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Original article: Condenan a excoronel de Carabineros por torturas contra adolescentes tras el golpe de Pinochet: cumplirá pena en libertad

Former Carabinero Colonel Sentenced for Torturing Teenagers During Pinochet’s Coup: Will Serve Sentence in Freedom

More than half a century after the September 11, 1973 coup, justice has issued a new ruling regarding crimes committed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Extraordinary judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Max Cancino Cancino, has convicted retired Carabinero Colonel Ángel Segundo Lorca Fuenzalida for the torture inflicted on three teenagers during the hours immediately following the military coup. However, the sentence will be served in freedom.

The ruling established that Lorca Fuenzalida is guilty of three counts of torture committed against J.C.M.S., P.A.F.Q., and A.J.V.P., all of whom were just 16 years old at the time of the abuse.

For each of these crimes, the former officer received a sentence of 61 days in prison, which was replaced with the benefit of conditional remission.

The court’s decision reconstructs the brutal events that took place on the afternoon of the coup. The three youths, along with other detainees, were captured by Carabineros from the Third Police Station of Puerto in a wooden and zinc house serving as a repair workshop, located on the Cordillera hill of Valparaíso. The officers violently burst in, pointing their weapons at them, and transported them, handcuffed and piled up, in pickup trucks.

During the journey, they were struck with the butts of rifles. Once at the police station, they were interrogated about the origins of explosives found at the site, while being subjected to punches and kicks all over their bodies. The next day, the teenagers were turned over to the Naval Prosecutor’s Office and subjected to a military court.

In the civil sphere, the court rejected the claims for remedy and statute of limitations made by the defense. As a result, the Chilean State was ordered to pay 60 million pesos in damages for moral harm to J, the only victim who appeared as a plaintiff in this part of the process.

Ex-Colonel Convicted for Miguel Woodward’s Crime and Teen Abduction

Lorca Fuenzalida, who rose to the rank of colonel in Carabineros, is no stranger to facing charges related to human rights violations. In 2015, he was prosecuted for his involvement in the abduction of priest Miguel Woodward, which also occurred in 1973.

It is worth recalling that after the military coup, on September 16, 1973, the Chilean-British priest was detained by members of the Navy and taken to the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María. He was tortured and subsequently transferred to the ships Lebu and Escuela Esmeralda, where he continued to endure torture. Due to the agony from the torture, he was taken to the Naval Hospital on September 22, where he arrived dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. His body was thrown into a mass grave, and to this day his remains have not been found.

In 2016, Lorca Fuenzalida faced another prosecution for the abduction of a 14-year-old girl, V.F.F., which occurred in February 1974.

According to the records, the teenager was detained by Navy and Carabinero personnel at her home in Cerro Florida, Valparaíso, and subsequently taken to the Silva Palma barracks, adjacent to the Naval War Academy, the same place where her sister and mother were taken, without a court order, reported El Clarín.

Both the young girl and her family members were subjected to interrogations regarding their political activities and the existence of supposed hidden weapons, during which they were sexually abused, as well as beaten, insulted, threatened with death, and subjected to electric shocks on their intimate parts, ankles, and fingers.

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