Santiago de Chile, January 6 (EFE). – The Chilean justice announced this Saturday the final sentence of 20 years in prison against four retired soldiers for burning two young people alive in 1986 in one of the most cruel episodes of the Augusto dictatorship. Pinochet (1973-1990), known as the “Quemados case”.
The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court rejected all appeals filed by the defendant's defense and refused to apply mitigating circumstances such as half prescription and required obedience.
In this way, the court sentenced soldiers Julio Castañer González, Iván Figueroa Canobra, Nelson Medina Gálvez and Pedro Fernández Dittus to 20 years in prison for being the perpetrators of a qualified murder in the case of Rodrigo Rojas Denegri and the vain murder of Carmen Gloria Quintana.
Chile's highest court decided to reduce the sentences of the other six soldiers in a “radical distinction” because they were junior soldiers.
The victims were arrested by a military patrol on July 2, 1986 during a day of protests against the military dictatorship and were later beaten, doused with gasoline and burned alive.
The convicts threw the victims into a ditch next to a country road on the outskirts of Santiago in the municipality of Quilicura.
Rojas died hours after the attack, but Quintana, just 17 years old, managed to escape despite severe burns and injuries.
The “Quemados case”, one of the most famous and motivated protests against the dictatorship at home and abroad, especially in the United States, where the murdered photographer lived.
The Chilean dictatorship lasted 17 years and left more than 40,000 victims, including executed prisoners, disappeared prisoners, political prisoners and those tortured, according to figures from the official commission, which compiled statements from victims and relatives.
More than 3,200 Chileans died at the hands of state agents. EFE
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