary of the Court declared that "the mothers told him that they were with their children in the house washing and the children near them and that they came with a team of vans and took them (the children) to be summoned later to court, but these women were always under threat of being arrested. ", in addition, all of the above, with an evident profit motive, since " each baby was sold for 50,000 dollarsperiod, he learned this from comments made by the lawyer who was head of the CAJ, and from the social workers of the court and CONIN," the ruling states.
Extradition request
Finally, the judge requested Israel, invoking the European Convention on Extradition, which entered into force in Chile on June 1, 2025, to extradite the defendant Ivonne Gutiérrez Pávez, who resides in that country.
“Given that the country and place where the accused Ivonne Gutiérrez Pavez is currently located is evident from the process - according to the PDI report, dated April 28 of this year (...) and the Republic of Chile having signed the European Convention on Extradition, which includes the State of Israel as a member State, a Convention that came into force on June 1 of this year, which allows for the extradition of accused persons to be requested between Chile and Israel, this minister ORDERS that the background information or compulsion be raised to the Supreme Court of Justice so that this court may declare whether the extradition of the aforementioned accused to the Government of the State of Israel, the country in which she is currently located, should be requested.”