Hernán Ramírez Rurange, Odlanier Mena and, now, Hernán Chacón Soto. They are some of the retired Chilean officers convicted of crimes against humanity who have taken their own lives in recent years before entering prison.
The last of the suicides, yesterday, was committed by Chacó Soto, one of the seven convicted on Monday of the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara.
As explained by the prosecutor Claudio Suazo, the incident took place when officials from the human rights brigade of the investigative police showed up at the home of the retired brigadier, 86 years old, to notify him of the judicial resolution and transfer him to Punta Peuco prison, where he had to serve the sentence of 25 years, imposed by the Supreme Court, for the murders of Jara and Quiroga: 15 for homicide and 10 for qualified kidnapping.
“The resident of the aforementioned property took a firearm and fired a shot that killed him at the same address”, explained the prosecutor.
The weapon, according to the authorities, was duly registered in the name of Chacón, who apparently asked the officers to arrest him if he could take a medicine first, a moment he took advantage of to take his own life.
The Supreme Court of Chile handed down the final sentence on Monday against seven military personnel already retired for the crimes of kidnapping and murder of the Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, arrested on September 12, 1973, one day after the coup d’état, and killed a few days later , in one of the most symbolic crimes left by the dictatorship.
“The facts reviewed (…) are real, since they happened in a certain place and time and are proven, legally accredited through evidentiary means”, pointed out the High Court in a unanimous decision.
The judges thus dismissed the arguments of the defendants’ defense against the sentence handed down by the Court of Appeals in November 2021, which condemned Raúl Jofré González, Edwin Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Bethke Wulf, Juan Jara Quintana and Hernán Chacón Soto to 25 years in prison for the murder and kidnapping of the musician and also of the director of the prison service at the time, Littré Quiroga.
“The Court, in addition to referring to the procedural issue, has the delicacy to explain the cases and the facts (…) Judicial sentences have a reparative role when not only the guilty are condemned”, but that ” the stories of the victims are also told”, pointed out the Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, after learning of the decision.
