Four Chilean men have been found guilty of torturing a gay man for over an hour with cigarettes and glass bottles before leaving him for dead.
Patricio Ahumada Garay, Alejandro Angulo Tapia, Raul Lopez Fuentes and Fabian Mora Mora were convicted of the first degree murder of Daniel Zamudio on the 18th of October.
Patricio Ahumada Garay, Alejandro Angulo Tapia, Raul Lopez Fuentes and Fabian Mora Mora were convicted of the first degree murder of Daniel Zamudio on the 18th of October.
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| Victim: Daniel Mauricio Zamudio Vera was tortured and murdered |
The thugs beat the 24-year-old shop worker with bottles, burnt him with cigarettes, carved swastikas into his body and then broke his leg with a large stone in March last year, the Judge said.
After being left to die of his wounds in the San Borja de Alameda park in the Chilean capital, Daniel was found at 4am by a police officer and taken to hospital where he died 25 days later.
Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia said the four were guilty of a crime of 'extreme cruelty' and 'total disrespect for human life.'
Presidential spokeswoman Cecilia Pérez said: 'Nothing can change the tremendous pain suffered by Daniel's parents, but there's no doubt that today some tranquility has finally reached their hearts. It's the tranquility that comes with justice.'
As the verdicts were read out Zamudio's mother sobbed while the guilty men looked down at the floor.
After being left to die of his wounds in the San Borja de Alameda park in the Chilean capital, Daniel was found at 4am by a police officer and taken to hospital where he died 25 days later.
Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia said the four were guilty of a crime of 'extreme cruelty' and 'total disrespect for human life.'
Presidential spokeswoman Cecilia Pérez said: 'Nothing can change the tremendous pain suffered by Daniel's parents, but there's no doubt that today some tranquility has finally reached their hearts. It's the tranquility that comes with justice.'
As the verdicts were read out Zamudio's mother sobbed while the guilty men looked down at the floor.
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| Jacqueline Vera (right) wearing a photograph of her son Daniel |
Prosecutors are now asking for jail terms varying between eight years and life imprisonment.
'We're satisfied with this ruling. There's a before and an after the Zamudio case,' said Rolando Jimenez, president of the Gay Liberation and Integration Movement.
'It generated such outrage because of the brutality, the hate, that it helped raised awareness.
'We've witnessed a cultural change that finally led to an anti-discrimination law.'
The law had been stuck in Chile's parliament for seven years since it was proposed, as hardline campaigners failed to agree on the wording.
Even after the horrific killing of Daniel, the motion only passed by two votes.
The law defined illegal discrimination as 'any distinction, exclusion or restriction that lacks reasonable justification, committed by agents of the state or individuals, and that causes the deprivation, disturbance or threatens the legitimate exercise of fundamental rights.'
Daniel was the second of four brothers and had hoped to study theatre before he was murdered.
The sentencing of the four men will take place on October 28.
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