25
78.
offenses:
The Court explained the reasons why it concluded that the crimes charged were terrorist
According to the Diccionario de la Lengua Española the term “terrorism” means domination by
terror, a succession of violent acts committed to instill “terror.” It defines terror as fear, fright, dread
of some threat or danger that one fears. Our laws do not define terrorist offences; they simply
enumerate them. Terrorist offences are acts of violence committed by armed persons against the
lives, health and liberty of persons, or harm or damages inflicted systematically and planned in
advance. The objective is to create insecurity, a collective fear, all for the sake of undoing
constitutional order or any other activity carried out within the legal order in order to instill terror.
Among the elements that must be present are violence and the goal of wreaking havoc in the
political-social order by annihilating security and constitutional order as protected legal rights, which
in turn affects other rights such as life, physical integrity or individual freedom.
According to the literature, threat is the use of moral or physical force exerted against free will.
This presupposes either the introduction of wrongdoing of another type or threatening -either tacitly
or expressly- some wrongdoing that constitutes a crime and that affects the honor, property or
family of persons in a real and serious way.
(…) This Tribunal is persuaded that the presence of the criminal elements required under Article 7
of Law 18,314 which describes terrorist offences and the penalties they carry, has been
established. The statements examined above come from persons who were directly associated
with the facts in this case or who came to learn of them for a variety of reasons. Their testimony is
consistent with the expert reports and documentary evidence introduced during the hearing. This
background information, taken together and after being duly examined, leads these judges to
conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the events recounted in the indictment of the
prosecution and the private accusations, no matter what actions caused these crimes, demonstrate
that the form, methods and strategies employed had a malicious intent, which was to cause
widespread fear within the area.
The crimes herein specified must be viewed against the backdrop of a process of recovering
Mapuche lands, in which the perpetrators took direct action, without respecting the legal and
institutional order and by recourse to the use of force through measures that were planned, agreed
and prepared in advance by radicalized groups that seek to create a climate of insecurity, instability
and fear in Regions VIII and IX. These measures can be summarized as follows: excessive
demands that violent groups make of owners and landholders, warning them of the various
consequences they will face if they do not give in to the demands. Many of these threats have
materialized in the form of felonious assaults, robberies, theft, arson, vandalism and usurpation,
which have affected both the persons and property of various farmers and tree farmers in this part
of the country.
The objective is to instill in the population a well-founded fear of falling victim to similar crimes, and
thereby force the owners to cease any further exploitation of their properties and ultimately to force
them to abandon their properties. The sense of insecurity and uneasiness that these attacks cause
have consequences, such as driving off the workforce or increasing the cost of labor, increasing
costs or the mortgage, increasing the costs of leasing farming equipment and the cost of insuring
the properties, the buildings and the crops. It is becoming more and more common to see workers,
machinery, vehicles and work set up on the various properties under police protection, to ensure
that the work can get done. All this affects constitutionally protected rights.
The above follows from the testimony given by Juan and Julio Sagredo Marín, Miguel Angel
Sagredo Vidal, Mauricio Chaparro Melo, Raúl Arnoldo Forcael Silva, Juan Agustín Figueroa
Elgueta, Juan Agustín Figueroa Yávar, Armin Enrique Stappung Schwarzlose, Jorge Pablo
Luchsinger Villiger, Osvaldo Moisés Carvajal Rondanelli, Gerardo Jequier Shalhli and Antonio
Arnoldo Boisier Cruces. Their testimony was consistent overall, with some slight variations in the
particulars. They all testified that they had been direct victims of or had knowledge of threats or
felonious assaults on persons or property, perpetrated by persons of Mapuche origin. Albeit in
different ways, these witnesses all expressed the fear that those acts instilled in them. This ties in
with what the expert José Muñoz Maulen said, which he said was supported by a CD obtained at
the website called “sitio htp/fortunecety.es/” (sic), which describes various activities associated with
a movement by part of the Mapuche ethnic group to reclaim lands and underway in the country’s
eighth and ninth regions; the background information contained in the report of the meeting of the