The Supreme Court convicted four retired members of the Air Force (FACH) for their responsibility in the repeated crime of qualified homicide of Pedro Antonio Bahamondes Rogel, José Santiago Soto Muñoz, Héctor Hugo Maldonado Ulloa, and José Mañao Ampuero.

These crimes were perpetrated in the Lintz neighborhood of Puerto Montt on January 31, 1974. In a split decision (case file 8.914-2018), the Second Chamber of the high court—composed of justices Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, and Jorge Dahm—increased the sentence to be served by the convicted Ronald Peake de Ferrari to 10 years and one day in prison; meanwhile, it maintained the 3 years and one day sentence, with the benefit of supervised release, for Juan Antonio Gallegos Vega, Héctor Stuardo Gajardo, and José Javier Quilodrán Espinace. “It is worth establishing that, even though the recognition of the gradual statute of limitations, regulated in Article 103 of the penal code, lacks influence on the operative part of the ruling under study, the constant jurisprudence of this Penal Chamber has repeatedly pointed out that the classification of the illicit act committed as a crime against humanity requires the consideration of International Human Rights Law regulations.” These regulations exclude the application of both the total statute of limitations and the so-called partial statute of limitations, as these institutions are understood to be closely linked in their foundations and, consequently, contrary to the ius cogens regulations originating from that sphere of International Criminal Law, which reject impunity and the imposition of penalties not proportional to the intrinsic gravity of the crimes, based on the passage of time,” the ruling states. Likewise, the resolution establishes that in this instance, it is not appropriate to recognize the mitigating factor of zealous reparation of the harm caused for the convicted Peake de Ferrari: “However, the mitigating circumstance of criminal responsibility described in the previous motive is based on considerations of criminal policy, whose scope of application is general, it being necessary for its operation that there exists in the process any form of reparation for the damage caused by the crime or that its reparation has been sought.” For the high court, for said mitigating factor to be configured: “It must be an action of ‘zealous reparation of the harm caused,’ that is, one that produces in the accused an attitude, a conduct, a decision subsequent to the crime, of repentance and of a certain and effective purpose to achieve the greatest reparation rationally possible.” “(…) although—it continues—Ronald Peake de Ferrari made three deposits in the process for the sums of $1,000,000 on November 10, 2014, when answering the accusation; $800,000 on January 28, 2015; and $2,200,000 on March 17, 2015, totaling $4,000,000, such disbursements do not reveal an effective intent of reparation, and merely constitute a unilateral act of will, without any effective link to the harm caused being appreciated in them.” This is “because they have materialized more than 40 years after the commission of the illicit acts, and more than 4 years after the start of this process, which is inconsistent with the objective material effectiveness of the reparation that the mitigating factor requires for its recognition and only seeks to obtain a mitigating circumstance for the purpose of moderating the penalty to be imposed.” In the civil aspect, the sentence ordering the state to pay a total compensation of $205,000,000 (two hundred and five million pesos) to the victims' families was confirmed, a decision agreed upon with the dissenting vote of Justice Cisternas, who was in favor of recognizing, with respect to Peake de Ferrari, the mitigating factor of zealous reparation of the harm caused. During the investigation stage of the case, led by the visiting judge of the Puerto Montt Court of Appeals, Leopoldo Vera Muñoz, it was established that: “On January 31, 1974, in the city of Puerto Montt, at night, during the curfew, a group of soldiers belonging to the FACH, heavily armed with SIC rifles, raided three homes.” In this context, “they took four young men whom they had already identified from their beds, beat them with the butts of their rifles, and took them, bleeding, to a rural place where they were stood in front of a mound and executed by firing squad, only to later deliver the bodies to the morgue.” “Due to the insistence of the families, several days later the remains were delivered in closed caskets and they were denied the possibility of holding a wake and mass as they wished. Furthermore, on February 1st of that year, the FACH hierarchy issued a public statement, which appeared in the city's newspapers, that blamed the victims for having attacked a military patrol. Which, as has been said, never happened.”

Source: suractual.cl, June 17, 2020

Supreme Court convicted former FACh officials for executions in Puerto Montt

The events occurred in the Lintz neighborhood on January 31, 1974, and there were four victims. The sentences are 10 years for one of the convicted and three years of supervised release for the other three.

The Supreme Court convicted four retired members of the Air Force (FACh) for their responsibility in the repeated crime of qualified homicide of Pedro Antonio Bahamondes Rogel, José Santiago Soto Muñoz, Héctor Hugo Maldonado Ulloa, and José Mañao Ampuero, illicit acts perpetrated in the Lintz neighborhood of Puerto Montt on January 31, 1974.

In a split decision, the Second Chamber of the high court, composed of justices Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, and Jorge Dahm, increased the sentence to be served by the convicted Ronald Peake de Ferrari to 10 years and one day in prison; meanwhile, it maintained the 3 years and one day sentence, with the benefit of supervised release, for Juan Antonio Gallegos Vega, Héctor Stuardo Gajardo, and José Javier Quilodrán Espinace.

During the investigation stage of the case, led by the visiting judge of the Puerto Montt Court of Appeals, Leopoldo Vera Muñoz, it was established that “on January 31, 1974, in the city of Puerto Montt, at night, during the curfew, a group of soldiers belonging to the FACh, heavily armed with SIC rifles, raided three homes and took four young men whom they had already identified from their beds, beat them with the butts of their rifles, and took them, bleeding, to a rural place where they were stood in front of a mound and executed by firing squad.” Subsequently, “they delivered the bodies to the morgue. Due to the insistence of the families, several days later the remains were delivered in closed caskets and they were denied the possibility of holding a wake and mass as they wished. Furthermore, on February 1st of that year, the FACh hierarchy issued a public statement, which appeared in the city's newspapers, that blamed the victims for having attacked a military patrol. Which, as has been said, never happened.” The ruling clarifies that despite the time elapsed and that it would generate the statute of limitations for the crimes, in this case, it does not apply because they are crimes classified as crimes against humanity, according to International Human Rights Law. Likewise, monetary contributions made by Ronald Peake de Ferrari were not considered as mitigating factors because “such disbursements do not reveal an effective intent of reparation, and merely constitute a unilateral act of will, without any effective link to the harm caused being appreciated in them, since they have materialized more than 40 years after the commission of the illicit acts, and more than 4 years after the start of this process.” In the civil aspect, the sentence ordering the state to pay a total compensation of $205 million to the victims' families was confirmed.

Source: soychile.cl, June 17, 2020