The 22 year-old young tertiary student at the “Universidad Tecnica del Estado” (Tech State University) and a militant of the “Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria” (Left Revolutionary Movement), was arrested on July 20, 1974 in the capital, being afterwards one of the missing persons included in the long list.
For this incident, Marianela Cifuentes, the minister in an extraordinary visit for cases of human rights violations, sentenced the repressors Cesar Manriquez, Miguel Krassnoff and Pedro Espinoza to 10 years in prison and one day.
As the perpetrators were State agents, Cifuentes also ordered the Treasury to pay compensation to the victim’s siblings.
Muñoz’s abduction was part of Operation Colombo, led by the DINA from July 1974 to January 1975, aimed at eliminating 119 opponents of the coup regime and making them appear to have been killed in combat in neighboring countries.
According to various truth commissions, during the dictatorship (1973-1990) more than 40,000 cases of violations of citizens’ rights had been recorded in the country, including murders, detainees turning into missing persons, prisoners and tortured.
It is estimated that in those 17 years more than 200,000 people must have gone into exile for political reasons.
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