The Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, with greater precision than yesterday, confirmed that the general director of Carabineros, Ricardo Yáñez, will continue in his position, even when he is formalized for the crime of omission of command responsibility in the frame of 18-O next May 7.
“At this moment we are not going to make changes in the Carabineros command, because there cannot be blows in an institution that is very hit,” he said in the central table program of Canal 13.
“It is a very complex circumstance to face a moment like this with a command that is with that other dimension open and little way in the possibility of major changes in the institution.””, he added.
Asked about the possibility of issuing precautionary measures against General Yáñez, Minister Tohá specified that decisions are being made with the information available so far: “I want to insist on something, we consider this situation very inconvenient. It is not desirable and as a government our rule is that we will seek to avoid it whenever possible. But in this case, you can’t. In this case, make a decision like this “It would be very complicated for this institution, which today needs to concentrate on recovering, on carrying out this investigation, on continuing with its work and not having institutional tremors now,” he said.
The Secretary of State ruled out that the formalization of Yáñez cannot be considered as a trial of the institution due to the social outbreak.
“Trials refer to crimes committed individually by people but all things in life are complex. We all know that at that time we were in a very tense, very extreme situation, and there was a trial of the institutions as well, but those trials are not criminal, they are political, operational, institutional,” he assured.
New details
In relation to the background of the murder of the three police officers in Cañete, the minister provided new details and pointed out that “there were shots in the car, but the shots did not enter the vehicle. They were murdered outside, we don’t know under what circumstances. The armor resisted, but in some circumstances they were outside the vehicle and were injured. It is not known why they got off or what dynamics there were, because throughout the journey, at different points there is evidence that there was some type of confrontation,” she said.
“There were warning calls (133) but they were probably due to the same shots that were fired in that confrontation,” he added, mentioning that “the police’s weapons disappeared, their helmets are not there either,” he added.
The Minister of the Interior also stated that the Government and President Boric analyzed with the military and Carabineros commanders the possible contributions that a State of Siege would generate, and assured that declaring it in the region “is not going to give us any additional element” after the request of some deputies, both from the ruling party and the opposition.
In this regard, Tohá pointed out that “yesterday the Jedena (Chief of National Defense) and the Carabineros were explaining to us all the special measures they took after this sentence (to Héctor Llaitul) to protect themselves from possible actions, there was an alert.”