Sentencing for Those Behind the Hurricane Case to Be Announced This Thursday

Original article: Este jueves se conocerán las penas para los culpables del montaje Caso Huracán Sentencing for Those Behind the Hurricane Case to Be Announced This Thursday On September 23, 2017, eight Mapuche leaders were arrested and placed in preventive detention, accused of terrorist conspiracy and arson. The evidence presented by former Carabineros General Director Bruno Villalobos and Intelligence Director Gonzalo Blu to the prosecutor included reports from the now-defunct Special Operational Intelligence Unit (UIOE) of Carabineros, which contained alleged intercepted conversations from the leaders’ cell phones, in which they planned attacks in the regions of Araucanía and Los Ríos. These conversations were widely publicized by major national television channels, but their falsity was proven later in the so-called Hurricane Case.

Nearly a decade later, after numerous delays, the trial began in March 2025 at the Temuco Court, with the verdict announced on January 9, 2026, legally supporting what had become evident a few months after this scandal: it was a setup orchestrated by high-ranking Carabineros officials in Araucanía and a civilian hired by that institution. In January 2026, the Oral Criminal Court of Temuco found the then-authorities of Carabineros de Chile guilty: General Gonzalo Blu Rodríguez, national intelligence director, and Major Patricio Alejandro Marín Lazo, operational intelligence chief in Araucanía, were convicted of five counts of public document forgery and three counts of obstruction of justice; Captain Leonardo Marcelo Osses Sandoval was convicted of nine counts of forgery and seven counts of obstruction of justice; and Colonel Marcelo Iván Teuber Muñoz and Corporal Manuel Riquelme Mardones were held responsible for one count of obstruction and one count of forgery. Meanwhile, Alex Smith Leay, a civilian IT professional attributed with creating the failed «Antorcha» software, was sentenced for nine counts of document forgery, eight counts of obstruction, one aggravated obstruction count, and one count of malicious use of a false public document.

Finally, five Labocar officials were acquitted. Regarding actual prison sentences, the prosecution requested seven years for Colonel Teuber and Corporal Riquelme, 13 years for Major Marín Lazo and General Gonzalo Blu, and 16 and 19 years of effective prison time for Captain Leonardo Osses and Alex Smith, respectively. Machi Fidel Tranamil: «The Thread Was Cut at Its Thinnest Point» One of the victims of this setup was Machi Fidel Tranamil, who attended only on the day of the verdict reading, expressing that he does not believe in the institutions: «We came to see if the state was capable of condemning the people they themselves sent during that time.

There was a conviction, but the thread was cut at its thinnest point; the true political responsible for these actions were missing because Carabineros, in one way or another, were the ones who executed the idea, but the political action was created in this case from Bachelet’s government. » «We would have liked to see Mahmud Aleuy -former Undersecretary of the Interior-, the responsible ministers, and the real generals sitting in the dock facing their own condemnations. » Outside the courthouse, he stated that «it has been judicially demonstrated from a state institution that crimes occurred against the leadership of Wallmapu, who have autonomist ideas for the Mapuche Nation.

But we will see if there is justice when the state responds for the murders, for the ‘Pacification of Araucanía’ where our people were forcibly displaced and still remain. We have been in a state of exception for more than three years. Mothers continue to cry for their children murdered in the back by the hands of the same institution that came to perpetrate this setup.

» Thus, nearly ten years after the events, on Thursday, April 2, at 10:00 AM, the Oral Criminal Court of Temuco will announce the sentences for those charged in this setup. The hearing will be broadcasted live on www. poderjudicialtv.

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