Troopers set pair alight, says lawyer

Press, 26 July 1986, Page 11

Troopers set pair alight, says lawyer

NZPA-Reuter Santiago A Chilean Catholic Church lawyer said yesterday that soldiers had beaten, sprayed with petrol, and then burned a United States resident and his woman companion during anti-Government protests earlier this month.

In the first full version of events by a lawyer representing the families of Rodrigo Rojas, who died of his burns, and Carmen Quintana, still in a serious condition, Hector Salazar said the two were sprayed with petrol from a pesticide pump and then forced to lie on the ground while a soldier threw a petrol-bomb between them, setting them both on fire.

An investigating judge on Thursday ordered an Army officer, Pedro Fernandez Dittos, to stand trial on charges of failing to take the victims to a hospital immediately, and turned the case over to a military tribunal. The army says the burning was an accident, and that one of the pair had dropped a petrolbomb, spilling the blazing contents over them both. Mr Salazar, a lawyer for a Church human rights organisation, released what he said was a chronology of events drawn from the reports of witnesses. The United States has called for a detailed probe of the incident, which has become a rallying point for opponents of Chile’s military Government. Mr Salazar said the pair were part of a group gathered- around a street barricade erected in southern Santiago early on July 2, the first day of a 48-hour general strike. Mr Rojas, a freelance photographer, was taking pictures of the protests, he said.

The group had fled as an Army truck carrying

about 10 soldiers arrived on the scene. The group left behind five tyres, used for lighting barricades in the protests, and a container holding about six litres of petrol. The soldiers gave chase and caught Mr Rojas and Miss Quintana and began to beat them. "The violence of the blows — kicks, punches, blows with rifle-butts — caused multiple injuries to the victims, which were later verified by doctors treating them and a North American doctor who examined them,” Mr Salazar said. A soldier had then filled a pump used to spray pesticide with some, of the petrol from the container and handed it to an officer who sprayed the two victims from the knees to head.

The two youths were then ordered to lie face down some distance apart on the pavement, and a soldier had then thrown a fire-bomb, which landed between them setting both alight. “On starting to burn, Rodrigo got up and made desperate efforts to put out the fire. Carmen Gloria squirmed on the ground and also tried, despite lying down, to put out the flames with her hands.” Mr Salazar said the Army version that the incident was an accident had been disproved because neither victim had bums on the feet or calves. He said that in addition to the teeth lost by Miss Quintana, Mr Rojas had suffered fractures of the ribs and jaw, neither of which were referred to by the investigating judge in his conclusions. “The authors were soldiers. The fire was started by one of the captors deliberately, while the victims were defenceless."