Chile: Legislators propose jailing irregular foreigners who commit crimes

Havana, April 14 (RHC) - Chilean parliamentarians announced on Thursday that they will present an initiative so that all undocumented foreigners who commit a crime remain in pretrial detention for as long as necessary until they know their true identity.

According to the parliamentarians, the proposal is based on the argument that "there is a high risk of flight," for which they seek to force judges to order preventive detention of undocumented foreigners who commit crimes.

They justified their proposal based on what they called the "uncontrolled irregular migration in Chile, which has caused an indeterminate number of foreigners to enter with the sole purpose of committing a crime."

As explained by the parliamentarians, the project aims at establishing that "when a foreigner is being charged with a crime, it will be presumed that his eventual release could imply a flight risk and, consequently, would end up seriously affecting the investigation of the Public Ministry and a possible sentence".

That was the result of the general instructive announced a week ago by the national prosecutor, Ángel Valencia, who defended establishing this precautionary measure after the murder of the Carabineros non-commissioned officer, Daniel Palma.

However, the head of the Public Criminal Defender's Office (DPP), Carlos Mora Jano, argued that the imprisonment measure is extremely exceptional in light of what is currently established by Chilean law and international agreements on human rights.

In addition to pointing out that criminal prosecution policies are set by the Public Ministry, Mora Jano emphasized that preventive detention only operates when the existence of crimes and the need for caution are combined, so applying it as Valencia has defended would generate counterproductive effects for the penal system.

Likewise, the Supreme Court held that the precautionary measures will continue to be evaluated case by case. For her part, the president of the National Association of Magistrates of the Judiciary, Mariela Hernández, reaffirmed that for the judges "there is no change" after the application of the instructions, since the current law is applied in each verdict. (Source: Telesur)