It will be a month since the murder of the three police officers in Cañete and there is little news regarding progress in the investigation. Unlike what happened with the case of conscript Franco Vargas, who also died in Putre on April 27, in which the commander in chief of the Army retired two senior officers, regarding the police killed in Cañete. There has been no known retirement among its officials. Nor changes at the level of political authorities.
- Rear Admiral in charge. When the news broke, it was striking that the carabinieri van did not have security guards from the Navy, as established in the State of Exception that governs that area. Officially there was no statement from Rear Admiral Óscar Manzano Sanguinetti, who is the head of National Defense in the provinces of Biobío and Arauco, although it was unofficially circulated that the reason was that in recent months the situation in the region had been calm.
Few details. The atmosphere in recent weeks in the area was complex due to the lack of news about it. On Thursday, the Regional Prosecutor of La Araucanía who is leading the investigation, Roberto Garrido, provided some information to the press, which had been waiting for news for days: “We cannot forget that the work we are doing is to provide answers to the victims,” he warned, explaining so much silence and lack of news in the investigation of the case.
- Carabineros in charge. There has also been no information about the responsibility that the police in charge of the area could have had. These are the head of the zone in the Biobío Region, General César Bobadilla, and General Cristian Mansilla, in charge of Public Order Control in the so-called southern macrozone.
New data. Among the news that Garrido provided on Thursday, it was reported that there were nearly 100 people questioned, that he is following the investigation as a full-time prosecutor in the city of Los Álamos, with 8 other prosecutors, and that they work together with a team of Criminalistics and OS9, in addition to detailing that “today (Thursday) we met with the family of two of the victims in Lebu, and yesterday (Wednesday) we met in the city of Concepción with the third victim.”
The puzzle of fact is complicated. A person who knows the case explained to me that there are several complex things: there are no images, because there are no cameras in the area; Likewise, there would be no telephone reception due to communication problems or because those involved used another system to communicate. There are also no images taken by the forestry companies’ drones. “This was very planned, they were people who had a lot of knowledge of the area, who knew where they were operating and who could travel five kilometers safely with the bodies of the police behind the truck,” he told me. The investigation is complex and the institutions involved decided to remain silent.