Discomfort exists in different sectors of the Frente Amplio, the Communist Party and in the government itself, before the figure of the deputy general director of the PDI, Claudio González Hofstetter, who assumed said position after the former head of the same, Sergio, resigned last Friday. Muñoz Yáñez.
González’s main critic has been deputy Claudia Mix (Comunes), who was an active promoter of the special investigative commission of the lower house that was initiated as a consequence of the mishandling of the PDI regarding the case of Valeria Vivanco (killed by the shot by one of his colleagues), and that investigated a series of complaints from former officials.
In this regard, last Saturday, when it was announced that González would remain as substitute, Mix wrote in his X account that “the least acceptable was for the president to ask Sergio Muñoz to resign. I am sorry to remind you, yes, that the general prefect Claudio González Hofstetter, second in hierarchy and deputy, is involved in causes against humanity”. Immediately afterwards, the parliamentarian linked a video of the investigative commission in which the former PDI officer Ricardo Bopp speaks, who relates there that, in relation to torture committed at the Investigations school against aspiring detectives, in the years ‘ 80, that “I present to you the case of the candidate Mauricio Flores Rodríguez, who was tortured with the same lora inside the school”, alluding with this nickname to the machine with which current was applied to the detainees in order to “make them talk” (hence the name “lora”).
According to Bopp, “a commando” was formed to kidnap and torture Flores, and that “it is the current prefect general, on active duty, who actively participates in the kidnapping and torture, Mr. Claudio Enrique González Hofstetter.”
As Bopp explained, the deputy director of the school at that time was Nelson Mery Figueroa (who would later take over as director of the PDI, between 1992 and 2003).
According to Bopp, the purpose of the kidnapping and torture was “to do a practical class.” According to the same complainant, the records were delivered at the time to the visiting minister Mario Carroza (current member of the Supreme Court), who found no merit to prosecute those involved.
The internal summary carried out by the PDI did not reveal sanctions either. However, Flores’ lawyer, Maximiliano Delgado, told radio ADN that “this investigation was not done properly,” explaining that González’s statements regarding the events “are contradictory to each other.”
Flores stated to the same media that one night in 1988 he was kidnapped from the room where he was sleeping, gagged and handcuffed: “they took me out of school in a vehicle, they drove me around, all this with blows with their feet, fists, with rifles.” , after which they took him to a bathroom, where “they began to beat me all over my body and they began to put the power on me with a machine that they placed on my testicles, and I managed to untie it and take off what I had on the face, the bandages, and in that group was González Hofstetter.” ADN also asserts that the above occurred in a “theoretical class.”
In the book “Rati”, by Javier Rebolledo and Jesús Silva, meanwhile, it is described that when the then young aspiring officer was being tortured, they shouted “communist!” and other epithets, accusing him of being opposed to Pinochet.
González testified in January 2023 before the special investigative commission. On that occasion, he stated that when he was at school he was unaware of the existence of “La Lora” and that I had never operated on him, I do not know how it is operated on, I do not know him nor did I have him in my life.
hands. Now, as general knowledge, of course I heard it mentioned. What’s more, I saw it on Google.”
When cross-examined by Deputy Mix, after stating that Flores was not even an aspiring detective in 1988, he recalled that “a theoretical-practical class was given, in which my instructor gave certain details to my course, to third A” and that in it, without specifying what the class was about, “I was assigned to be on guard in an observation system, because we were working on arrest issues,” adding that “a confusing situation arose that we later learned about: I did not have authorization from the school, because it was a matter of a different nature, then an internal investigation was initiated. As a result of that situation, I was dismissed, because neither my colleagues nor I were responsible for any issue. “It was the sole responsibility of the instructor who organized that type of situation.”
It is also worth mentioning that detective Danitza Araya, who also gave her testimony before the investigative commission, because she was left disabled after she was also shot by a colleague, stated in her X account, in response to Mix’s post, that González was the one who signed the internal summary regarding his case, which he says “is full of irregularities, leaving all those involved as innocent and victims.”