A Chilean court has found four men guilty of the horrific torture and murder of a young gay man that generated international headlines.
Twenty-four-year-old Daniel Zamudio was viciously assaulted over a period of hours in a park in Santiago in March.
His attackers, believed to be part of a neo-Nazi group, not only beat him mercilessly but also stabbed him, cut off part of his ear, burned him with cigarettes, broke his leg with a rock and carved Swastikas into his skin with broken glass.
Hundreds of people held vigil outside Zamudio’s hospital in hope that he would recover but, after clinging to life for three weeks, he was eventually pronounced brain dead.
In his guilty verdict, Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia said that Patricio Ahumada, Alejandro Angulo, Raul Lopez and Fabian Mora had displayed “extreme cruelty” and a “total disrespect for human life”.
Zamudio’s mother, Jacqueline Vera. wept as the verdict was read out. “Of course I will not forgive them,” Zamudio’s father Ivan told El Mercurio newspaper.
The brutal attack on Zamudio led to Chile finally passing a long in the works hate crime bill that will punish offenders more harshly in cases in which victims are targeted because of their sexual orientation, race, gender, religion or nationality.
The four killers are due to be sentenced later this month.
