Corbalán and Colonel (r) Sergio Díaz were sentenced to 15 and 10 years' imprisonment, respectively for their participation as material perpetrators of the crime of kidnapping of Juan Luis Rivera Matus, from November 16, 1975 until March 13, 2001; and General (r) Freddy Ruiz and Colonel (r) Carlos Madrid, as accessories to the crime, to 600 days' imprisonment, both benefiting from a suspended sentence. 14 27. They say that on June 27, 2006, the Santiago Appellate Court confirmed the judgment and amended the penalty, sentencing all four agents to 10 years' imprisonment as the perpetrators of the crime of kidnapping resulting in grave injury (death), committed on November 6, 1975, against the person of Juan Luis Rivera Matus. 28. The petitioners say that the defense counsels of Madrid, Ruiz, Corbalán and Díaz filed cassation appeals, alleging formal and material errors in the case of the first two, and material errors in the case of the latter two, and that on July 30, 2007, the Second Division of the Supreme Court of Justice vacated the judgment, invoking the existence of a formal error (failure to state the facts that gave rise to the modification of the considerations of the court of first instance and failure to state in what capacity Mr. Ruiz was a perpetrator), and rendered a substitute judgment, applying partial statutory limitations, which had affected the length of the sentence, with the result that Ruiz and Madrid were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated homicide, and Corbalán and Díaz to four years' imprisonment for the same offense and in the same degree. Ruiz, Madrid and Díaz were granted release (in the form of a suspended sentence or supervised release) and are required monthly to sign their names in a book held by the Gendarmería de Chile for that purpose. They say that Álvaro Corbalán was not granted that benefit because he was already serving a life prison term to which he was sentenced in another proceeding. They say that there is no possible recourse against that judgment. 2. Case of Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teófilo Zaragozo González Calfulef, Manuel Hernández Inostroza, Arturo Benito Vega González, and their families 29. On March 3, 2008, the IACHR received a petition filed on behalf of Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teófilo Zaragozo González Calfulef, Manuel Hernández Inostroza, Arturo Benito Vega González, and their families. 30. The petitioners state that in the small hours of October 16, 1973, a group of Navy agents and civilians with ties to Patria y Libertad, which, they say, was a far-right paramilitary group, arrived at the community of Lago Ranco, a rural area inhabited by smallholders in the Province of Valdivia, where, with the cooperation of the police, they began to look for and detain citizens, particularly smallholders or individuals of Mapuche descent, without a court order. In that context, they say that Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teófilo Zaragozo González Calfulef, Manuel Hernández Inostroza, and Arturo Benito Vega González, were abducted and taken with other individuals to Lago Ranco police post, where they were tortured and subjected to a phony trial. They say that early that morning the alleged victims were taken to one of the docks on Lago Ranco and put on a steamer called the Valdivia. They say that to this day their fate remains unknown and that the military authorities of the time, without complying with the legal requirements, ordered the deaths of the four alleged victims to be registered. 31. The petition states that relatives of some of the alleged victims filed a criminal complaint in April 2001 for aggravated kidnapping and other crimes, a proceeding that came to be known as the Lago Ranco case. The documents presented to the Commission indicate that on June 25, 2002, the judge with standing (ministro de fuero) presiding in the case ordered the acquittal with prejudice of the accused (at that time civilians) Javier Vera Junemann, Rodolfo Mondión Romo, Christián Bórquez Bernucci and Julio Vera Arriagada, having applied the exonerating factor of due obedience envisaged in Article 10(10) of the Criminal Code. The acquittal was upheld on consultation on July 31, 2006, by the Santiago Appellate Court. The ranks of the Army and http://www.ddhh.gov.cl/filesapp/2.sentenciadef.pdfand 14 Air 6 Force agents were obtained at the website