The Supreme Court reduced the sentences of Second Lieutenant Carlos Leal Aqueveque and Corporal Camilo Vásquez Masman this week, according to BioBioChile. Both remain serving Carabineros officers and were convicted of assaulting people in police custody between 2017 and 2018.
The highest court partially granted the defense teams' appeals for annulment. This type of appeal allows defendants to request that a trial or judgment be annulled over legal errors. The Court ruled that some of the acts for which Santiago's Fourth Oral Criminal Trial Court had convicted them of torture must be reclassified as unlawful coercion, an offense carrying lighter sentences.
The Court did not change the facts established at trial. BioBioChile does not report the new sentences, the case number (RIT or RUC) or the exact date of the ruling.
The first incident occurred on November 7, 2017, on Exposición Street in Estación Central. According to the judgment reviewed by the outlet's Investigative Unit, a Carabineros vehicle reversed and accidentally struck the leg of a 16-year-old girl. She complained to the driver.
Leal Aqueveque got out of the car, pushed her, insulted her and struck her on the head. He then took her to a police booth, where he struck her head against a wall, forced her to repeat that "you do not hit Carabineros officers" and spat in her face. The ruling establishes that he also discriminated against her because of her socioeconomic status.
The young woman accompanying the teenager was struck twice in the face. Both were taken in handcuffs to the 21st Police Station in Estación Central and forced to remain kneeling, facing a wall, for an extended period.
The second incident took place on February 23, 2018, near the Estación Central Metro station. Sergeant Carlos Soto Soto stopped a street vendor for a check, took him to a police booth and struck him in the face. Leal Aqueveque was the officer in charge and neither intervened nor reported the assault.
On December 5, 2018, in the duty room at the same police station, Vásquez Masman restrained a detainee identified by the initials J. R. with "irrational and disproportionate force". When the man was on the ground, he ordered his police dog, Conrad, to attack him. The animal bit him.
They then took the detainee, with his hands cuffed behind his back, to an office, where both officers beat him. Vásquez ordered a second dog attack. Leal Aqueveque was present and did not prevent it, despite being the superior officer.
According to the court, Vásquez Masman also provided false information to the Public Prosecutor's Office. He claimed that the civilian had struck the dog with an iron bar and threatened the officers. The source does not report whether Carabineros opened internal disciplinary investigations or what the institution will decide about the two officers' continued service following this ruling.
