Daniel Mauricio Zamudio Vera (3 August 1987 – 27 March 2012) was a Chilean man who died after being tortured and beaten by four men in San Borja Park in Santiago on the night of 2 March 2012. Zamudio, who was gay, was left unconscious in the park, was found in the early hours of the following morning, and died 25 days later in hospital. His killing became a symbol of the fight against homophobic violence in Chile.
Police arrested four suspects within a week. Press coverage initially described them as a neo-Nazi gang, and the cuts carved into Zamudio's abdomen in the shape of swastikas reinforced that impression, though investigators later said the group did not identify itself as neo-Nazi (two members did admire the ideology). In October 2013 a Santiago court convicted all four of aggravated homicide, citing the "extreme cruelty" of the attack, and sentenced them to terms ranging from 7 years to life imprisonment. A later journalistic account, by Rodrigo Fluxá, argued that the attackers were not an organized neo-Nazi group and that the crime was more complicated than the public narrative suggested.
The case prompted widespread public outrage and international condemnation. Within days, President Sebastián Piñera's government pledged to prioritize an anti-discrimination bill that had stalled in the National Congress since 2005. It was signed on 12 July 2012 as Law 20.609 and is popularly known as the "Zamudio Law" (Ley Zamudio). Zamudio's life and death have since inspired a nonfiction book, a television miniseries, a play and two feature films.
Background Zamudio was the second of four children of Iván Zamudio Contreras and Jacquelinne Vera Muñoz and grew up in San Bernardo, south of Santiago. His family became aware that he was gay when he was 13 or 14, although he said he realized it himself at 17. After his parents separated he lived with his mother and grandmother. At 17 he fell into a deep depression following the suicide of his best friend and left secondary school. His relationship with his father was good but at times strained; Zamudio felt his father did not accept his sexual orientation, while his father attributed the friction to his son's irresponsibility.
From 2009 Zamudio was in a relationship with Mauricio Fernández. At 24 he was working in a clothing store to save money for modeling or theater classes after returning to secondary school. According to his brother, he hoped to build a career in communications and be recognized, and to have a family of his own. His parents have said he had been subjected to violence because of his sexual orientation before the March 2012 attack. Zamudio regularly went to LGBT-oriented nightclubs and told friends he had been harassed outside them more than once; on one occasion, after leaving the club Blondie, he was threatened that he would be killed.
At the time, Chile had no comprehensive anti-discrimination statute. The movement Movilh had recorded 66 complaints of physical attacks by civilians against sexual minorities between 2002 and early 2012, affecting about 250 people.
Attack and death
On Friday, 2 March 2012, Zamudio went to work at 07:30 as usual and told his family that afternoon that he would visit a friend and come home late. He never arrived. On Sunday his family reported him missing to the Investigations Police of Chile, which identified him as an unidentified young man admitted to the Posta Central hospital the previous day. He had been found at about 04:00 by a municipal security guard, unconscious and without identification, in San Borja Park beside the Alameda, Santiago's main thoroughfare.
Zamudio had been beaten for hours until he lost consciousness. Doctors at the Posta Central, the city's main emergency hospital, found a traumatic brain injury, broken legs, part of one ear cut off, cigarette burns on various parts of his body, and cuts on his abdomen in the shape of swastikas, made with broken bottles. Because of the nature of the wounds, a homophobic crime by a neo-Nazi gang was suspected from the outset, though the later investigation would establish the circumstances.
Zamudio was placed in an induced coma. After several days he began a slow recovery and was brought out of the coma, even showing some minor involuntary reactions, but his condition worsened and on 19 March he suffered a cardiac arrest and was returned to the coma. Doctors judged his life to be at risk and said his injuries confirmed severe neurological damage. After about 20 days, conflicting reports circulated that he was brain dead, which were later denied.
Zamudio died at the same hospital on Tuesday, 27 March 2012, at 19:45, 25 days after the attack. An autopsy found that he had died of a traumatic brain injury. Thousands of people accompanied his family at his funeral on 30 March; the funeral procession passed through several districts of Santiago, greeted by demonstrators demanding justice, before he was buried at the Cementerio General de Santiago.
Investigation and trial Arrests and suspects On 9 March 2012, after collecting leads and witness accounts, the Carabineros' organized crime investigation unit (OS9) arrested four men. They reportedly confessed their involvement initially. They were: Alejandro Axel Angulo Tapia (26), who had been charged with minor thefts and attacks on Peruvians. He worked as a Michael Jackson impersonator and ran a shop in a shopping arcade on Paseo Ahumada. Patricio Iván Ahumada Garay (25), known as "Pato Core", who had been released from prison after a sentence for robbery with intimidation and had records of xenophobic attacks on Peruvians. Raúl Alfonso López Fuentes (25), known as "Gacke II", who had records of shoplifting and who had tried to join the military but was rejected. Fabián Alexis Mora Mora (19), the only one without a criminal record.
