Minister Mario Carroza sentences retired Carabineros officer for a staged confrontation in Pelarco in 1973.

The Minister for human rights cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, sentenced a retired Carabineros officer for the qualified homicide of Jaime Alvear Espinoza, which occurred on October 20, 1973, in the Andean foothills of Pelarco, Maule Region.

The magistrate sentenced Mario Fortunato Valentín Silva Letelier to 10 years and one day in prison for his responsibility in the homicide of the militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), an event that was reported at the time as a death resulting from a confrontation with the Carabineros.

In his investigation, Minister Carroza established that: 1°.- Javier Segundo Alvear Espinoza, 32 years old at the time of the events, married, a mechanic, was a militant of the MIR and, after September 11, 1973, went into hiding.

In October 1973, he was contacted by two university students, Daniel Alberto García Soto and Guillermo Roberto Silva Carmona, to help them leave the country through an unauthorized border crossing, as they were also being sought by the authorities of the time. 2°.- Thus, on October 19, 1973, the three met on the outskirts of the city of Talca and traveled on foot to a ravine in the Andean foothills area known as "Astillero Alto" in the commune of Pelarco, where they lit a campfire at nightfall and began to talk. 3°.- The victims were in these circumstances when a Carabineros patrol, composed of personnel from the Fourth Police Station of Talca and the Pelarco Precinct, commanded by Lieutenant Mario Fortunato Valentín Silva Letelier—who had been alerted by locals about these individuals—initiated a police operation to capture them; 4°.- The picket of police officers arrived at the ravine and gathered on one side of it, from where they observed them. At that moment, Officer Silva Letelier decided that the personnel should surround them in order to close in, thereby preventing them from fleeing, while simultaneously ordering them to fire in the event that they observed any reaction from them; 5°.- Once these instructions were given by the commanding officer, the Carabineros personnel, without any legal summons or warning, proceeded to fire their SIG rifles, causing a fatal neck wound with spinal cord transection to Javier Segundo Alvear Espinoza, which caused his death at the scene. They also succeeded in detaining the other young men, who were transferred to the Fourth Police Station of Talca, from there to the Third Police Station, and finally handed over to the Talca Regiment, where, after being interrogated by the second section of that unit, they were sent to the local Public Jail. 6°.- After the incident, the official version published in the press stated: "The Government announced today the execution of a mechanic, identified as Javier Alvear Espinoza, 32 years of age, who was accused of attacking a police patrol in Pelarco, a small town in the Agricultural Province of Talca. Upon his arrest, maps of roads and barracks were found in his possession, as well as weapons and ammunition." In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay a total indemnity of 5,400 Unidades de Fomento to the victim's family members.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, September 30, 2019