In the early morning hours of July 18, 1992, members of the Army Intelligence Service (SIE) and the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINTE) burst into the homes of students and professors of the Enrique Guzmán and Valle National University, better known as La Cantuta. Nine students and one professor were detained, murdered, and secretly buried in mass graves.
The victims:
Students:
Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea
Armando Richard Amaro Cóndor
Bertila Lozano Torres
Dora Oyague Fierro
Robert Edgar Teodoro Espinoza
Heráclides Pablo Meza
Felipe Flores Chipana
Marcelino Rosales Cárdenas
Juan Gabriel Mariños Figueroa
Professor:
Hugo Muñoz Sánchez

The acts
In the early morning hours of July 18, 1992, members of the Army Intelligence Service (SIE) and the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINTE), among them Santiago Martín Rivas and other members -the majority of them in the so-called Colina Group- while hooded and armed, broke into the homes of students and professors of the Enrique Guzmán and Valle National University, better known as La Cantuta.


Once the soldiers entered the student residencies, they made all of the students leave their dormitories and assume the fetal position. One of the soldiers proceeded to lift the head of each one of the students, taking them by their hair and seperating those who were finally detained, who were: Bertila Lozano Torres, Dora Oyague Fierro, Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea, Armando Richard Amaro Cóndor, Robert Edgar Teodoro Espinoza, Heráclides Pablo Meza, Felipe Flores Chipana, Marcelino Rosales Cárdenas, and Juan Gabriel Mariños Figueroa.


After these actions, the soldiers stormed into the home of Professor Hugo Muñoz Sánchez, climbing up the wall to the patio and destroying the service door. Later they muzzled Professor Muñoz Sánchez and covered his head with a pair of black pants. Some of the attackers covered the bedroom and prevented the wife of the professor from leaving it. The military troops proceeded to forcefully take Professor Muñoz Sánchez, who at the moment was without shoes or shirt. The operation was filmed by one of the captors. In the way from the house of Professor Muñoz Sánchez to the entrance door of the teacher's residencies, some witnesses, among them Mr. Octavio Mejía Martel and his wife, attempted to intervene to help Muñoz Sánchez, but they were held at gunpoint and forced to desist.


The soldiers left the university, bringing Professor Muñoz Sánchez and the nine mentioned students outside.
 
The bodies of the victims were secretly buried and recovered in three graves in the zone known as Santa Rosa Hill, Kilometer 1.5 of the Ramiro Prialé Highway, on the property of Sedapal, the water agency of Lima. Later, the material authors of the murders proceeded to disinter the bodies to incinerate them and transfer them to new secret graves located in Cieneguilla. This was the root of the public accusation of Congressman Henry Pease.



The investigation
On July 12, 1993 the magazine Sí, led by Ricardo Uceda, published a sketch in which the place where the human remains belonging to the kidnapped of La Cantuta had been buried. La Fiscalía realizó entonces una diligencia de constatación en la quebrada de Chavilca, en la localidad de Cieneguilla. En dicha diligencia se constató la existencia de cuatro fosas clandestinas que contenían restos óseos -the majority of which were burned- in two of them, two sets of keys, a bullet, remains of clothes, hair, etc. etc. También por denuncia del Director de la Revista "Sí", la Fiscalía realizó diligencias de constatación en el Km. 1.5 de la autopista Ramiro Prialé, en un paraje dentro de los terrenos de la Planta de Tratamiento de La Atarjea, de la empresa Sedapal, que fue usado hasta ese momento como campo de prácticas de tiro por la Policía Nacional. Ahí se hallaron nuevas fosas clandestinas que contenían restos óseos (a complete human skeleton with clothes, half of a skeleton, tejidos humanos, remains of hair and clothes), además de casquillos, proyectiles de bala y restos de cal.


The evidence obtained by the prosecutor's office allows on to conclude, in summary, that the remains found in Cieneguilla at Kilometer 1.5 of the Ramiro Prialé Highway are those of at least three of the aggrieved, the sudents Luis Enrique Ortiz Perea, Armando Amaro Cóndor, and Juan Gabriel Mariños Figueroa. It has also been determined with certainty that the remains found in Cieneguilla are those of Bertila Lozano Torres, noting the recognition by Dental Technician Juan Miguel Vásquez Tello. It is equally determined that some of the remains found in Cieneguilla are those of the students Robert Teodoro Espinoza and Heráclides Pablo Meza, given the recognition of the remains of the clothes by their families. It is also established that some of the remains found in Cieneguilla are those of Professor Hugo Muñoz Sánchez.


Legal action
In May 2005, the Anticorruption Prosecutor Pablo Sánchez asked for Santiago Martin Rivas Santiago Martin Rivas of Grupo Colina, the former Chief of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, Nicolás Hermosa Ríos, and the Chief of the National Intelligence Service, Julio Salazar Monroe, for having endorsed the crimes against humanity that occurred as being justified as part of the war against subversion.


Similarly, he asked for 30 years of prison for Major Carlos Pichilingue Guevara, as well as for the former Grupo Colina member Fernando Rodríguez, and 51 other people, form whom he asked for sentences of between 8 and 30 years of prison. This accusatory judgment was remitted to the Anticorruption Court “A”, which sent the Public Ministry the dossiers of the human rights violations that the corresponding prosecutor emitted.
Currently, the case is at the oral trial stage. In it, some of the accused –former members of Grupo Colina– took the opportunity to enter a confession during the interrogation and told how they committed the crime.
Similarly, the La Cantuta case is one of the arguments in the extradition request for Alberto Fujimori, who is currently in Chile.

Área de Comunicación
APRODEH
prensa@aprodeh.org.pe