Peru navy officer gets 20 years for burning death (political murder of 17 yr. old boy)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Internatonal Herald Tribune/Associated Press

Peru navy officer gets 20 years for burning death
The Associated Press
Published: January 30, 2009

LIMA, Peru: A Peruvian court has sentenced a navy officer to 20 years in prison for burning a 17-year-old boy alive in the jungle city of Pucallpa in 1995.

The court acquitted three other navy officers charged in the murder of Indalecio Pomatanta and has reserved verdict for a fifth, who is currently fugitive.

Prosecutor Luz Carmen Ibanez says the five officers doused Pomatanta with gasoline and lit him on fire for considering him aligned with leftist rebels. He died three days later.

Ibanez said Friday that she would appeal retired officer Andres Egocheaga's 20-year sentence, which she considered insufficient.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/30/news/LT-Peru-Human-Rights.php

[dipsydoodle]

1. 20 years ?

An eye for eye might have been more appropriate in this case. I wonder how many like Egocheaga you'd get to the gallon.

[Judi Lynn]

2. I found a little more on this story, in Spanish. Here's a google translation:

The second case was reported by Juan Francisco and Rosa Pomatanta Albarrán of Pomatanta, parents who Albarrán Indalecio Pomatanta the April 2, 1995 he was beaten and burned alive in his home by members of the Navy, in the presence of his father and his brother James. Both were also savagely beaten. Indalecio dying four days and died at the Hospital of Pucallpa due to the severity of burns.

http://www.cverdad.org.pe/informacion/nprensa/notas.php?idnota=59

I believe these people are his mother and father:

http://www.cverdad.org.pe.nyud.net:8090/informacion/nprensa/fotos/rosapomatanta5045.jpg

[Judi Lynn]

3. According to this small article, the military attempted to bribe his family to keep quiet!

Here's the google translation:

Delivered Marine (r) accused of murder
After two years of being a fugitive was right yesterday to Lieutenant Commander (r) Jorge Luis Calderon Rabanal, accused of involvement in the murder of the child Pomatanta Indalecio Albarrán, who was burned alive in his house Ucayali in 1995 by a patrol of the Navy. In this case they are processed further Egocheaga Andres Salazar, Guido Spencer Davalos, Pedro Rodriguez and Mario Rivera Peña Ramírez.

After that he took the general law, Rabanal was taken to the Cells of the Judiciary and then to the prison San Jorge.

During the hearing of the trial conducted by the National Criminal Division were presented yesterday Livio Campos and Victor Gutierrez, a former legal counsel of the Navy. The first confirmed the delivery of 5,000 soles to the family of the victim, according to him, as humanitarian aid. For his part, said that Gutierrez has been offered to the bereaved an extra transaction to desist from any claim in exchange for 25 thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for the civil, Tania Valle, sued Judicial Police capture Egocheaga Salazar, who - as said - working in a security company in Lima.

http://ffaaperu.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

~~~~~~~~~~
More details, also from a Spanish source:

Marine who killed Indalecio
POMATANTA are carried JUICIO


November 15, 2007

Indalecio Pomatanta the case was investigated and presented by the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is the second case is that perpetrators of crimes against human rights to members of the Navy (the first case was Frontón).

But on Tuesday, November 13 began the trial of five troops of the navy that the 02 April 1995 killed Indalecio Pomatanta Albarrán young settler in the town of San Alejandro, province of Coronel Portillo in the Ucayali region.

The facts relating to this trial, occurred when troops of the Navy, allegedly looking for weapons entered the home of the family Pomatanta Albarrán. In those moments was in the lower house of children, young Indalecio, who began to be questioned by the marines, the place where he had supposedly hidden weapons. During the period of interrogation, Indalecio said to be unaware of the existence of weapons. Given this, the marine patrol of the "Aries", the then Lieutenant Egocheaga Andres Salazar, the first lieutenant Jorge Luis Calderon Rabanal, and members of the Patrol Guido Dávalos Spencer, Pedro Rodriguez and Mario Rivera Peña Ramirez caught three gallons of gasoline and proceeded to rosearle throughout the body with fuel and then ignite.

After that, the sailors proceeded to withdraw, without any distress to the victim. Indalecio Pomatanta managed to stay alive for four days in which endured the intense pain that it caused burns. However, before dying, told various media outlets in the city of Pucallpa, the authors were that the strength of the Navy.

http://www.justiciaviva.org.pe/noticias/2007/noviembre/15/marinos.htm

[Robbien]

4. It is stories such as this

that makes one wonder how anyone had the courage to stand up for populist ideas in the first place.