The retired Chilean Army brigadier Hernán Carlos Chacón Soto, one of the seven officers sentenced on Monday by the Supreme Court to 25 years in prison for his participation in the torture and murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara and Littré Quiroga in 1973, committed suicide today moments before he was to be arrested and transferred to the Puntateuco prison to begin serving his sentence.

According to the local press, units of the human rights section of the Chilean security forces appeared this morning at his home in the capital commune of Las Condes to proceed with his arrest, at which time the 86-year-old officer asked to take medicine and took advantage of the moment to take his own life.

The defense of Chacón Soto maintained throughout the long process that the brigadier was in those days of brutal repression after the coup d'état led by Augusto Pinocheand other high commanders a simple Army major who fulfilled only the function of guarding the external perimeter of the Chile Stadium, a closed sports center where about 5,000 people arrested since September 11 were crowded and in which five days later Jara was murdered.

However, the ruling known on Monday claimed to have tactical and intelligence knowledge, "conditions that allowed him to intervene directly in the development of the interrogations" carried out in the locker rooms, "as well as in the previous process of classification of the detainees."

According to the argument, he participated in the decision of who was separated to be taken to interrogations and, finally, "the ultimate destination of these, being evident that inside the Chile Stadium there was an order imposed by the rigid structure of the existing command."

"Several testimonies corroborated that he participated in the selection work, reporting them to his superiors, so that his statements were neither credible nor credible since he claimed to have only guarded the external perimeter of the enclosure, functions that are not consistent with his high degree, nor with the various elements of conviction gathered," the sentence adds.

"At the time, he was carrying a 9-millimeter caliber STYER pistol, a weapon that fully coincides with the technical description of the injuries that, according to the forensic record, caused the death of Víctor Jara Martínez and Littré Quiroga," he concluded.

  • Chile
  • Justice