“They attacked us, please help us. Vivianne MacKay and Werner Luchsinger. My husband is injured. “They keep shooting, please come later.”
Those were the last recorded words of Vivianne Mackay (69)who pleaded on the phone before being burned to death inside her house with her husband, Werner Luchsinger (75)the early morning of January 4, 2013, inside the Granja Lumahue farm in the commune of Vilcún.
It was this fact that led to the indictment of 12 different people for terrorist arson resulting in death, Four of them being sentenced to 18 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime., through expert reports that linked telephone communications between those involved. That is, they connected in the same radius of the antennas that were close to the attack.
From its beginnings, the investigation was subjected to political pressure from different parties, as it was one of the most emblematic cases of Mapuche radicalism.
Conflict that made the news again this Tuesday, when the Oral Criminal Court of Temuco sentenced the founder of the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), Héctor Llaitul, to 23 years in prison. The community member had been convicted on April 22 for crimes contemplated in the State Security Law, violent usurpation, theft of wood and attack against authority.
Despite the seriousness of the crimes, those convicted in the Luchsinger-Mackay case have been given exceptional benefits.
Where are you now?
Celestino Córdova Transit
The first person convicted of the Luchsinger-Mackay crime was Celestino Córdova (37)Machi arrested the same morning as the murders, having been immobilized after receiving a bullet in the shoulder, which is theorized to have been one of the last actions carried out by Werner Luchsinger before he died.
Córdova’s sentence was handed down on February 28, 2014, and at the age of 27 he was sentenced to eighteen years of maximum imprisonment.
In 2020, this was moved from the Penitentiary Compliance Center
Temuco to the Vilcún Study and Work Center, as a result of a request to be closer to his rewe and thus be able to carry out his religious practices in his capacity as machi. Place where he is serving his sentence today, despite having received Conditional Freedom on January 2 of this year, a benefit revoked six days later after an appeal.
The Study and Work Centers (CET) They are facilities in which the convicted enjoy greater freedoms and benefits, different from the traditional sentences that are served in other penitentiary centers, accessing job training and receiving payments for their work.
Even Jorge Luchsingerson of the couple, compared in a television interview the sentence served by those convicted in the CET as “a vacation.”
At the CET Vilcún, located 40 kilometers from the regional capital, they are trained in trades related to the forestry and agricultural area.
José Tralcal Coche and Luis Tralcal Quidel
The farmers José Tralcal Car and Luis Tralcal Quidelalso condemned by the judge Rocío Pinilla Dabbadie to 18 years in prison at 48 and 37 years of age respectively, have fulfilled similar fates.
Both began their sentences in the same center as Córdova, in Temuco, but on March 5, 2024, they were transferred to the CET Victoriawith the reason for their transfer determined as social reintegration.
The CET Victoria is a semi-open center, where convicts can carry out mechanical work, painting, vehicle dent work and other certifications with the help of public and private entities, such as universities and the municipality.
Both, convicted of arson resulting in death, were also recently able to access the quarterly exit profithaving the freedom to leave his confinement from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on March 26.
Tralcal Coche, also known as “El Alcalde”, had requested the benefit of conditional release, a request rejected by the Temuco Court of Appeals in August of last year. Tralcal Quidel also tried, but the appeal was denied due to the presence of risk factors for the convicted person to reoffend.
Jose Manuel Peralino
The fourth person convicted in the Luchsinger-Mackay case is the one who obtained the greatest benefits.
Jose Manuel Peralino – key testimony for the sentencing of the annulled first trial in which eight others involved were charged – was also convicted along with the Tracals on May 5, 2018.
However, unlike his peers, Peralino served his sentence in Intensive Probation for a period of five years, which began on November 12, 2018 and ended on the same day last year, having already served his sentence and being free.
He has a bad relationship with the Tralcals, which is why he was in another center.
The Luchsinger-Mackay family’s defense team ruled out the idea of taking new legal action in the near future, as there was not enough evidence to request harsher penalties.
