The Supreme Court accepted the order «not to innovate» presented by the Public ministry and the State Defense Council (CDE) and ordered that 19 of the 38 accused of the clan Galicianoperational arm of the Aragua Train in northern Chile, attend the oral trial against them – which begins on Monday – electronically.
Thus, what was determined this week by the Court of Appeals of Aricawhich had ruled in favor of an injunction Criminal Defense for the judicial instance to be held in person under the argument that virtuality «threatens the exercise of their procedural rights.»
The Prosecutor’s Office and the CDE requested that the trial be held via Zoom for the safety of all partieswhich was accepted by the Supreme Court.
The subjects are charged with crimes of aggravated homicide, kidnappings, carrying weapons and drug trafficking among other crimes.
In the decision, the Second Chamber of the highest court – made up of the ministers Leopoldo Llanos, María Teresa Letelier, Jean Pierre Matus and the lawyers (i) Juan Carlos Ferrada and Eduardo Gandulfo – accepted the request made, therefore The transfer of the accused will not be verified at the beginning of the oral trial, scheduled for Monday, April 22, and the hearing will be held electronically with respect to all the accused.
«To the document folio 34279-2024: to the main thing, as requested, the order not to innovate in the requested terms is granted, communicate by the most expeditious means to the Gendarmerie of Chile, the Court of Appeals of Arica and the Court of Oral Criminal Trial of Arica for the pertinent purposes; otherwise, it remains as resolved,» the resolution said.
The substance of the appeal will be resolved in the coming days by the Supreme Court.
This morning, the regional prosecutor of Arica and Parinacota, Mario Carreraraised the need for legislation to establish different conditions for carrying out trials against organized crime gangs with respect to common defendants, and admitted that He saw it as «very difficult» for the trial to begin in person on Monday.
«It is complex to ensure that the defendants for whom the transfer was ordered will be present, because there are some defendants who are 3,000 kilometers away., with transportation that has to be done by land; I don’t know if the Gendarmerie will physically be able to arrive with the accused or will ask for some type of extension, or simply wait for the Supreme Court to resolve,» said the prosecutor.
For her part, the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohápointed out that «there are requests that have been presented to modify the location of the trial, but that is not up to the Executive to make those decisions, it is typical of the criminal process to define it. What corresponds to us is that wherever this process is carried out, security measures are reinforced.»
In total 38 members of «Los Gallegos» – four Chileans and the rest foreigners, mostly Venezuelans – will go to oral trial. The Prosecutor’s Office requested life imprisonment for 11 of themin addition to other sentences that add up to more than 200 years in prison for the others.
The accusation includes 22 criminal acts, among which there are seven homicides (six qualified) recorded during 2022: in three the criminals buried their victims in different areas of the Cerro Chuño sector.