Carlos Enrique Lorca Tobar (November 19, 1944 – disappeared 1975), was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an physician, president of the Students' Federation and then deputy for

Valdivia province Valdivia Province ( es, Provincia de Valdivia; ) is one of two provinces of the southern Chilean region of Los Ríos (XIV). The provincial capital is Valdivia. Located in the province are two important rivers, the Calle-Calle / Valdivia River and ...

and leader of the

Socialist Party of Chile The Socialist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Socialista de Chile, or PS) is a centre-left political party founded in 1933. Its historic leader was President of Chile Salvador Allende, who was deposed in a CIA-backed coup d'état by General Augusto ...

. After the 1973 coup, the Socialist Party as well as the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

were targeted by Chile's secret police. On June 25, 1975, Dr. Lorca, a

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

teaching at the University of Chile, a former member of congress and a member of the political commission of the Socialist party central committee, and Modesta Carolina Wiff Sepulveda, 34, a social worker, were arrested at a laundromat on Calle Maule in

Santiago de Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

. At this laundromat, contacts were made and orders were passed on within the Socialist party. Wiff was functioning as a liaison with the leadership, and was also responsible for carrying out some party tasks. The

DINA Dina ( ar, دينا, he, דִּינָה, also spelled Dinah, Dena, Deena) is a female given name. Women * Dina bint Abdul-Hamid (1929–2019), Queen consort of Jordan, first wife of King Hussein * Princess Dina Mired of Jordan (born 1965), Princ ...

secret police captured him, along with other opposition leaders, and they were transferred to ''

Villa Grimaldi Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA’s (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet regime) many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during ...

'' detention center, from where all trace was lost. DINA agents searched Modesta Carolina Wiff's house a few hours after she was arrested. All the appeals for protection attempted in order to secure their release were in vain. Likewise the criminal process that the relatives initiated as a result of their being apprehended concluded when the criminal court declared itself incompetent and ordered that the trial proceedings be sent to the military justice system. According to independent testimony these two people were arrested and taken to the ''

'' DINA facility. Since then there has been no further word about either of them.

External links

Truth Commissions Digital Collection: Reports: Chile
PART THREE, Chapter Two (A.2.c) 1974 through August 1977

Chapter II Case Nº 1958: CARLOS ENRIQUE LORCA TOBAR
Partido Socialista de Chile
1944 births 1975 deaths Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile People killed in Operation Condor Socialist Party of Chile politicians Chilean psychiatrists {{chile-politician-stub