The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the Rancagua Court of Appeals, Marcelo Vásquez, handed down a sentence in the investigation into the crime of simple homicide of Héctor Llanos Guzmán, events that occurred at the Tercera Comisaría de Carabineros in the town of Coya on October 23, 1973.

In the resolution, Minister Vásquez sentenced retired Carabineros officer Jorge de la Cruz Hernández Rocha to 7 years of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime. Additionally, he was ordered to pay court costs and received the accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, as well as absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence.

Source: radioartesania.cl, October 4, 2016

Ruling confirmed sentencing retired Carabineros officer to prison for homicide at Coya police station in 1973

The former uniformed officer was convicted of a crime against humanity.

The Rancagua Court of Appeals confirmed the ruling that sentenced retired Carabineros officer Jorge de la Cruz Hernández Rocha to 7 years of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime of simple homicide, an illicit act perpetrated at the Tercera Comisaría de Carabineros in the town of Coya on October 23, 1973.

In a split decision, judges Jorge Fernández, Álvaro Saavedra, and lawyer (i) Álvaro Barría rejected the appeal for cassation on the merits and confirmed the appealed sentence issued by the minister on assignment for human rights cases, Marcelo Vásquez Fernández, dated September 26, 2016, which sentenced Hernández Rocha to 7 years of effective imprisonment, absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence. "In light of what has been stated, this Court cannot but share the conclusions recorded by the Minister on Assignment in his resolution of May 16 of last year—which in any case he declared reproduced in his final judgment—which, upon rejecting the exception of res judicata, established, after correctly explaining how the imposition of a 'state or time of war' conditioned the functioning of Military Tribunals, that these, under authoritarian penal legislation that prioritized national security over the individual rights of citizens, exercised their jurisdiction in highly concentrated proceedings, with absolute moderation of defense rights, without jurisdictional control, without respect for the principles of due process, and ultimately with zero capacity to achieve an impartial clarification of the events submitted to their inquiry, transforming into a biased activity lacking all objectivity and equanimity, such that their decisions could not have the capacity to produce res judicata, explaining that in the case at hand, after a brief investigation with very limited evidence, an exemption from criminal liability was applied to the accused without the pronouncement containing any reasoning that would justify said decision," the ruling maintains. The resolution adds, regarding the appellant's questioning of the classification of the crime against humanity: "(...) Considering the investigated illicit act as a crime against humanity responds, as has been well explained by the instructing Minister, to the circumstance of understanding that the homicide of Héctor Llanos Guzmán derived from a discretionary detention by State police agents, one of whom, upon the detainee's attempt to escape from a police facility absolutely guarded by heavily armed personnel, inflicted a mortal wound with a rifle-type firearm. Said action—violent and disproportionate—these sentencers understand is only explainable in the context in which police and military officials of the time operated. (...) The foregoing, as has been demonstrated in different judicial proceedings, historical investigations, and official documents resulting from reparation policies (Rettig Report and Valech Report), occurred within a framework of total impunity that contaminated the habitual behavior that uniformed officers would have had in a context of constitutional normality, incurring in actions that were transgressive or vexatious of basic rights, abusive and disproportionate, constituting the investigated fact, that is, the death of the young Llanos, an illicit act against humanity, whose prosecution and effective sanction becomes necessary, not only to provide reparation to the victim and his closest circle, but to society as a whole, as the interests of the human race have been undermined and compromised, affecting the peace, security, and well-being of all humanity."

Source: elrancahuaso.cl, March 21, 2017

Supreme Court convicted retired Carabineros officer for homicide at Coya Police Station, O'Higgins Region.

The highest Court confirmed the appealed sentence, issued by the Rancagua Court of Appeals minister Marcelo Vásquez, who substantiated the process in the first instance. In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court sentenced retired Carabineros officer Jorge de la Cruz Fernández Rocha to 7 years of imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime of simple homicide of Héctor Horacio Llanos Guzmán, an illicit act perpetrated in October 1973 at the Tercera Comisaría de Carabineros in the town of Coya, O'Higgins Region.

The sentence maintains that the fact established by the lower Court and adopted by the Rancagua Court of Appeals is as follows: That around 00:45 hours on October 23, 1973, Héctor Llanos Guzmán was apprehended by a police patrol along with other people, upon being surprised violating the curfew time limit that prevailed in the country at that time, being taken to the Tercera Comisaría de Carabineros in the town of Coya, a unit where the father of the aforementioned detainee worked as a clerk and, at a moment when the aforementioned Llanos Guzmán supposedly attempted to leave the aforementioned barracks, he was pursued by the guard corporal, who, making use of his service weapon, which was a SIG rifle, fired a shot at his back from approximately 15 meters away, causing a traumatic cardiac rupture that caused his death instantaneously due to a transfixing thoracic bullet wound. The resolution adds that the events that caused the death of Llanos Guzmán due to the shot fired by a police officer must be classified as a crime against humanity, as it is unquestionable, not only in view of the facts of the process but also because of what has been demonstrated by different reports, that at the time of the aggression, a state policy was implemented that provided for the repression of ideological positions contrary to the regime, security regardless of any consideration for the human person, the intimidation of civilians, and, above all, the guarantee of impunity that the regime itself generated regarding criminal and all other types of responsibilities, among other actions. Next, the ruling points out that what is relevant for the correct conceptualization of the illicit act of which Héctor Horacio Llanos Guzmán was a victim are the conditions described above, which authorized killing with total contempt for human life, in the face of the trivial transgression of the order to stop by the accused, who was attempting to leave the barracks where he was being held for violating the curfew and was known to the apprehending agents given the link he held with a member of the aforementioned unit, that is, for any disobedience to authority. Faced with these facts, deliberate inaction, tolerance, or acquiescence by the authorities prevailed. Finally, the sentence maintains that regarding the requirement that this type of crime be part of the state policy that constitutes a widespread attack against the civilian population, the homicide of Llanos Guzmán clearly falls within the pattern of attacks that were executed daily by state agents against that population, which were not disapproved, reproached, or much less prosecuted by state authorities, as was demonstrated by the precarious investigation of the military justice of the time, this as part of its security policy, of all of which the involved police officer was aware, as the judges of the instance did not find any circumstance proven that would allow for any motive of justification or proportionality in the face of the disobedience to the order given in this case.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, March 28, 2018