The Court of Appeals of Punta Arenas confirmed the release on bail of retired Carabineros officers Hernán Octavio Bravo Aris, Héctor Eliazar Peña Monsálvez, Máximo Enzo Sánchez Márquez and Anwar Kharufeh Jadue; and the Salesian priests Leonardo Wenceslao Santibáñez Martínez and Vincenzo Soccorso di Bono, who were prosecuted as cover-ups of the crime of abduction of the minor Ricardo Alexis Harex González. Illicit committed in the city, in October 2001.
In a unanimous ruling, the First Chamber of the High Court – composed of Ministers Caroline Turner González, Claudio Jara Inostroza and lawyer Sonia Zuvanich Hirmas – ordered the release of the defendants, who remained in their homes in the custody of Carabineros personnel, upon payment of a bail of $ 200,000 each.
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“Having regard to the merits of the antecedents and bearing in mind the provisions of article 361 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the resolutions dated eleventh October of the current year, written to pages 9858, 9859, 9860, 9861, 9863 and 9864, are approved in the case and confirmed in the appealed, with a declaration that the amount of the bail is reduced to the sum of $ 200,000, for each of the defendants,” the ruling states.
The resolution adds that: “Immediately communicate the decision to the Court a quo, so that the Investigating Minister also adopts the necessary measures to inform the Carabineros de Chile, regarding its compliance.”
In the investigation stage of the case, the minister in extraordinary hearing, Marta Jimena Pinto Salazar managed to gather sufficient background that allows to have “well-founded presumptions of participation in the facts constituting the crime of abduction of the person of the minor Ricardo Alexis Harex González, 17 years old, as cover-ups, of the head of the zone and general of Carabineros Hernán Octavio Bravo Aris, of Subprefect Héctor Eliazar Peña Monsálvez, of Captain Máximo Enzo Sánchez Márquez and of the head of the third shift of October 19, 2001 at the First Police Station of Punta Arenas, Lieutenant Anwar Kharaufeh Jadue, all officials of the Carabineros de Chile in that year, agents of the State and with command responsibility”.
“In addition, the participation as cover-ups of the priests of the Salesian Order of Chile, Leonardo Wenceslao Santibáñez Martínez, Bernardo Miguel Bastres Florence and Vincenzo Soccorso di Bono, appears sufficiently justified.”
In the case, the notification of Bastres Florence, who resides in Turin, Italy, is pending.
See the ruling of the Court of Appeals
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