The Fourth Oral Criminal Court of Santiago has decided to acquit this Friday, in a unanimous vote, the former Carabineros corporal Sebastián Zamora, who had been charged by the Metropolitan Center North Prosecutor’s Office with the crimes of attempted homicide and unlawful coercion against a protester on October 2, 2020, on the Pío Nono Bridge, in the Chilean capital. What happened was one of the most symbolic events in the context of the social outbreak. The investigation was to clarify whether the police officer was responsible for causing the young man, then 16 years old, to fall into the Mapocho River bed.
For the judges, “there are so many versions that not even the accusers [el Ministerio Público] have been able to pinpoint them.” They also added that “no one can be convicted of attempted homicide because of an interaction with the victim.”
The protester, now 20 years old, suffered two broken wrists, a head injury and a bruise at the base of his right lung. Both the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) and the Office of the Ombudsman for Children have filed a complaint over the case.
The investigation, led by prosecutors Ximena Chong and Marcelo Carrasco, lasted four years. Zamora was accused of being responsible for the fall of the young man, named Anthony, into the bed of the Mapocho River from the Pío Nono bridge, located between the communes of Providencia and Santiago. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the police officer lunged “diagonally at the teenager, grabbing him with his arms and pushing him in such a way that he lifted him over the railing in question, causing him to fall headfirst into the Mapocho River.”
On Tuesday, July 9, in the final arguments of the oral trial, prosecutor Carrasco had said that Zamora “is not accused of pushing the teenager, I must reiterate this very categorically.” He added: “He is not accused of pushing the teenager on the bridge. That is a statement that emerges from many conversations that one can see or perceive in the street, on social networks or in the media. But that is not the core of the accusation. I want to be very categorical.”
Sebastián Zamora’s defense, headed by two lawyers who were prosecutors, Alejandro Peña and Vinko Fodic, said on Wednesday, following Carrasco’s comments, that there had been a change in the position of the Prosecutor’s Office with respect to the alleged actions.
Prosecutor Ximena Chong is also in charge of other investigations into events that occurred during the Chilean social unrest, which began on October 18, 2019 and led to various protests that were concentrated for several months in the Plaza Italia sector, where the Pío Nono bridge is also located. Among them, the indictment of the general director of Carabineros, Ricardo Yañez, for the alleged crime of omission of “unlawful coercion resulting in serious injuries and homicide,” who five years ago headed the Order and Security department.
The formalization of charges against Yáñez was scheduled for last May, but was rescheduled for October. The indictment against the police chief was also going to result in his resignation, but was postponed, endorsed by the government of President Gabriel Boric, after the murder, on April 27, of three police officers in Cañete, in the Biobío region, during an ambush.
Chong is also in charge of the investigation against former Carabineros lieutenant colonel Claudio Crespo, accused of causing blindness by shooting rubber bullets at a demonstration in November 2019, to Gustavo Gatica, one of the hundreds of victims of eye injuries in the social outbreak. The Prosecutor’s Office has requested a sentence of 12 years in prison and the oral trial will be in August.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS Chile newsletter and receive all the key information on current events in the country.
#Chilean #justice #acquits #police #officer #Sebastián #Zamora #causing #fall #young #man #Pío #Nono #bridge