This morning began the formalization of Hector Llaitul, in the Temuco Guarantee Court. To the process, as plaintiff attorney on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior, Ignacio Sapiain Martinezthe same one that before the Interior error that excluded them from the Hurricane Case as accusers, applied a procedural maneuver to be allowed to participate in the case, but now on behalf of the “victims”, among whom is Héctor Llaitul.
Consequently, Sapiain Martínez with respect to Llaitul acts as accuser and defender. He accuses Llaitul in the formalization that is being carried out for theft of wood, violent usurpation, attack once morest authority and calls for the destabilization of the government, conduct framed in the State Security Law (LSE). And at the same time, she is his defender in the Hurricane Case, in which former police officers and civilians are being investigated for mounting evidence once morest the CAM leader and others accused of perpetrating attacks in the south.
Sapiain says that Llaitul is a “good leader”
In the formalization carried out today in the Temuco Guarantee Court, and directed by Judge Leticia Rivera-Reyesthe Prosecutor’s Office charged Llaitul with his participation in five events to justify the request for the precautionary measure of preventive detention.
When it was the turn of the Ministry of the Interior to intervene as complainant, Sapiain Martínez (from the VIII Region) took the floor, who in addition to describing Llaitul as a “good leader”, having to indicate the injunction that he would request, he pointed out that they remained in the “difficult posture” to adhere to the Public Ministry “and request that preventive detention be decreed.”
The lawyer began his intervention by saying: “Mr. Llaitul is a leader, much more than a warrior we can empathize in some aspects with his cause referred to the territorial claim. The government has been working in that area by peaceful means, recovering land and handing it over to the Mapuche people. A town that he claims to protect, but as a good leader he has lost his way, He has not realized the damage he is causing to his own people.”
At the end of his speech, Sapiain Martínez stated: “Given the number of crimes, which are eight in total, the sentence assigned to them, together with the records that have been added and if that were not enough, the same criminal record that the accused enjoys and the impossibility of there being a certainty that he will effectively face a trial, because not even the address is clear, It only leaves us in the difficult position of adhering to the position of the Public Ministry and requesting that preventive detention be decreedbecause it is proportional and necessary for the development of this research”.
When it was the turn of the Ministry of the Interior to speak once more, Sapiain Martínez was no longer there and, in his place, he was replaced by the lawyer Macarena Gonzalez which showed a harsher tone.
Finally, both lawyers appeared together at the moment when the Temuco Guarantee Court ordered preventive detention for the leader of the Arauco Malleco Coordinatorset the investigation period at 30 days and ordered that Llautil be confined in the Biobío Penitentiary Compliance Center, located in Concepción.
The maneuver in the Hurricane Case
In mid-July, the Government was left out as the plaintiff in the Hurricane Case. The act was consummated as a result of a decision by the Temuco Court of Appeals that declared inadmissible an appeal filed by the Legal Unit of the Ministry of the Interior. The document sought to reverse the decision of the Temuco Guarantee Court that left them out by refusing to make a correction in the accusation of the case.
The fact triggered a public rebuke from President Gabriel Boric, who described the matter as an “unacceptable mistake.”
One of the measures that the Interior took to try to compensate for the error was to request to continue participating in the case in “representing the victims.”
In this sense, the Temuco Guarantee Court considered “that although it is true, the accusation promoted by the Ministry of the Interior was considered not filed (…), in any case, it still has the quality of representative of the victims and precisely in that character filed the complaint, as a consequence, despite not being an accuser, this court considers that may continue as an intervener in the sole capacity of victim.”
In the Hurricane Case, the people who were imprisoned were Hértor Llaitul, Claudio Leiva, David Cid, Rodrigo Nazario Huenchullán, Jaime Huenchullán Cayul, Martín Curiche and Ernesto Llaitul Pezoa, son of the CAM leader, who were later released following the overturning of the case.
And although the court considered that the Ministry of the Interior does not appear on behalf of the victims in particular but rather of Chilean society, sources consulted by El Líbero, who have been related to this case, argue that “If the Ministry of the Interior was left with the quality of representative of the victims in that case, it is strange that it is now a plaintiff in this other case. The fact that he appears chasing one of the Hurricane victims may even be cause for the lawyer to be disqualified. That is left to the discretion of each one. Or even the defense itself, Rodrigo Román, can ask for it”.
Sapiain Martínez in the same status as Rodrigo Román
Sapiain Martínez’s move then left him in the same status as the one who defends Llaitul today: the lawyer Rodrigo Roman, Known for his role in the NGO Popular Defender.
The People’s Defender has a history of defending people accused of violating the Anti-Terrorist Law, due to arson attacks or sending explosive devices. In 2015 this organization suffered a split.
In a Facebook post -which was later deleted- it is explained that that year the founding members expelled the lawyer Rodrigo Román Andoñe for exercising “sexist violence once morest two of the collective’s lawyers”: Betsabé Carrasco and Mary Rivera, The latter, in addition to being the founder of the Popular Ombudsman, is a leader of the International Workers Movement (MIT), one of the main organizations that was present during the protests in Plaza Baquedano and whose leaders openly called for “Piñera to fall” following the 18-O.
The facts described by the Prosecutor’s Office in the formalization of Llaitul are triggered by the verdict once morest Daniel Canio Tralcal, recognized for also being a member of the CAM. In this case, Román was Canío’s defender, just as he had been for the defendants in the Bombas I Case; of Manuel Olate Céspedes, a Chilean communist militant wanted by Colombia for his alleged links with the FARC; as well as community members accused of the death of the Luchsinger-Mackay couple. More recently he was in charge of defending the convicted for burning the Pedrero Metro following the riots of 18-O.
In general, Román has a long-standing relationship with the so-called “Mapuche cause” and, for example, several publications by the Popular Defender’s Office on Facebook use expressions in Mapudungun.
As plaintiffs in the case of the Hurricane Case there are also other lawyers known for their links with the defense of community members accused of acts of violence, such as the former conventional Manuela Royoor the lawyer Karina Riquelme.
Roman also has a political profile. In August 2013, when Roxana Miranda, the Equality Party (PI) candidate for La Moneda, went to formalize her candidacy before the Electoral Service (Servel), the jurist accompanied her, since he himself was running for deputy for that store. By 2014, Román signed a statement from the Broad Front calling for a meeting for the Constituent Assembly and the need for a new Constitution. Roman even served as General secretary of the Equality Party.
Back with Sapiain Martínez, despite the fact that the lawyers of the defendants (Carabineros) in the Hurricane case have requested that the Interior not continue to intervene, Sapiain Martínez has continued to participate and, according to a brief presented in mid-August, he does so “by the Ministry of the Interior, in his capacity as victim and complainant.”
