This Monday, November 3, the trial against Aldo and Lucas Hernandez concluded, with them being sentenced to 21 and 12 years in prison respectively. This followed more than three months of hearings, during which the powerful apparatus attempted to secure an exemplary punishment for both brothers.
On July 21 of this year, amidst protests and numerous acts of solidarity, the lengthy trial against Aldo and Lucas Hernandez began at the Santiago (In)Justice Center. The prosecution, comprised of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Chilean Gendarmerie, initially demanded intolerably excessive sentences, ranging from 20 years in prison for Lucas to 90 years for Aldo Hernandez.
Following the reading of the verdict on October 3rd, the plaintiffs requested a sentence of 32 years and 1100 days for Aldo and 18 years and 800 days for Lucas. The defense requested a sentence of 26 years for Aldo and 12 years for Lucas. Finally, on November 3rd, the sentences of 21 years for Aldo and 12 years for Lucas were handed down.
The sentences, detailed in a document of over 400 pages, addressed three incidents: 1- The attack on the General Directorate of the Gendarmerie in December 2021, 2- The raid on a residence in Loncura, and 3- The raid on a residence in La Victoria.
Aldo Hernandez was found guilty of the attack on the Gendarmerie Directorate, but acquitted of the charges of minor injuries to prison guards and receiving stolen goods. He was also found guilty in relation to the items found during the raid in Loncura (count 2), but acquitted of all charges related to the raid on the La Victoria residence (count 3). Lucas, for his part, was convicted of most of the crimes related to the La Victoria residence, but acquitted of the charges of weapons manufacturing and manufacturing explosive devices.
From Aldo’s defense team, attorney Washington Lizana, speaking with La Zarzamora, stated:
“Our overall assessment is positive. While we didn’t fully achieve all of the defense’s objectives, if we analyze it in relation to the prosecution’s case and the prosecution’s demands, we’ve returned to a more reasonable situation—I think that’s the right word. We have to start from the premise that the prosecution’s case against Aldo and Lucas began with a request for a sentence of over 100 years in Aldo’s case and 26 years in Lucas’s case… It involved several crimes charged by the prosecutor—16 crimes grouped into three separate incidents: one incident on December 27, 2021, involving the placement and detonation of the National Gendarmerie Directorate by two people traveling on a motorcycle, and several related offenses, plus two incidents that occurred on December 22, 2022, during various raids and searches. Various properties related to the investigation of incident number 1. Incident number 2 was linked to items found at a residence in the Quinteros district, and incident number 3 to items found at a residence in Pedro Aguirre Cerda. Sixteen charges were brought against Aldo Hernandez, of which the court acquitted him of ten and convicted him on six: two from incident number 1 and four from incident number 2. The court acquitted him of all charges related to incident number 3. In this sense, the sentence partially accepts the Public Prosecutor’s request, amounting to 20 percent of the total sentence sought.”
Regarding the outcome of this trial and the increased sentences handed down in recent trials of our comrades, he added:
“It’s progress; it wasn’t ideal, nor was it the objective of this defense, but it puts the situation, the framework of criminal prosecution, in a more reasonable scenario. In that sense, it’s important to consider that this trial is taking place within a social context characterized by a punitive fervor, an overreaction by the media and various state bodies, the criminalization of political and social organizations that confront the state, in more direct confrontation, and the manipulation of public opinion in this policy of intensifying criminalization. It was a difficult scenario, and we had seen that in recent years, in the latest cases related to these crimes, the sentences had reached irrational levels. For example, in the case of Camilo Gajardo, in 2017-2018, there was an oral trial regarding that young man, and the prosecution in this same court obtained a 43-year sentence. In this same court, a couple of years ago, the conviction of Francisco Solar for 86 years also emerged. So, of course, the prosecution, based on those criminal convictions, intensified its sentencing demands, its punitive claims, its criminal prosecution strategy, and wanted to repeat the same scenario here in the same court with significantly increased sentences, with charges of multiple offenses. I believe that with this ruling, the court has put things right.
It’s worth remembering that both brothers were arrested on December 22, 2022, at their home in the La Victoria neighborhood, after being investigated by the South Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office in connection with the 2021 attack on the Gendarmerie Directorate. The investigation was carried out by OS9, GOPE, and Labocar to incriminate the brothers, who were considered persons of interest at the time. It is also important to mention that these raids were witnessed and experienced by children, who were exposed to the violence of the repressive forces, which could have been avoided.
Following this reading of the sentence, further legal action is not ruled out, pending its study and analysis.
Source: La Zarzamora