2023-12-29 10:49:14
Cheyre Espinoza (photo) was also convicted of embezzlement of public funds Wikimedia Commons The Chilean Court determined, on Thursday (28), the complicity of retired Army general Juan Emilio Cheyre Espinoza in 15 qualified homicides that occurred in 1973, specifically in operation known as the “Caravan of Death”. This operation was a military delegation with the aim of assassinating political opponents during the first months of Augusto Pinochet’s civil-military dictatorship (1973-1990). In particular, the Supreme Court determined that there was an error in classifying the participation attributed to the convicted Cheyre Espinoza as an accomplice to the murders, establishing it as complicity and sentencing the former soldier to five years in prison. However, Cheyre will serve an alternative sentence of intensive probation, considering his “prior impeccable conduct.” Additional penalties of absolute and perpetual disqualification from political rights and absolute disqualification from public positions and services were also imposed during the period of the sentence and payment of the costs of the process. Cheyre was also prosecuted for cases of embezzlement of public funds as part of an investigation into fraud at the military institution. In the same sentence, the highest Chilean court decided to increase the sentences of nine retired soldiers for the qualified murder of 15 opponents, all of whom were shot on October 16, 1973 and some of whom were even shot for free, as established by the judicial investigation. In the decision, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court decided that Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Juan Chiminelli Fullerton will be sentenced to 15 years, while Víctor Hugo Alegría Rodríguez, Jaime Ojeda Torrent and Emilio de la Mahotiere González will receive sentences of 10 years and one day in prison. Hernán Valdebenito Buggman, Guillermo Raby Arancibia and Luis Araos Flores were sentenced to five years and one day in prison as accomplices. According to the court’s resolution, “the meeting between the Commission and part of the personnel of the Artillery Regiment nº 2 Arica de La Serena – where Cheyre was a lieutenant – corresponds to a moment before the crimes committed and in it the antecedents were reviewed by statisticians who sought accelerate processes affecting political prisoners and, where appropriate, proceed immediately with their execution.” The dictatorship in Chile lasted 17 years and left more than 40 thousand victims, including executed people, missing detainees, political prisoners and torture, according to figures from the official commission that compiled testimonies from victims and family members. More than 3,200 Chileans died at the hands of state agents. During the government of the current Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, an unprecedented policy of searching for victims of forced disappearances during the Pinochet regime began, which seeks to clarify the fate of the disappeared, which are estimated at around 1,469 people, of which only 307 were found. The process also includes accountability to Chilean society on the progress of these processes, along with the implementation of reparation measures and guarantees against the repetition of these types of crimes.
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