“Chilean President Sebastian Piñera faces 20 years in jail for violating human rights”

Santiago, Thursday, December 19th, 2019.- “He will be punished with a long prison sentence, the maximum degree being a penalty that goes from 15 years and one day to 20 years”, said Senator Alejandro Navarro regarding the lawsuit for crimes against humanity that he filed against Sebastián Piñera, and that this Monday was admitted by a court in Santiago.            

 According to Mr. Navarro, President of the Human Rights Commission of the Senate, “who violates Article 5 of Law 20357, which refers to crimes against humanity and genocide, risks the penalty described above if it is established that he is responsible for: 1- castrating another or mutilating an important member or 2- injuring another, leaving him insane, useless for work, helpless, prevented from an important member, or remarkably deformed”.

«And the crime against humanity is confirmed,» he continued, «if 1- the act is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population or 2- that the attack responds to a policy of the State or its agents».    

“Therefore, everything that has happened in Chile since October 18th, when dozens of citizens have been mutilated, remaining with sequels for life after having been repressed and systematically attacked by State agents, is what typifies the law on which we have based this criminal complaint for which Piñera risks up to 20 years in prison”, said Navarro.

According the senator for the Biobio Region, “we have already reiterated it, we will not allow impunity, we will not let it happen again as it did with Pinochet, who died without having paid a day in jail for the thousands of dead, injured, detained and disappeared during the dictatorship».

“Presidents of Peru, Serbia and Egypt, Alberto Fujimori, Slobodan Milosevic and Hosni Mubarak, paid with jail for their responsibility in the violation of the human rights of their people, and today in Chile, people continue to be violated day by day, with chemicals in the water-cannon, with pellets, with tear gas, with brute force”, he said.

 “People seek justice, and justice in this case for the human rights violations, is prison for Piñera. It is the only way that these facts are not repeated, to relieve the pain of the victims, of the mutilated, of those who have been blind”, Alejandro Navarro ended.