SANTIAGO, Chile
A court in Santiago has cleared eight prison guards of manslaughter for their role in a 2010 prison fire in Santiago that left 81 prisoners dead.
Judges said the accused should go free after prosecutors failed to present sufficient proof against them.
The fire, thought to be the worst tragedy in Chile’s prison system, began on Dec. 8, 2010 after a fight broke out between rival gangs of prisoners. One prisoner is thought to have turned a propane gas cylinder and plastic tube into a makeshift flamethrower, starting a blaze which soon burned out of control.
Prosecutors accused the three guards and five prison officers of failing to raise the alarm over the fire and helping the men trapped inside Tower No. 5 of the San Miguel prison.
The fire began at 5:10 a.m. but the first call to firefighters was not made until 5:48 a.m. As the call was not made by any of the prison guards on duty, it is thought that a prisoner raised the alarm calling from a cellphone smuggled in by relatives.
Efforts to quash the flames were further delayed by the need to evacuate prisoners from other parts of the jail.
Reading the sentence, Judge Jose Miguel Rodriguez criticized prosecutors for serious errors, omissions and a lack of objectivity in their investigation, adding that the evidence presented was “vague, imprecise and inconsistent.”
There were even basic errors in the charges brought against the guards, which suggested that two fires had taken place despite all the evidence suggesting that there was just one.
The judge’s formal opinion will be handed down June 13th.
The fire highlighted the dangerous and overcrowded conditions in the country’s prisons.
Just four guards were on duty the night the fire occurred, responsible for guarding almost 2,000 prisoners crammed into the jail. Built in 1982, the prison was designed to hold just 1,100 men.
News of the tragedy triggered protests and riots in prisons up and down Chile as prisoners demanded that the government improve conditions in the country’s jails
Speaking Wednesday, Justice Minister Jose Antonio Gomez, who is responsible for the country’s prisons, would not comment on the sentence itself but said the government is working to improve jail conditions.
“I have requested all the information and there are still too many shortcomings and that is why I have ordered the national director of prisons to fulfill all the safety requirements,” said Gomez.
Earlier this month, the government opened a new unit in Santiago to receive first time prisoners to improve their chances of rehabilitation.
Many of those who died in the San Miguel prison fire were not hardened criminals but young men on short sentences for offences including possession of marijuana and selling pirated goods.
The tragedy occurred less than two months after the Chilean government successfully brought to the surface 33 miners trapped for two months below ground at the San Jose copper mine.
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