A military policeman (Carabinero) will stand trial for the assault in May 2008 of Victor Salas, a correspondent for Spain's EFE news agency, The Santiago Times reports. Salas was covering a protest outside Chile's parliament in Valparaiso when he was struck in the head by a mounted police officer. He later lost his vision in one eye.
The officer was identified through photographs as Sgt. Ivan Barria of the Special Forces unit. He is charged with using excessive violence, The Times' James Fowler says. The military police face similar charges in a number of other cases involving their response to demonstrators.
See the Spanish version of this post for more stories.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