Although the group did not describe itself as neo-Nazi, Ahumada and López showed similar tendencies and expressed admiration for the ideology, according to prosecutors.
Accounts of the attack López confessed after his arrest. He told investigators that the group found Zamudio sleeping on a park bench at about 9 p.m. and that, after he went to buy alcohol, he returned to find Ahumada and Angulo beating him. According to López, Ahumada kicked and punched Zamudio in the head, face, legs and body out of anger that he was gay, and the group used the neck of a broken pisco bottle to carve a swastika into his abdomen. He said Angulo then hit Zamudio with a large stone and that Mora threw it at the victim's legs repeatedly, and that the group left him unconscious at about 02:30 after putting out cigarettes on his body.
Ahumada and Angulo rejected this version. They acknowledged meeting Zamudio in the park but said they had saved him from a robbery while he slept, then went with him to eat sopaipillas and continue drinking. Ahumada said he left at about 22:00 and that, after hearing in the press about the beating, he tried to contact the Carabineros but was arrested first.
Charges, verdict and sentences Prosecutor Ernesto Vásquez initially charged the four with attempted aggravated homicide; the 7th Guarantee Court of Santiago ordered them held in pretrial detention, finding that their release posed a "danger to society". After Zamudio died, the charge was changed to consummated aggravated homicide (homicidio calificado), the most serious homicide offense in Chilean law.
The trial was held mainly during 2013 before the Fourth Oral Criminal Court of Santiago. On 17 October 2013, the court found Ahumada, Angulo, López and Mora guilty. Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia declared the crime one of "extreme cruelty" and "total disrespect for human life", finding that the attackers had deliberately increased Zamudio's pain. The court also found that Zamudio was intoxicated at the time, which prevented him from defending himself, and that the attackers intended to kill him.
Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment for Ahumada, 15 years for Angulo and López, and 8 years for Mora. On 28 October the court imposed those sentences, except that Mora, the youngest of the four, received 7 years in view of his cooperation with investigators and lack of prior convictions. Ahumada received presidio perpetuo simple, a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years, and the announcement was met with cheers in the courtroom. The sentences run from 9 March 2012, the date of the arrests.
Debate over motive The attack was widely reported as a neo-Nazi hate crime, but the characterization has been disputed. Journalist Rodrigo Fluxá, author of the 2014 book Solos en la noche: Zamudio y sus asesinos, argued that the killers were not an organized neo-Nazi band and that the crime grew out of a clash between marginalized, antisocial young people, which was later simplified and obscured the social problems affecting them. The court nonetheless convicted the four for an attack on Zamudio because of his sexual orientation, as reflected in the verdict's emphasis on the swastikas carved into his body and the testimony of López.
Reactions Public and civil society News of the attack was first spread by LGBT rights groups, particularly Movilh, which announced it would take legal action against those responsible and formally requested a meeting with the Interior Ministry. Spread through social media, the story generated widespread public outrage in Chile and drew attention to discrimination against sexual minorities. Hundreds of messages were left on the fence of the Posta Central, and candlelight vigils (velatones) were held outside the hospital.
Many public figures condemned the attack. Piñera, who was touring Asia, wrote on Twitter that the "brutal and cowardly aggression" wounded not only the family but "all people of goodwill" and that Zamudio's death "will not go unpunished". Artists including Boy George, Gloria Trevi, Pablo Simonetti and Beto Cuevas spoke out, and Ricky Martin dedicated his GLAAD Award to Zamudio. Russian singer Lena Katina, a former member of t.A.T.u., sent a message of solidarity on YouTube. A Movilh spokesman called Zamudio "a civic martyr of sexual minorities".
Church The Catholic Church in Chile condemned the attack, but Movilh criticized the church for not accompanying the Zamudio family as it had done for the priest Fernando Karadima, who had been accused of sexual abuse; the church had also been among the main opponents of the anti-discrimination bill. Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati rejected the criticism, saying the church's youth vicar had accompanied the family quietly, as "exploiting human pain is inhuman", while reiterating his reservations about the bill.
International organizations On 29 March 2012 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned the killing and urged Chile to investigate "immediately and seriously". The next day, a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Rupert Colville, called on Chilean authorities to legislate against discrimination in line with international standards. He said that Zamudio's murder was "just the latest reminder" of the gravity and prevalence of homophobic violence, which he noted could happen "every day on the streets of towns and cities all over the world".
Dissenting views Not all reactions were sympathetic. Jorge Reyes, a lawyer for the group Red por la Vida y la Familia and close to the right-wing Independent Democratic Union (UDI), said that "if society knew the life of Daniel Zamudio it would think differently" and that Chile had a "romantic view of tolerance". Movilh spokesman Óscar Rementería called the remarks "aberrant" and "the worst of our society", and the government dismissed Reyes from his post as an adviser to the Concepción Health Service.
Anti-discrimination law Passage