Supreme courts in Argentina and Chile uphold convictions for historic human rights abuses

Argentina's Superior Tribunal de Justicia of Chubut unanimously rejected an extraordinary appeal by Daniel Esteban Murphy’s lawyer and confirmed the lower‑court conviction for aggravated damage to a public building in Rawson during a protest. The court affirmed that the damaged premises, which house the Ministry of Economy and Credit, the Ministry of Infrastructure, Planning and Energy, and the State Prosecutor's Office, constitute public property, upholding the penalty and ordering the defense to pay costs.

In Chile, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court also ruled unanimously to reject the cassation appeals of former Carabineros major Carlos Gastón Manterola Miranda and sergeant José Alejandro Cabrera Tapia. The court confirmed a 15‑year‑plus prison sentence for Manterola as the principal perpetrator and a five‑year sentence for Cabrera as an accomplice in the 1973 murders of José Andrés García Lazo and Jorge Rodrigo Muñoz Mella, who were detained, killed and disposed of in the Zanjón de la Aguada river. The rulings were hailed as a reinforcement of human‑rights justice in both countries.