Chile: a young man who threw Molotov cocktails at the Carabineros during the December protests was sentenced to 5 years in prison

Francisco Hernández, 21, was sentenced this Wednesday to five years in prison for throwing five Molotov cocktails at Carabineros agents during protests against Sebastián Piñera’s government in 2019.

The Eastern Prosecutor’s Office asked for 20 years in prison but the Third Oral Court decided this sentence for the young man detained on December 10 amid clashes between hooded men and Carabineros in the vicinity of Plaza Baquedano, the epicenter of the demonstrations that led to several resignations in Piñera’s cabinet.

The investigation, which included videos obtained by the Carabineros, indicates that Hernández first launched an incendiary element at a police vehicle and uniformed personnel near the Bustamante Park. And then he replicated the actions in different parts of Vicuña Mackenna and in the Bellavista neighborhood.

It was recorded that he threw a total of five Molotov cocktails and for this reason the prosecutor Álvaro Pérez requested four years in prison for each arson, a sum that gave a total of 20 years in prison.

The trial stated that Carabineros followed Hernández at all times since his first fire that day and detained him on Calle Curicó with Portugal, seizing a backpack containing gloves, a gas mask, pieces of cloth, an empty glass bottle and three lighters. Prosecutor Pérez said that the footage obtained was key to convicting the accused.

Preventive for Carabineros

A former Carabineros agent was arrested in Chile last Friday for throwing the tear gas bomb that blinded a woman in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Santiago, in November 2019, in the middle of the movement of social protests in the country.

The case of Fabiola Campillai, along with that of the student Gustavo Gatica, are the most serious of the 460 eye injuries registered during last year’s social outbreak, according to a cadastre of the autonomous National Institute of Human Rights (INDH). Most of those injuries were the result of pellet firing.

Campillai received a tear gas bomb in her face, which in addition to blinding her also made her lose her taste and smell, when she was waiting for a bus to go to work, near a place where protesters were protesting against the government.

The perpetrator of the shot was identified as the former captain of the Carabineros, Patricio Maturana, who was arrested Thursday night, according to the Investigative Police (PDI).

A week earlier, the Chilean justice also sent preventive prison to another policeman for the pellet shots that blinded Gustavo Gatica, 21, during the day of protests on November 8 near the Plaza Italia in Santiago.

With information from AFP

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