The Justice of Santiago de Chile found the accused guilty of the fire of the San Francisco de Borja church caused on January 3, 2020, within the framework of the social outbreak in Chile.
This is Gerardo Leal Robles, who had been arrested in June 2023, after remaining on the run for more than three years.
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The decision was made by the IV Oral Criminal Court of Santiago, who tried him for the crimes of arson and throwing incendiary devices at the temple known as “the church of Carabineros.” The Prosecutor’s Office requests a sentence of up to 16 years in prison.
Leal Robles was accused of throwing incendiary bombs against the structure of the temple, which caused a fire that completely destroyed it.
According to prosecutor Francisco Bravo, from the North Central Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office, the court “established that on January 3, 2020, after 8 p.m., the accused first entered the Institutional Church of Carabineros, which is located in Santiago Centro, and threw accelerant liquid and then set fire on at least four occasions, which caused that church to be burned,” according to Meganoticias.
“About an hour later, it was also established that the accused threw incendiary bombs on at least two occasions at Carabineros personnel who were at the scene,” Bravo continued.
“This is the culmination of a successful job,” he said, highlighting the work carried out by the authorities, especially those who had to carry out the procedures “in a fairly complex context, since we must remember that we were in the middle of what was called the social outbreak.”
In October 2019, the increase in the fare of underground public transport was the kick-off for the period remembered as a “social explosion” in Chile, a wave of demonstrations demanding social rights and a fairer economic model.
The protests included clashes with Carabineros, looting, fires, destruction and caused 30 fatalities and thousands of injuries.
The social outbreak gave rise to a plebiscite that in October 2020 approved the drafting of a new Political Constitution of Chile, which would replace the current one, in force since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
However, two consecutive proposals were rejected by the population, and the national government does not plan to present a new alternative Constitution.
Juliet Villar
I am a journalist, with a degree in communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non-governmental organizations. Since 2016 I have been dedicated to Catholic journalism, first at the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as ACI Prensa correspondent for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.