Kast Opens Door to Pardons for Social Unrest, Yet High-Profile Cases Fail to Meet His Own Criteria

However, an analysis of the nine uniformed personnel currently imprisoned with final sentences for the most emblematic cases of crimes committed during the wave of social protests that occurred in the country between October 2019 and March 2020 reveals that none of them meet the condition set by the president himself.

Although he claimed on television, “in some cases of that extreme violence I will indeed use the faculty,” the judicial evidence collected in the cases of five police officers and four military personnel serving sentences ranging from five to twelve years presents a contrasting picture to this scenario.

Emblematic Cases Fail to Meet the Criteria Set by Kast for Pardons

CIPER conducted a detailed review of the judicial processes, comparing first-instance rulings and subsequent appeals, and found that in all instances, the courts conclusively established that the uniformed personnel did not act under situations of life-threatening risk or public order outburst. On the contrary, the sentences indicate moments when danger had already ceased, where the officials acted with intent and disproportion, far from self-defense or extreme operational necessity defined by the far-right President as the baseline for a pardon.

During his electoral campaign, he had asserted that he would not consider the idea of pardons. However, now in La Moneda, he has sent contradictory signals, reopening the door to impunity.

“The President of the Republic has the duty to correct when justice acts with bias and ideology. We will not rest until we restore the honor to those who faced the risks for Chile,” Kast declared a year ago after visiting former Carabinero Captain Patricio Maturana. Maturana is serving over 12 years for firing a tear gas canister that blinded current senator Fabiola Campillay.

The case of the former officer highlights the contradiction between presidential discourse and judicial reality.

In the underlying reasons for the sentence against Maturana, issued on October 11, 2022, by the Oral Criminal Court of San Bernardo, the narrative that the then-candidate Kast publicly defended is dismantled.

According to Kast, Maturana «Did Not Intend to Harm Anyone»

“In a context of real threat, he receives a direct order to disperse violent protesters and fires a tear gas canister in a parabola from over 50 meters away without targeting anyone. He did not intend to harm anyone,” he argued to justify his support for the former officer.

“He did not intend to harm anyone. However, he was convicted of illegal coercion. With what conclusive evidence? With what certainty?” he asserted.

Nevertheless, the court reached a diametrically opposed conclusion after reviewing the available evidence: police body cameras, witness videos, internal police communications, and expert reports from the PDI.

The judges established that Maturana did not fire the riot shotgun according to regulations, meaning at a 45-degree elevated angle, but rather “fired directly at a small group of people,” and acted “with intent, given he was proven to know the weapon he used and the effects it would produce if fired at a wrong angle.”

Beyond intent, the context was also crucial in dismissing the “extreme violence” thesis. According to the records, the operation took place at the 5 Pinos Station in San Bernardo on the afternoon of November 26, 2019. The PDI’s findings presented in court established that at 20:35, five minutes before the shot that impacted Campillay, the surrounding streets were “clear, without barricades, fires, or any other obstacles.” The court determined that “until the tear gas canisters were fired, there was no serious disruption to public order,” thereby dismissing any justification based on a situation of extreme risk.

Inadequate and Disproportionate Use of Firearms

A similar scenario of disproportion and absence of imminent danger occurred in the Coquimbo region, where an Army patrol resulted in a fatal outcome. On October 20, 2019, in the center of La Serena, a military unit had a deployment that ended with the death of a young student, an Ecuadorian national, Romario Veloz Cortés, and serious injuries to two others.

The judges of the Oral Criminal Court in La Serena classified the actions of the uniformed personnel as “inadequate and disproportionate use of high-caliber firearms against civilians who, at most, were throwing objects from a considerable distance.”

The ruling recounts how the military, led by Captain José Santiago Faúndez Sepúlveda, ignored the achievement of the initial goal, stating that “they had achieved the objective initially set, which was to prevent vandalism and looting of commercial establishments in the area.”

