Father-of-three Alex Nunez (seen below) was returning from work in October during a military curfew imposed to curb violent protests in Chile’s capital Santiago when, his family say, he was chased by three police officers who beat him badly.
Nunez, a 39-year-old repairman, made it home that night but was rushed to hospital, where he died from his injuries shortly afterwards.
“Only 5% of his brain was working. They couldn’t operate,” his widow Natalia Perez told Reuters at her home in the low-income Santiago area of Maipu.
“He had a brain injury, cerebral edema and fractured skull.”
Police did not respond to a request for comment on the case and Reuters could not independently verity the family’s account.
Public prosecutors in Chile are investigating more than 1,000 cases of alleged abuses – ranging from torture to sexual violence – by security forces during weeks of anti-government unrest.
That could double to more than 2,000, said Ymay Ortiz, head of the public prosecutor’s rights division. She said many possible victims were afraid to report abuse and approach police amid the toughest crackdown since Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship ended in 1990.
“We are working hard to generate other channels so that the victims feel able to make complaints,” she said.
