Editing Geraldo Huber (section)

==Disappearance and Assassination==
On January 29, 1992, while vacationing in San Alfonso, Cajón del Maipo (Chile), Huber “disappeared” shortly before his scheduled testimony. His body was found on February 20, 1992, in the Maipo River, with his skull shattered by two bullet wounds and signs of being bound, indicating a violent execution. Initial police reports claimed suicide, but in 1996, Magistrate María Soledad Espina ruled out this possibility, declaring it a homicide.

Investigations revealed Huber was likely silenced to protect Pinochet, then Commander-in-Chief of the Army, who faced trial for related charges. Magistrate Claudio Pavez’s probe, detailed in CIPER Chile (2015), suggested Huber was kidnapped by agents of the Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército (BIE), DINA’s successor, and held at a secret detention center in Nos, home to the Escuela de Inteligencia del Ejército (EIE) and the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica del Ejército. Witnesses, including Captain Pedro Araya and Jorge Molina Sanhueza, confirmed Pinochet’s direct oversight of the arms deal and BIE operations, implicating senior officers like General Eugenio Covarrubias and Brigadier Manuel Provis Carrasco.

In 2006, Chile’s Supreme Court stripped Pinochet’s immunity, charging former DINE directors Hernán Ramírez Rurange and Covarrubias with kidnapping, homicide, and obstruction of justice. In 2015, 21 individuals, including Arturo Silva Valdés and four generals, were convicted, with sentences up to 15 years, per CIPER Chile. The case underscored Pinochet’s efforts to conceal DINA’s crimes through Operación Silencio, which also targeted Eugenio Berríos.