However, far from withdrawing, “the captain insisted on advancing and getting much closer to the people marching that day… From this point onward, the risk created by the captain is indeed reprehensible under the legal framework, since it was neither proportionate nor justified to carry out such a military maneuver against unarmed civilians, most of whom were protesting peacefully.” Faúndez was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In the community of Colina, the same day, Army Corporal Pedro Lavín Villalobos was involved in another incident that highlights the absence of the “extreme violence” criterion proposed by Kast. The justice system verified that Lavín used his firearm at a time when police and military personnel were already withdrawing because the public order disturbance had ceased.

The ruling’s account is graphic: “From that intersection and while on the roadway, with no crowd or group of protesters around him, and once all Carabineros personnel were inside the vehicle and it had already started moving, (the victim) picked up a stone from the street and threw it at the van without hitting it. At that moment, the accused Corporal of the Army of Chile Pedro Lavín Villalobos, without any prior warning and contrary to the previously described rules of use of force, abusing his authority, fired his service weapon with lethal ammunition.” Lavín was sentenced to seven years in prison for illegal coercion, as reported by CIPER.

The violence exercised by some forces during the unrest was not limited to the use of firearms or riot shotguns; it also included beatings that left permanent scars. This is the case of Carabineros Víctor Antonio Lastra Marguirott and Henry Giovanny Cuellar Vega, who were sentenced to 12 years and 183 days for illegal coercion.

The events occurred in Buin during the night of October 23, 2019, and according to the ruling from the Oral Criminal Court in San Bernardo, the personnel arrived at a peaceful protest where the demonstrators “did not engage in conduct that could signify danger.” Despite this, they fired shots that led a neighbor, Mario Acuña, to hide in a square. It was there that the officers found him.

“Ordering him to lie on the ground and while there, they struck him in the body and primarily in the head, kicking him, causing brain injuries and damage to cranial nerves,” details the ruling cited by the investigative outlet.

The consequences were devastating for Acuña, who was left bedridden with permanent cognitive and physical sequelae, requiring feeding through a trachea-installed tube and ongoing care.

Two other cases highlight the vulnerability of the victims, including a minor. The first is of Carabinero Luis Antonio Castillo Fernández, who on November 21, 2019, outside the Intermodal Station of La Cisterna, brutally assaulted a 14-year-old girl who was waiting with her sister to avoid disorder.

The victim’s sister testified that the police van arrived and the officers “got out and started hitting everyone who was there… That carabineros got out hitting everyone, he hit a pregnant girl, she (the victim) was left stunned, couldn’t react, and was hit in the eye. She fell and was struck in the torso.” Castillo Fernández was sentenced to 11 years for illegal coercion, which caused the total loss of the vision in the girl’s right eye.

Finally, the case of former Captain Hugo Raúl Navarro Corvalán from the Third Police Station of Ovalle adds the figure of attempted homicide to the charges of illegal coercion. On October 19, 2019, Navarro detained a passerby and, after immobilizing him, fired a “shot at close range with his personal firearm,” injuring the victim in the pelvis.

On July 4, 2022, the Oral Criminal Court of Ovalle sentenced him to six years for attempted homicide, as well as penalties for illegal detention and forgery of a public instrument. The ruling noted that the former officer did not cooperate in the process.

No «Extreme Violence» Justifying the Actions of Uniformed Officers

CIPER indicated that in total, according to records from the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Studies Division, there are 219 former uniformed personnel with definitive convictions for crimes committed during the social outbreak. Of these, most received sentences of less than five years, allowing them access to benefits like supervised parole. However, the focus of the discussion on pardons centers on the nine currently behind bars.

In the coming weeks, these nine former officials could be eligible for the pardon that President José Antonio Kast is considering. However, the judicial background reviewed by the aforementioned investigative media shows that in all these emblematic cases, rather than existing “extreme violence” that justified disproportionate reaction, the courts accredited that the convicted acted when public order had been restored, used force disproportionately and unnecessarily, and in several cases acted with intent, aware of the harm they were causing. A reality that contrasts with the criteria that the president himself set to open the doors of La Moneda to pardons.

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