Ricardo Yáñez is involved in the arrests, torture and death of 38 people in the social outbreak of 2019
Aldo Anfossi
Correspondent
La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, September 28, 2024, p. 20
Santiago. The general director of the militarized police of Carabineros de Chile, Ricardo Yáñez Reveco, resigned from his position yesterday after the Court of Appeals of Santiago rejected a last-minute request made by his judicial defense to avoid being prosecuted by the prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the social outbreak of 2019 that shook the country.
The fall of Yáñez was a cry since last January, when it emerged that the seventh Guarantee Court of Santiago would accuse him of crimes derived from his responsibility for command and omission in illegitimate pressures that occurred during 18-O (as the outbreak is known social of October 18), when the police repression ordered by the then president Sebastián Piñera caused 38 deaths, hundreds of gunshot wounds and some 8 thousand people detained, many of them tortured during their time at the police barracks.
In November, Yáñez would have become the first general director of the Carabineros who managed to complete his four-year legal period at the helm of the institution in more than a decade, something that has been impossible due to successive crises of corruption, fraud and falsification of evidence. that have shaken the police institution.
The officer’s defense carried out multiple actions for months to suspend or delay as much as possible the presentation of charges by the prosecution, for example, requesting the disqualification of the prosecutors who investigated him, due to an alleged animosity against him, for which he appealed to the Constitutional Court and the appeals courts.
The most critical moment took place last April, when the formalization of Yañez was postponed at the last minute, when, in less than three weeks, three police officers were murdered.
Yáñez informed President Gabriel Boric of his decision and stated that “due to a matter of personal conviction, in view of the imminent formalization hearing that will take place on October 1st, I would never have thought of going in my capacity as general director.
With the President of the Republic I have had a very frank relationship since day one, with permanent communication. He was the one who confirmed me in my position and who allowed me to develop the modernization process during these four years.he explained.
The departure occurs after the government insisted on the thesis that the authorities facing judicial formalization processes must abandon their positions so that the processes do not impact the institutions they represent.
The new general director of Carabineros is Marcelo Araya Zapata, until now deputy director of the institution, where he has been for 36 years.
