A difficult victim, a proven crime
Eugenio Berríos Sagredo was a Chilean chemist linked to the National Intelligence Directorate, or DINA, under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Investigators and historical reporting associated him with clandestine chemical-weapons work and with information relevant to major political crimes. This page does not turn those allegations into criminal convictions against Berríos.
His past does not diminish the legal facts established about what was done to him. He was removed from Chile, kept under military control in Uruguay and killed. The officers’ objective was to prevent testimony and shield a clandestine network. Treating Berríos solely as either an innocent bystander or a sinister caricature would distort a case whose importance lies in the transnational machinery of concealment.
Operation Silence and the journey to Uruguay
As Chilean courts reopened dictatorship-era investigations, Berríos risked being called to testify about sensitive operations. The judgment found that a military network took him out of Chile on 26 October 1991 using the false identity “Tulio Orellana.” He traveled through Argentina and entered Uruguay, where contacts linked to both countries’ armed forces maintained control over his movements.
The operation has often been described as part of “Operation Silence,” an effort to keep former agents and witnesses away from investigators. The case record shows coordination rather than an ordinary voluntary relocation: accommodation, money, transport and surveillance were organized, and Berríos did not remain free to leave once he demanded to return.
In Uruguay he stayed at several places, eventually including a house at the seaside town of Parque del Plata belonging to the family of Uruguayan officer Eduardo Radaelli. Chilean officers traveled to maintain the operation, while Uruguayan officers provided support.
The escape to the police station
On the morning of 15 November 1992, Berríos evaded the men guarding the Parque del Plata house. He sought help at a neighboring residence, whose occupants accompanied him to the local police station. There he said he was being held by Chilean and Uruguayan military officers and feared he would be killed.
The warning did not secure his safety. Military personnel arrived, and authorities accepted a story that Berríos was unstable and involved in a domestic dispute. He was allowed to leave with the very network he had accused of holding him. That was the last date on which he was indisputably seen alive.
The episode later became central evidence because it connected Berríos, the guarded house, Chilean officers and Uruguayan military assistance at a precise time and place. It also exposed a state-protection failure: a man reported a transnational military kidnapping from inside a police station, yet was returned to the people controlling him.
Murder and the discovery at El Pinar
The courts could not establish an exact day of death. The final record placed the killing after the police-station episode and before April 1993. It treated the continuing detention and homicide as one criminal course of conduct.
On 13 April 1995, human remains were found partly buried near the coast between Arroyo Pando and the Río de la Plata, in the El Pinar area. Forensic examination documented gunshot trauma. Later identification work established that the remains were Berríos’s.
This page omits graphic details beyond what is necessary to explain the evidentiary record. The discovery transformed the case from a disappearance and suspected kidnapping into a homicide investigation, while the cross-border command structure made jurisdiction, extradition and evidence unusually complex.
Extradition and the long prosecution
Chile’s investigating judge Alejandro Madrid pursued officers from both countries. Uruguay eventually extradited Tomás Casella Santos, Eduardo Radaelli Copolla and Wellington Sarli Pose to Chile. The prosecution reconstructed the clandestine exit from Chile, the network of safe locations, the captivity in Parque del Plata, the failed police-station appeal and the killing.
A first-instance judgment in 2010 convicted fourteen military defendants and acquitted five others. Appeals changed some sentences and legal classifications. Because several defendants faced different counts—kidnapping, kidnapping with homicide, illicit association and related conduct—it would be inaccurate to say that all fourteen received identical homicide convictions.
The final 2015 judgment
On 11 August 2015, Chile’s Supreme Court rejected the principal cassation challenges and confirmed final sentences. Retired Chilean major Arturo Silva Valdés received fifteen years and one day as an author of kidnapping with homicide, plus five years and one day for illicit association.
Several Chilean officers received substantial prison terms for kidnapping and illicit association. The three extradited Uruguayans were also convicted, but with differentiated responsibility: Casella received ten years and one day for kidnapping plus five years and one day for illicit association; Radaelli received ten years and one day for kidnapping plus 800 days for illicit association; and Sarli received five years and one day as an accomplice to kidnapping plus sixty days for illicit association.
Solved / adjudicated: the transnational kidnapping and homicide produced final convictions. The exact sentence and offense must still be stated defendant by defendant.
Why the Uruguay connection matters
The crime began with the clandestine removal of Berríos from Chile, but its decisive captivity, last confirmed sighting and killing occurred in Uruguay. Uruguayan officers were not merely background figures: final Chilean judgments convicted three of them for roles in the kidnapping network and illicit association.
The case therefore documents post-dictatorship continuity in military cooperation. It occurred after formal democratic transitions in both countries, yet relied on relationships and methods formed during the era of coordinated Southern Cone repression. Official Uruguayan memory materials cite it as evidence of continuing impunity networks.
Later sentence administration also crossed borders. After serving years in Chile, Uruguayan courts addressed conditional release and the transfer framework for convicted Uruguayan officers. Those later decisions affected how sentences were served; they did not erase the 2015 convictions.
Case timeline
- 26 October 1991 — Berríos is clandestinely removed from Chile under a false identity and taken toward Uruguay.
- 1991–1992 — Chilean and Uruguayan military contacts maintain housing, money and supervision.
- 15 November 1992 — Berríos escapes the Parque del Plata house and reports his captivity to police, but leaves with military personnel.
- After 15 November 1992–April 1993 — the court places the continuing kidnapping and homicide within this period.
- 13 April 1995 — remains later identified as Berríos are found near El Pinar.
- 2006–2007 — Uruguay extradites Casella, Radaelli and Sarli to Chile.
- 2010 — the Chilean investigating judge issues first-instance convictions.
- 2014 — the Santiago Court of Appeals modifies and confirms parts of the judgment.
- 11 August 2015 — Chile’s Supreme Court makes the convictions final.
What the verdict established—and what it did not
- Established: Berríos was unlawfully removed, kept under military control and killed in a coordinated Chilean-Uruguayan operation.
- Established: Silva Valdés was convicted as author of kidnapping with homicide; other defendants were convicted for specifically defined roles.
- Not uniform: the fourteen convicted defendants did not all receive the same offense classification or sentence.
- Not established here: every allegation about Berríos’s own DINA activity.
- Still imprecise: the exact date of death within the judicially bounded period.
Sources
- Equipo Nizkor — full text of the Chilean Supreme Court’s final judgment, 11 August 2015.
- Equipo Nizkor — archived judicial findings on the Uruguay captivity and discovery of the remains.
- Judiciary of Uruguay — official sentence-administration record for officers convicted in Chile, 2017.
- La Tercera — defendant-by-defendant account of the final sentences, 11 August 2015.
- Emol — Supreme Court confirmation and finality, 11 August 2015.
- Montevideo Portal — Uruguayan officers and the final Chilean judgment, August 2015.
- Uruguay’s Secretariat for Recent-Past Human Rights — Plan Cóndor historical material.