Spanish
Santiago de Chile,.- A Chilean court sentenced a man this Wednesday to 15 years and one day in prison for the murder of a 58-year-old woman identified as Sandra Almeida Lizama, who was beaten for being a lesbian, in a historic sentence, the Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement of Chile (Movilh) reported today.
According to the organization, which filed the complaint through its lawyer, Claudia Castañeda, representing the family, this is the first conviction for lesbophobia issued in Chile.You may be interested in: Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE)
"While the family and Movilh aspired to life imprisonment, the truth is that this is the first conviction for lesbophobic femicide in Chile, which sets a good precedent for diverse women. On previous occasions, lesbophobic murders had never been considered as femicide, nor hate crimes based on sexual orientation," explained Castañeda this Wednesday. "The sentence must be served in its entirety, without the possibility of reduction for good behavior or prison benefits, is a good sign to alleviate the damage caused and that kept an entire family severely affected. To the sentence were also added 541 days in prison for micro-trafficking," he added in a statement The events occurred on November 27, 2023, in the town of La Ermita, located in the Lo Barnechea neighborhood, one of the largest and wealthiest communes in greater Santiago, when the aggressor, identified as Cristofer Arnoldo Pino Pino, twenty years younger than the victim, first attacked her with punches and kicks and then hit her with an iron bar, leaving her unconscious and with deep wounds that caused her death after six days in a hospital. "Upon noticing the victim's presence at the scene, the accused stopped and began, as was his custom, to hurl insults. Subsequently, he delivered a strong kick to the head, knocking her to the ground. The friend accompanying the victim tried to intervene, but was also assaulted by the accused, so she went in search of help," Movilh reported. "Minutes later, the aggressor left the scene to look for a blunt object (an iron bar) with which he continued to hit Sandra with the clear intention of causing her death. He hit her until he left her unconscious, with heavy bleeding on her head, and then fled. Due to this brutal aggression, several people gathered at the scene, including the victim's daughter, who found her mother dying," recalled the organization. The victim was urgently transported by ambulance to a clinic in the area, where they remained in a coma for six days before passing away. The investigation was carried out by the Prosecutor's Office of High Metropolitan Complexity East, an institution that highlighted the relevance of a sentence qualified as historic not only for the families and organizations of the LGTBI civil society, but also for all prosecutors and the justice system because for the first time there is a sanction for non-intimate femicide due to the sexual orientation of the victim. The historic sentence was handed down unanimously by the president of the court, Doris Ocampo Méndez, along with judge Rossana Costa Barraza and the magistrate Katrina Chahín Ananías.
