SANTIAGO – Four Chilean police were charged Monday with violently attacking a 14-year-old boy during a 2014 student demonstration in downtown Santiago.
The four cops were charged with the crime of torturing the student from the National Barros Arana Boarding School when he was taking part in a protest on March 28, 2014.
Prosecutors said the youth was abusively attacked by the police, after first being searched.
When the student opposed the search, he was knocked around by four members of the Carabineros, Chile’s militarized national police – a lieutenant, two sergeants and a corporal.
According to the medical report, the youth suffered injuries to the face, head and neck.
The cops on trial are Lt. Juan Valdivia Cisterna, Sgts. Edgardo Ortega Ahumada and Patricio Alarcon Vasquez, and Cpl. Geraldine Haarmann Ruiz.
The four police are barred from leaving the country and cannot approach the victim, who remains under psychological care “following the brutal attack he suffered at the hands of the police force,” the indictment says.
The World Organization Against Torture said in 2013 that the number of torture and mistreatment cases as part of the criminalization of social protest in Chile “is worrying.”
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