Operation Albania (Spanish: Operación Albania), also known as the "Corpus Christi massacre" (Spanish: Matanza de Corpus Christi),[1] was the targeted killing of members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) guerrilla group carried out by the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Santiago, Chile, on June 15 and 16, 1987.
In this operation, 12 FPMR members were killed by agents of the National Information Center (CNI) secret police with the objective of "neutralizing" the organization, which had previously attempted a failed ambush against the dictator's convoy, resulting in the death of five bodyguards.
[3][4] Operación Albania originated from concerns within Chilean repression agencies following the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Augusto Pinochet on September 7, 1986, in Cajón del Maipo.
The operation gained momentum through consistent surveillance efforts that had identified a significant portion of the FPMR leadership in Santiago by early 1987.
The CNI obtained much of its information from intelligence gathered after the failures of the Carrizal Bajo arms shipment and the assassination attempt on Augusto Pinochet.
One significant achievement of this effort was the identification of José Joaquín Valenzuela Levi, who, using the alias "Ernesto," had led the failed assassination attempt on Pinochet.
Álvaro Corbalán, who headed the operational arm of the CNI, received an order from the then-director of the institution, General Hugo Salas Wenzel, for personnel from all the brigades under his command to act, with support from the Army's Anti-Terrorist Unit and Investigations officials.
[5] Ignacio Recaredo Valenzuela Pohorecky, a well-known engineer and public figure, had been under surveillance since March 1987 due to his involvement in the Front, where he held a high-ranking position.
Valenzuela was only about 30 meters away from his mother's house when he was intercepted, according to the account provided by René Valdovinos, one of the CNI agents involved in the operation.
However, for added effectiveness, a grenade was placed among his clothing.On the same day, six hours later, another large group of agents gathered on the west side of Varas Mena Street in San Miguel.
[citation needed] On the same night, civil police agents arrived at 417 Varas Mena Street, one of several properties targeted for a raid by the CNI at 11:00 PM.
Her alleged partner was Juan Waldemar Henríquez, an FPMR officer and the grandson of former communist deputy Bernardo Araya Zuleta, who had been detained and disappeared by the DINA in 1976.
Almost at the same time as the events on Varas Mena Street, approximately one hundred agents and police officers surrounded duplex 213 in Block 33 of Villa Olímpica in Ñuñoa.
Another security team arrived, and CNI agent Fernando Burgos, wearing a gas mask, reached the second-floor bathroom where Guerra was hiding.
The final chapter of Operación Albania took place in an abandoned building on Pedro Donoso Street in the present-day Recoleta commune.
Álvaro Corbalán testified in the case that he asked CNI director General Hugo Salas Wenzel for instructions on what to do with the detainees.
According to the official record, Álvaro Corbalán instructed CNI agent Iván Quiroz to select five officers responsible for gathering their team to eliminate these seven detainees.
In the early hours of June 16, 1987, the detainees were taken in a convoy to a vacant house at 582 Pedro Donoso Street, a location previously identified by the CNI.
Like Ricardo Silva, she was first shot inside the second bedroom and then finished off less than a meter away with multiple bursts against a wall in an empty room.
Patricia Quiroz Nilo's body was discovered at the far end of the extensive interior hallway of the Pedro Donoso house, with eleven gunshot wounds.
A police officer who was present at all the locations where people died during Operación Albania testified during the trial that all the crime scenes had been significantly altered, and when they arrived, the bullet impacts on the walls had been removed.
On January 28, 2005, Judge Dolmestch handed down a life sentence to former CNI director Hugo Salas Wenzel for his involvement in simple and aggravated homicide.
[11][12] The visiting minister's ruling stated that Salas Wenzel was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement as a co-author in the simple homicide of the twelve frentistas who died in June 1987.