Former Interior Minister Carolina Tohá (PPD) said terminally ill prisoners should spend their final hours at home, including those convicted of human rights violations. She made the remarks on El Mostrador's Al Pan Pan podcast following the death of Juan Aliste Vega.
Aliste Vega was a member of the Lautaro Youth Movement, an armed group that operated in Chile in the late eighties and early nineties. He was serving a sentence for the murder of Carabineros Corporal Luis Moyano. According to BioBioChile, he had terminal cancer and died before his pardon request was resolved.
"Mr. Aliste should have gone home in his final hours," Tohá said. She added that prisoners convicted of human rights violations who are dying should also be allowed to do so, without the president intervening or pardoning their sentences.
The former minister called for a review of why existing mechanisms involving the Prison Service and the courts had failed to work in time. Aliste's defense had pursued legal action to modify how he served his sentence. A hearing scheduled for November was brought forward to October 26, but the former Lautaro member died before then.
Tohá warned that presidential intervention fuels the perception of different treatment depending on a prisoner's political affiliation. She cited the example of police officers or military personnel convicted of acts committed during the social unrest who might request a pardon while terminally ill. "Let's avoid granting pardons to Aliste on one side and to those accused over the social unrest on the other," she said.
She also called for the same approach to apply to all inmates. She said many ordinary offenders die in prison without any political group bringing their cases forward.
According to BioBioChile, Aliste's case received support from the Republican Party and prompted disagreements on the right over the possibility of extending the humanitarian approach to prisoners convicted of crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, Republican Party President Arturo Squella asked President José Antonio Kast to pardon police officers convicted over the social unrest. RN and Evópoli prefer to consider sentence commutations.
Tohá's position differs from that of sectors of the left that oppose extending the benefit to prisoners convicted of serious human rights violations. Her specific proposal is to remove these cases from the pardon process and fix the existing institutional system.
