[News] San Miguel Court condemns nine soldiers for child abduction and kidnapping in the Paine case

[FNX Magokiler]

Victims were 17, 18 and 26 years old. They were kidnapped and then shot, but the body of the youngest of them all was never found. The former uniformed men received sentences ranging between 10 years and one day and 15 years and one day.

The Fourth Chamber of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel issued a second instance ruling in the so-called Paine case, Escorial Cerro Chena episode, which investigates the crimes committed against Juan Guillermo Cuadra Espinoza (26 years old, agricultural worker) Ignacio Santander Albornoz (17 years old, high school student) and Carlos Manuel Ortiz Ortiz (18 years old, agricultural worker), which occurred between September and October 1973 at the hands of military personnel from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School.

The ministers María Soledad Espina Otero, María Alejandra Pizarro Soto and Celia Catalán Romero, confirmed the sentences against Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos, Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena, José Hugo Vásquez Silva and Jorge Fernando Reyes Cortés, 15 years and one day in prison. maximum degree; and Escipión Pedro Escobar Norambuena, Carlos Enrique Durán Rodríguez, Carlos del Tránsito Lazo Santibáñez, Jorge Segundo Saavedra Meza and Víctor Reinaldo Sandoval Muñoz, 10 years and one day in medium-grade major prison, all as perpetrators of aggravated minor abduction regarding of Ignacio Santander Albornoz and qualified kidnapping in the case of Juan Guillermo Cuadra Espinoza and Carlos Manuel Ortiz.

 

 

According to the investigation of the case, the three victims were detained from their homes and transferred to the military unit, where they were shot on October 5 and 6, 1973. The bodies of Cuadra Espinoza and Ortiz Ortiz were transferred to the Legal Medical Service and then buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. Meanwhile, to date, the whereabouts of the body of the minor Ignacio del Tránsito Santander Albornoz is unknown.

“That the convictions of these criminals have been confirmed is a relief for the families of the victims, who with so much effort and patience have waited for justice. The three victims were very young, they had their whole lives ahead of them and it will never be understood why they were treated this way. We are satisfied with this good news about the latest case in the Paine case, which was pending before the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, and we hope that the criteria expressed in the ruling will be maintained if the case continues to the Supreme Court," says the lawyer. Andrea Gattini, from the Caucoto Abogados Law Firm, plaintiff in the case.

Last June, relatives of the disappeared and executed detainees of Paine asked the president of the Supreme Court to speed up the processing of the cases still pending in the different episodes of the Paine case, on the verge of 50 years since the events that left that town in mourning occurred, being This is the last case that remained in the second instance. Currently, all pending episodes of said case are awaiting resolution from the Supreme Court.

 

https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2023/10/06/corte-de-san-miguel-condena-a-nueve-militares-por-sustraccion-de-menores-y-secuestro-en-caso-paine/