The Supreme Court of Chile has acquitted six retired military and police officers accused of committing illegal acts against Socialist Party members following the 1973 coup. According to latercera.com, the Second Chamber of the court ruled unanimously that the prosecution’s case failed to meet the necessary standards for due process.
The court cleared Patricio Alejandro Kellet Oyarzún, Bernardo O’Higgins de las Mercedes Puga Concha, Rubén Darío Aracena González, Juan Bautista Yáñez Ruiz, Germán Jesús Borneck Matamala, and Hernán Soriano Ávila. They had been accused of mistreating eight individuals, including Sandor Arancibia Ramírez and Juan Yilorm Martínez, at the Cazadores Regiment in Valdivia.
In its ruling, the court found that the original charges against the men were dangerously imprecise regarding the timeline of the alleged crimes. The justices concluded that this lack of a defined window for the incidents severely hampered the defendants’ ability to mount an effective legal defense.
“A serious imprecision, vagueness, or indeterminacy of the fiscal accusations is noted, which only establish an initial timeframe regarding the imputed crimes without containing even an approximate end date in which the illicit acts would have been perpetrated,” the court stated in the ruling signed by justices Manuel Antonio Valderrama and María Cristina Gajardo, alongside other ministers and legal advisors.
The “Plan Z” Allegations
The case, originally overseen by Temuco Court of Appeals minister Álvaro Mesa, centered on claims that the detainees were targeted for their alleged involvement in “Plan Z.” This was described by the prosecution as a fictitious plot to exterminate members of the Armed Forces and public order forces following the military takeover on September 11, 1973.
According to the indictment reported by latercera.com, the victims were initially held at the Valdivia public jail. They were later moved to the Cazadores Regiment gymnasium, where prosecutors alleged they were subjected to physical abuse, including the use of restraints and electric shocks.
The Supreme Court, however, emphasized that the lack of specific dates for these actions violated fundamental legal guarantees. The ruling noted that because these were not classified as permanent crimes, the prosecution was obligated to provide a clear timeframe to allow the accused to challenge the evidence.
“The existence of defects that curtailed the due exercise of the right to defense of the accused is confirmed,” the court stated, noting that the judicial process must ensure the “irrestricted observance” of a defendant's rights. The court concluded that the vagueness of the charges ultimately rendered the criminal conviction unjustifiable.
