Burnt Alive Case
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The Burnt Alive Case (caso Quemados) was a politically motivated crime and political scandal in that took place in Chile.
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[edit] Events of the case
During this time Chile was experiencing widespread political instability and human rights abuses. A national protest was organized for on July 2 and 3, 1986, against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and barricades were going up in different areas of Santiago.
At 8 AM of July 2, 1986, a small group of people were setting up a barricade in the Los Nogales neighborhood, in the municipality of Estacion Central area. The group was carrying 5 old tires, a molotov cocktail and a gallon of gasoline. They were intercepted by an army patrol that was clearing barricades in the area of General Velasquez Avenue. All escaped except for Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri (19), a young photographer, and Carmen Gloria Quintana (18), an engineering student at the University of Santiago, Chile. The army patrol, under the command of Lieutenant Pedro Fernández Dittus, was composed of 3 officers, 5 petty officers, and 17 soldiers.
There are two versions for the succeding events: according to the official version of the military patrol as Quintana and DeNegri were arrested, some of the molotov cocktails they were carrying broke, setting them on fire accidentally. The opposing version (of Quintana, the only survivor) accusses that both of them were severely beaten by military personnel, and later soaked with gasoline and set afire.
What is clearly known is that after both of them were in flames and unconscious, patrol members wrapped them in blankets, loaded them into a military vehicle and drove them to an isolated road in the outskirts of Santiago, over 20 kilometers away. There, in an irrigation ditch, they were dumped and left to die. Some agricultural workers found them and notified the police, who then took them to a public hospital.
Rodrigo Rojas' burns were fatal. He had second- and third-degree burns that covered 90 per cent of his body, a broken mandible and broken ribs, and a collapsed lung. He lingered for 4 days after the incident, and died on June 6, 1986. Carmen Gloria Quintana suffered second- and third-degree burns that covered 62 per cent of her body, many broken teeth, and teetered between life and death for weeks, but she survived. Quintana underwent a long medical treatment in Chile and Canada, but still sustains disfiguring scars as a result of her burns.
[edit] Aftermath
On January 3, 1991 a military court found Fernández Dittus guilty of negligence for failing to get medical attention for Rojas, but absolved him of any responsibility in the Quintana burning. In 1993 the Supreme Court sentenced Fernández Dittus to 600 days in prison for his responsibility in the burning death of Rojas DeNegri and the serious burns sustained by Quintana. In October 2000 a court ordered the government to pay Quintana 251.7 million pesos (about U$500,000) in compensatory damages.
