The highest Court rejected an appeal of cassation against the first-instance ruling and sentenced Domingo Campos Collao and Germán García Moreno to 12 years in prison for their responsibility in the crime.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court sentenced two retired members of the Carabineros for the aggravated kidnapping of the farmer Domingo Huenul Huaquil, which occurred starting on June 15, 1974, in the commune of Lautaro, Araucanía region.

The ruling maintains that a reading of the appeal makes it manifest that it involves subsidiary and mutually exclusive arguments. Indeed, its initial segment extends to an error of law committed in considering the conviction decision mistaken, as the accused allegedly did not have the intervention attributed to them in the crime.

However, immediately thereafter, it discards the concurrence of a circumstance that aggravates the imposed penalty—Article 12 No. 8 of the Penal Code—and argues for the concurrence of another that mitigates it—Article 103 of the Penal Code—allegations that certainly assume participation in a crime for which a reduction in sanction is sought.

As can be seen, what is postulated in relation to the modifying circumstances assumes the abandonment of the previous thesis by which the criminal responsibility of the accused is denied; under these conditions, this petition cannot be addressed, because the effectiveness of some defects cannot be subordinated to the existence or non-existence of others, disregarding the formality that is inherent to this strict-law appeal.

The investigation by the visiting judge Álvaro Mesa Latorre established that: Domingo Huenul Huaiquil, a 42-year-old farmer residing in the Pinchunlao reservation in the commune of Perquenco, traveled to the city of Lautaro on June 15, 1974.

In that city, he entered the restaurant ‘El Rayo’, located at the bus terminal in the city of Lautaro, but around 18:00 hours, he was detained by Carabineros, who put him into an institutional van, apparently without carrying a judicial order for such purposes.

Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown. According to the statements of the eyewitness, Luis Gabriel Grunewaldt Millapán, the Carabineros who entered the aforementioned restaurant and arrested Domingo Huenul along with other people who were consuming in the establishment belonged to the 1st Precinct of Lautaro.

The arresting personnel were identified by the witness as Enrique Ferriere Valeze (R.I.P.), the driver of the vehicle, plus Corporals Domingo Antonio Campos Collao and Germán Emeterio García Romero. The first two belonged to the operational group described above; the latter allegedly had past disputes with the victim, according to the statements of Huenul Huaiquil’s relatives, in addition to the fact that his family owned land adjacent to that of Grunewaldt Millapán.

Source: pjud.cl, August 28, 2019