The bench of deputies of Renovación Nacional, this Friday sent to the Comptroller the request for a pronouncement against the prison benefits received by José Tralcal Coche and Luis Tralcal Quidel, both convicted of the crime of Werner Luchsinger and Vivian Mackay.
Andrés Longton, accompanied by his peers, Miguel Mellado and Camila Flores, demanded that the body pronounce itself and verify the legality of the actions of the Gendarmerie Technical Council in relation to the benefit of Sunday freedom and quarterly release for the Tralcal cousins, who are sentenced to “18 years in prison, for the crime of arson resulting in death”.
It should be noted that the decision was made after the cousins went on a hunger strike for a month at the Center for Education and Work (CET) unit in Victoria, where they are serving their sentence.
“We have come to represent the illegality of what it means to release two people who committed a serious and terrible homicide against two elderly people, burned them alive, and who served three years of 18 sentences. Not fulfilling a basic legal requirement, which have had good behavior or even half the sentence”, said this morning in the Comptroller’s Office, Deputy Longton; adding that this is an attempt to disguise “a political decision, a decision that is technical and legal.”
Since, in his opinion, “unfortunately this government prefers to have an agenda in favor of impunity, rather than in favor of security. And this has continued to repeat itself over the last few days and today we continue with a fact that is unfortunate and affects the sense of justice that families have”.
According to what is stated in the request, the deputies “request to rule on the legality of Exempt Resolution No. 3925, of July 29, 2020, which approves provisions on the application of prison regulations in consideration of current regulations, national and international, referring to cultural and religious relevance in certain matters, signed by Mr. Christian Arnaldo Alvear Gutiérrez, national director of the Chilean Gendarmerie”.
This resolution refers “to hunger strikes as a peaceful form of social protest, in circumstances that the current regulatory norm for all Chileans qualifies as a serious lack of discipline.”
Deputy Mellado, for his part, pointed to the existence of a decree signed by former President Eduardo Frei, “where he says what are the requirements to obtain Sunday parole. That decree was not complied with on this occasion and was not complied with exclusively, because something was signed by the director of the Gendarmerie (…) I regret this political decision of the Government, which got hands on through the Gendarmerie,” he accused.
Along these lines, Camila Flores assured that “there is a requirement that is fundamental, which is repentance and that fact has not been generated”, since at no time have the Tralcals “apologized or said that they have repented of this crime. So vile and cowardly.”
“We want to know if there was indeed pressure to grant this exit to these people or if all the requirements established in our legal system were actually met,” Flores said, hoping that the measure can be reversed.
Also, in the 19-page document, it is indicated that the exempt resolution has elements of a regulation, in view of which the prison benefit granted should be annulled and pretending otherwise “is legally improper and, to say the least, misleading.”
Likewise, it states that it violates equality before the law “by imposing differences that are not based on a criterion of reasonableness.” At this point, the unequal treatment regarding disciplinary measures in this type of event is questioned.
In parallel, Longton, together with the deputies Jorge Rathgeb, Miguel Becker, Juan Carlos Beltrán, Mellado, Schalper and Francesca Muñoz, officiated the national director of the Gendarmerie to issue a reasoned statement that would justify the measure adopted by the Technical Council of the institution when granting the benefit in question.
In addition, the parliamentarians requested the complete administrative file of both convicts, showing the progress of the reintegration process, as well as the final resolution that granted such freedom.
