The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court resolved yesterday to confirm the convictions of retired Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela and retired Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grant as perpetrators of the crime of aggravated kidnapping committed during the dictatorship against 15 forcibly disappeared persons from Parral.

The reduction is due to the high court accepting the principle of "half-prescription" (statute of limitations), reducing Cardemil's sentence from 15 years and one day to 5 years, and Caulier's from 7 years to 4 years.

Furthermore, it granted them the benefit of supervised release. The same chamber acquitted six former Carabineros officers sentenced for the aggravated kidnapping of brothers Guido and Héctor Barría Basay, Socialist Party militants, which occurred in October 1973.

Those favored by the ruling are Hans Eduart Schernberger Valdivia, José Hernán Godoy Barrientos, Robert Santiago Teylor Escobar, Quintiliano Rogel Alvarado, Pedro Segundo Soto Godoy, and José Rómulo Catalán Oyarzún.

Only in a final ruling did the court resolve to maintain, firm and without modifications, the sentence handed down against Carabineros officer Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor for the crime of aggravated homicide against 6 young men who were riddled with bullets at the Puente Bulnes in Santiago in October 1973.

In that same ruling, he was sentenced for the crime of frustrated homicide against Luis Abraham González Plaza, who survived the execution. The change in criteria within the chamber was due to the fact that there were different compositions of judges for each case.

Source: December 28, 2007 La Nacion