Juan Aliste Vega, a former member of the Lautaro movement, died on Sunday, October 11, without receiving a response to the request for a humanitarian pardon he submitted to President José Antonio Kast, according to BioBioChile. Aliste filed the request with the Ministry of Justice on October 5, six days before his death.
He was 53 years old, had terminal cancer and was hospitalized at Santiago Prison Hospital. He was serving sentences totaling 42 years for the murder of Carabineros Corporal Luis Moyano, the attempted murder of another police officer and two bank robberies.
In his letter, Aliste acknowledged the victims' suffering and asked to receive care at home, alongside his wife and children. He also left a warning: "As the weeks pass, that possibility may be lost".
His lawyer, Ricardo Bravo Cornejo, says they explicitly requested urgent consideration. He told BioBioChile that they never received formal requests for supporting information or clear information about the stage the case had reached.
On October 7, Justice Minister Fernando Rabat told 24 Horas that he learned of the request through the press and that the usual procedures needed to be followed. According to government sources cited by the outlet, the Prison Service was still gathering behavioral, psychological and medical reports when Aliste died. That documentation did not reach the minister in time.
According to his defense team, Aliste preferred a judicial remedy, and a pardon emerged as a last resort. The 7th Guarantee Court had brought forward to October 26 a hearing to review the execution of his sentence, initially scheduled for November 17.
The law sets no deadline for the president to decide on a pardon. Bravo Cornejo questions that discretion. He argues that, in cases of terminal illness, there should be some deadline, tracking mechanism or duty to provide information.
The case had an unexpected political effect. On the second day, members of the Republican Party, the party Kast founded, backed a humanitarian approach. However, they explicitly extended it to inmates at Punta Peuco prison, where perpetrators of crimes against humanity are serving sentences.
Deputy Cristián Araya argued that assessing Aliste's case required considering Punta Peuco inmates with comparable health conditions. This Sunday, he insisted: "We are talking about human lives". José Carlos Meza and the party's secretary-general, Vicente Bruna, maintained that position.
The decision caused a split. Macarena Santelices resigned from the Republican Party. From the left, former minister Jaime Gajardo called the Republican support "immoral". Aliste's defense team, for its part, rejects any political exploitation of his case.
For Kast, the dilemma is growing. As a candidate, he offered pardons, and as president, he has defended assessing each request case by case. Libertarians are pushing for faster responses, while other voices reject equating ordinary crimes with human rights violations.
BioBioChile reported that its sources expected developments on pardons during October, especially in cases linked to the social unrest of October 18, 2019. Aliste's defense team, meanwhile, is already considering further legal action.
