A student leader after the coup
Gregorio Mimica Argote studied mechanical engineering at the Universidad Técnica del Estado, or UTE, in Santiago and served as president of the student center for his school. Chilean judicial reporting identifies him as a member of the Communist youth movement. He was among the students and university personnel detained by military forces in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 1973 coup.
The Supreme Court's established facts state that Mimica was first detained inside the UTE on September 12 and taken to Estadio Chile. He remained there until the morning of September 14, when he was released and returned home.
Released, then detained again
That release did not end the danger. Around midday on September 14, a military patrol detained Mimica again at his home in San Miguel. He was taken back to the UTE and delivered to personnel operating inside the university.
According to the facts reproduced by Chile's judiciary, Mimica was held in a classroom and interrogated about alleged hidden weapons. He was killed that afternoon while in military custody. His remains were not identified at the time, leaving his family without a confirmed account of what had happened.
Remains found and later identified
Partially burned skeletal remains linked to the case were recovered in 1991 from Patio 29 of Santiago's General Cemetery. It took another two decades for forensic work to provide a definitive identification: mitochondrial DNA analysis confirmed in 2011 that the remains were those of Gregorio Mimica.
The identification helped transform a long-running disappearance case into a documented homicide case while preserving the history of how his fate had been concealed for decades.
The criminal case
The prosecution eventually focused on former military personnel involved in Mimica's detention and killing. Some people named in the historical reconstruction had died before final judgment, so the 2023 Supreme Court decision did not assign criminal liability to every person described in the factual narrative.
On May 10, 2023, Chile's Supreme Court rejected the cassation challenges before it and left in place the homicide convictions. Fernando Polanco Gallardo was ordered to serve 10 years and one day in prison as an author of the qualified homicide, while Fredy Tornero Deramond received five years for the same crime.
Why the final judgment matters
The case spans half a century: an initial detention during the coup, a disappearance, the recovery and eventual identification of remains, and a final criminal judgment decades later. That chronology is important because it prevents a common error in historical case reporting — treating a later reconstruction as though authorities had known all of these facts in 1973.
The Supreme Court judgment established legal responsibility for the homicide. Other historical allegations or descriptions are not presented here as separate convictions unless the cited judicial record supports them.
Timeline
September 12, 1973: Mimica is detained at the UTE and taken to Estadio Chile.
Morning of September 14: he is released and returns to his home in San Miguel.
September 14, 1973: a military patrol detains him again; he is taken back to the UTE and killed while in custody.
1991: remains later linked to Mimica are recovered from Patio 29 at Santiago's General Cemetery.
2011: DNA analysis confirms the recovered remains are those of Gregorio Mimica.
May 10, 2023: Chile's Supreme Court confirms the homicide convictions and prison sentences against Fernando Polanco Gallardo and Fredy Tornero Deramond.
Current status
The case is Solved / Adjudicated. Chile's Supreme Court issued a final judgment confirming criminal responsibility for Mimica's homicide. The long delay between the crime, the identification of his remains and the final convictions remains central to understanding the case.