Prosecutor’s Office Launches Criminal Investigation for Contempt Against Army Commander Following Legal Maneuver in Romario Veloz Case

The Prosecutor’s Office has initiated a criminal investigation for contempt against top Army officials after it was revealed that they kept the medical retirement of convicted Captain José Faúndez active.

Through Office No. 86/2026, the Public Ministry confirmed to El Ciudadano that it is already investigating military authorities for the «protection» offered to former captain José Faúndez. Meanwhile, the plaintiff’s attorney Adriana Rojas Pérez dismantles the military defense that sought to prioritize the convicted individual’s retirement over a lifetime disqualification ordered by the courts.

It is important to remember that the attorney for the family of Romario Veloz, Adriana Rojas filed a complaint for contempt against Army Commander in Chief, Pedro Varela Sabando, and General Javier Iturriaga del Campo, for failing to execute the expulsion of Captain José Santiago Faúndez Sepúlveda, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for unnecessary violence resulting in death in the case of Romario Veloz.

The Public Ministry has already taken steps in the matter. Through Office FRCN DER No. 86/2026, signed by the Regional Executive Director of the Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office North, Jaime Orrego Tapia, the agency officially confirmed to El Ciudadano that the criminal investigation for contempt against Commander-in-Chief Pedro Raúl Varela Sabando and General Javier Iturriaga del Campo is officially underway.

Although the Public Ministry denied the release of the RUC number and the identity of the Assistant Prosecutor, citing the confidentiality of article 182 of the Criminal Procedural Code—arguing to protect the success and confidentiality of the proceedings—the official document explicitly recognizes that the contempt case has «been received» by the North Central Prosecutor’s Office. This acknowledgment undermines any attempts by military authorities to frame the complaint as a mere administrative issue.

«An administrative resolution can never alter a final judicial ruling»

The El Ciudadano team had exclusive access to the response provided by the Army. Among the central arguments made by the institution for processing Faúndez’s absolute retirement for health reasons rather than for his judicial conviction are as follows:

Firstly, the suspension of the effects of the conviction. Here, the Army argues that at the time of initiating retirement proceedings in May 2024, the Supreme Court had issued a stay order (granted on February 7, 2024). This meant that the effects of the sentencing were legally suspended, which, according to the Army, administratively prevented invoking the conviction as a cause for resignation at that moment.

Secondly, they refer to the preexistence and firmness of the medical ruling. On January 30, 2024, the Army Health Commission issued Report No. 248/2024, declaring the Officer unanimously as «Unfit for continued service» due to an incurable illness (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), granting him a Class II Disability. Because this technical and specialized procedure was fully aligned and firm, it first configured the cause of absolute retirement for health contemplated in article 54 letter a) of Law No. 18.948.

Thirdly, they refer to the binding jurisprudence of the Comptroller’s Office, where the military institution bases its decision on the mandatory opinions of the CGR which establish that when two causes for retirement coincide, the one that arises first in time should prevail unless one of them pertains to invalidity or incapacity. In this last case, given its indemnifying and social protection nature, the medical cause must take precedence over any other reason for cessation of functions (including penal sanctions).

As a final argument, the Army cited the constitutional protection of the right to Social Security, asserting that the primacy of the state of invalidity responds to the preservation of the fundamental right to social security, guaranteed in article 19 No.18 of the Constitution.

Furthermore, they state that this criterion aligns with international treaties ratified by Chile—such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the San Salvador Protocol—which impose the obligation to protect individuals’ physical or mental incapacity, independently of their legal status.

In an interview with El Ciudadano, attorney Adriana Rojas commented on the response provided by the institution:

“The main legal trap lies in using administrative opinions to attempt to relativize the effects of a final judicial ruling. The opinions of the Comptroller invoked by the Army—some even dating back to the 1980s—refer to conflicts between administrative causes for dismissal, but none of them pertain to a conclusive penal judgment that imposes a lifetime disqualification,” she stated, adding that the Army selectively chose a cause to alter the effects of the conviction.

To protect its decision administratively, the Army resorted to a technical interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling from January 2026. The institution declared that the highest court did not rule on the substance of the health-related reason for retirement; rather, it rejected judicial actions against it based solely on a matter of expiration of procedural deadlines.

With that argument, the military institution claimed that the judicial resolution contained no express prohibition preventing it from continuing with Faúndez’s medical processing. Thus, interpreting the Supreme Court ruling as a rejection for procedural reasons rather than substance, it found the basis to advance the retirement for invalidity, thereby avoiding the direct consequences of the criminal conviction.

Attorney Adriana Rojas warned that the Army’s interpretation is deeply concerning from an institutional perspective. In her view, the Supreme Court never authorized the institution to substitute one reason for retirement for another; it merely rejected a resource for procedural reasons. In this regard, she emphasized that the criminal ruling had been conclusive since February 2025 and had to be fully complied with, including the additional penalties of disqualification.

“There is no room for an administrative body to make its own interpretation regarding how to execute a judicial ruling. Especially not when it involves an armed institution, which is constitutionally subject to civil authority and the principle of obedience to the law. If each state entity could reinterpret sentences based on its administrative convenience, it would severely undermine the Rule of Law,” she warned.

The «Key Evidence» Signed by General Varela

A key piece in the judicial onslaught is one of the official responses issued by the institution through Transparency requests between April and May 2026. In these public documents, the high command acknowledged in writing that the controversial invalidity retirement of former captain José Santiago Faúndez Sepúlveda «was still under active processing,» despite the clear orders for immediate dismissal issued by the Government in 2025 and the Supreme Court’s ruling in January 2026.

These official statements highlighted that the senior Army officials kept the medical process alive in order to evade the effects of Faúndez’s penal conviction for the homicide of Romario Veloz. Additionally, this documentation became the main source for the Prosecutor’s Office to substantiate and establish the contempt charge against the military institution’s command.

According to the attorney, this documentation is particularly relevant because the “institution officially recognizes that it continued processing a retirement for invalidity when the only appropriate action was to fully execute the criminal sentence,” she stated.

Rojas clarified that the contempt charge originated in February 2025, when the Army initiated the procedure for dismissal incompatible with the judicial conviction. For the jurist, these documents constitute compelling evidence that the decision did not arise from an isolated error, but rather from a “conduct that continued over time, even after the Undersecretary for the Armed Forces reiterated that, once the protection resource was rejected, only the sentence needed to be executed,” she added.

The institution’s insistence on safeguarding the medical retirement of the officer escalated to the top of the military hierarchy, culminating in the final decree signed by the Commander in Chief of the Army, General Pedro Raúl Varela Sabando.

By signing the document that officially confirmed the absolute retirement due to physical incapacity of the former captain, the highest authority of the Army directly assumed responsibility for a decision that ended up consolidating the controversial maneuver.

This administrative act placed General Varela Sabando at the center of the contempt charge, validating with his own signature a medical process that contradicted the Government’s directives and previous court rulings.

At this point, Rojas is categorical: “The current Commander in Chief signs the resolution through which Captain Faúndez is discharged for invalidity and not for the reason derived from the criminal conviction. If that resolution implicated noncompliance with a final sentence, it naturally falls upon the Prosecutor’s Office to determine the criminal responsibilities of those involved in that decision.”

Moreover, the attorney denounced the use of institutional resources of the Army to defend these actions, warning that “this situation has already been reported to the Comptroller by Senator Núñez, and we expect a pronouncement on this matter.”

“No One Is Above the Law”

It is important to remember that former captain José Santiago Faúndez Sepúlveda is currently serving his 15-year prison sentence at the Colina I Penitentiary, after being judicially accredited for ordering the use of live ammunition against civilians near the La Serena mall, resulting in the death of Romario Veloz and causing serious injuries to other victims.

For Romario’s family, learning of these bureaucratic maneuvers within the military institution reopens a deep wound. It is a devastating and incomprehensible blow to confront the reality that, after years of judicial struggles to achieve a historic sentence, it is the very apparatus of the State—through the Army—that is raising barriers and administrative loopholes that hinder justice and prolong the definitive exoneration of the uniformed individual who took their son from them.

“Now the Public Ministry has the opportunity to demonstrate that in Chile no one is above the law. It is not just about protecting the rights of the family of Romario Veloz; it is about reaffirming an essential principle of the Rule of Law: that judicial sentences are enforced, especially by those within the institutions responsible for enforcing the law,” concluded Adriana Rojas.

El Ciudadano.

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